Star Wars Games

[Ze_ro]

When I first got into classic gaming, I thought it was weird that there were so many different Star Wars games, each focusing on a small part of the actual movie... After all, if you're going to make a game based on a movie, you generally would want to include the entire movie, right? You wouldn't make a game based on the Matrix, but have the entire game be just bullet-dodging, right?

 

I can't believe it took me this long to realize it, but when looking at Dreamcast games in a local electronics store, I realized that they're still doing this with Star Wars games! Just look at all the Episode 1 games there are... Strange that the first game to come out based on this movie was a racing game.... Has this become the cool thing to do with Star Wars junk now or something?

 

And instead of making two topics....

 

I still think Death Star Battle was the best Atari Star Wars game.... I never much liked the arcade game, and ESB just seemed like a Defender knock-off.

 

--Zero

[Rhindle The Red]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ze_ro:

You wouldn't make a game based on the Matrix, but have the entire game be just bullet-dodging, right?

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Isn't that pretty much the whole movie?

 

Anyway, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace for the PC and PSX is pretty much the whole movie and you see how well that did. (Not very well.) It's true of most licensed games. Games are certainly capable of more. The problem is, how interesting can a game be if it's just recreating something you already saw in the theater? A game like, say Conker's Bad Fur Day (which I'm playing now) has many different play types within it's overall structure. Then again, so does Star Wars: Shadow of the Empire and Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II. I think you're only going to see drawn out storylines when they are original and not based on previous material.

 

As for the 2600 games, try to remember what Defender is like on the 2600. I think TESB does the job much better. And I think they did an amazing job of getting so much of Star Wars: The Arcade Game onto the 2600. I give the nod to TAG.

[Atari-Jess]

Aye, the arcade game really was a well made 2600 port of the actual arcade machine. One of parker bros best.

[Cassidy Nolen]

The new GameCube Rogue Leader is great. 11 missions covering a few of the movies. Neat graphics, have not had much of a chance to play it since Monkey Ball got here.

 

Frankly, best Atari Star Wars is the one you sit in!

 

Cassidy

[StanJr]

Originally posted by Rhindle The Red:

The problem is, how interesting can a game be if it's just recreating something you already saw in the theater?

 

A LOT! If you get to be the one doing it! How many times did you dream of flying an X-wing through the death star trench as a kid? Or flying the Falcon through the asteroid field?

 

As for VCS SW games:

TAG is the very, very best.

ESB is pretty good, but gets dull fast

Death Star is not to my liking at all. The controls are clunky.

Jedi Arena is fun, but not the best. Too bad it couldn't be a REAL lightsaber battle.

 

Stan Solo

[Rhindle The Red]

quote:

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Originally posted by StanJr:

Originally posted by Rhindle The Red:

The problem is, how interesting can a game be if it's just recreating something you already saw in the theater?

 

A LOT! If you get to be the one doing it!

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Good golly, I know that!

 

I was talking more from a plot perspective. Comparing it to Conker or SOTE. If you try to make an adventure game from a movie you do one of two thing: (1) follow the plot exactly giving no sense of mystery about what's going to happen or (2) stray from the plot, which causes it to feel less and less like the source material. My whole point was that in multiple gameplay type games (generally your action/adventure games) you're more likely to find success with an original plot than with a derived one. In single gameplay titles (like Rogue Squadron) you have a greater opportunity to recreate specific experiences.

[StanJr]

I gotcha. Your point makes perfect sense. The deviations from the movie ruin the thrill, but following the plot sticks you in a rut.

[Ze_ro]

I suppose you're right... thought the point of a lot of the games isn't really to follow the plot of the movie (I haven't played anything more recent than the racing one). In Episode 1: Racer, if you lose as Anakin, there doesn't cease to be an Empire! (Can you imagine the end-game cinema for that?) I particularly liked the idea of Dark Forces, where it takes place in the Star Wars universe, but doesn't really follow the movies.

 

I guess it should also be pointed out that it's better to have four games, where each one is an entirely different game than to jam them all into one big game, where each seperate part isn't as good overall... Imagine if we just had one Star Wars game on the Atari, and chose Empire Strikes Back, Arcade Game, or Death Star Battle with the select switch... but since it's on an 8K eprom, each game is a lot worse...

 

--Zero