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Star Wars has spawned over one hundred
computer and video games, which comes of no surprise since the theatrical
release of the original trilogy nearly coincided with the advent of home
consoles. While only a few are based on movie material, the remaining games are
heavily influenced by the expanded universe and occasionally linked to the
movies.
Early history
The first games
based on the franchise were released on the Atari 2600, the very first, The
Empire Strikes Back (1982), the player drove a snowspeeder during the Battle of
Hoth, destroying AT-AT walkers. While simplistic, the game captured the essence
of the movie as well as technology allowed. Several other games appeared, like
Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle (1982), where the player controlled the
Millennium Falcon in a mission to destroy the second Death Star, and Jedi Arena
(1983), the first game to attempt to simulate a lightsaber battle (in this case,
clearly inspired by the A New Hope scene, where Luke Skywalker trains with a
seeker). More significantly in 1983, Star Wars the arcade game was released by
Atari based on A New Hope. In this game, featuring magnificent color vector
graphics and the first ever digitized speech from a film, the player enters the
seat of Luke's Red Five X-Wing fighter and battles waves of TIE fighters led by
Darth Vader, weaves through towers across the surface of the Death Star and
plummets through the Battle Station's trench in an attempt to destroy it.
Due to the video game crash of 1983, which temporarily killed the home console
market, no further games based on the franchise were released until 1991, when
the platformer Star Wars was released for both the NES and Game Boy, and one
year later, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back reused the engine with the
plotline of the fifth episode of the saga. It would be still in 1992 that Super
Star Wars was released for the SNES (the Super prefix was often used to denote
remakes of 8-bit games for the 16-bit "Super" Nintendo system.), followed by the
remaining games in the trilogy: Super Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back (1993) and
Super Star Wars: Return of Jedi (1994).
Expansion of the franchise
At the start of the 1990s, the Star Wars franchise began to move away from the
official films and began to focus more on the expanded universe. The first,
X-Wing, released in 1992, started the X-wing computer game series, which would
prove itself to be one of the most popular space flight/combat simulators series
ever. X-Wing was followed by several sequels and expansions. Other titles such
as Software Toolworks' Star Wars Chess were published or licensed by LucasArts,
who also used the first "multimedia explosion" to release Rebel Assault (1993),
which used FMV and photos extensively.
However, the first step towards modern games was done with Dark Forces, a 1995
first-person shooter that put the player in the role of Kyle Katarn. The 1996
Nintendo 64 title Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire was part of a LucasArts
attempt to create a story between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of Jedi,
putting the player in control of mercenary Dash Rendar. Shadows of the Empire
featured fan-favorite parts from the Super Star Wars line, such as another
reanactment of the Battle of Hoth, driving a snowspeeder and tying a cable
around AT-ATs legs. After the Special Edition original trilogy re-release in
1997, LucasArts published two other novelty titles, Yoda Stories and Star Wars
Monopoly, sequels Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, and a
beat'em up Star Wars themed game, Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi.
As The Phantom Menace release approached, dozens of licensed titles appeared,
from the praised expansion to Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
and the first game in the Rogue Squadron series and even educational titles, the
market was flooded with several games, most of them of questionable quality.
The saga continues
The Clone Wars was one of many games released based on the prequel trilogyAfter
the release of Episode I in theaters in 1999 an onslaught of games from the
prequel trilogy began to be released for most major platforms. The first, Star
Wars: Episode I Racer, based on the podracing sequence in movie, managed to sell
well due to the hype surrounding the return of one of the most popular movie
series ever. Others including Battle for Naboo and Jedi Power Battles were
released to little success. The first strategic title, Star Wars: Force
Commander was also released, but failed to keep up with other RTS games, since
it was more focused on battling (no resource gathering) and used a primitive 3D
engine.
In 2002, Attack of the Clones premiered in theaters and another wave of Star
Wars based games, including The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Racer Revenge, and Bounty
Hunter were released this time focusing on events and characters from Attack of
the Clones such as bounty hunter Jango Fett and the Clone Wars.
Also in 2002, Jedi Outcast was released, and gave players the first chance to
experience advanced lightsaber duels, and detached itself from the usual idea of
movie tie-ins, however with very limited quality. A second RTS game, with a much
more conventional approach to the genre's norms and using the Age of Kings
engine, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds offered a better alternative to those
seeking strategy in the Star Wars universe. One year later, the last game in the
Jedi Knight series, Jedi Academy was released as well as Knights of the Old
Republic, a BioWare RPG that debuted on the Xbox and PC. Knights was critically
acclaimed even winning "Game of the Year" from the Game Developers Choice Awards
(along with many other critics ) in 2003. The first MMORPG, titled Star Wars
Galaxies: An Empire Divided was also released in 2003 and was subsequntly
followed in 2004 by its first expansion Jump to Lightspeed.
Now that Revenge of the Sith has come to pass, Star Wars: Battlefront, Knights
of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (both in 2004), Star Wars: Republic
Commando, Star Wars Battlefront II, and Lego Star Wars (2005) were released.
Three more games, Star Wars Galaxies: Episode III: Rage of the Wookiees (a
second expansion to Galaxies), and Episode III: The video game (action) were
also released close to the premiere of the third movie, with various degrees of
success.
Empire at War (another RTS), was released on the PC February 16, 2006. A sequel
to Lego Star Wars, Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, is also in
production.
The source of this article is
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this
article is licensed under the
GFDL
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