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What is/was the best SW Game ever, on any platform?

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My favourites SW games from the past would have to be a holy trinity of:

1995's 'Rebel Assault II' on the PC. Sure the gameplay was basic but the whole game was the first full on SW footage we had seen in a while. With new ships and actors wearing the real costumes from the films. It was like a new SW film that you could interact with. I played this to death!

1997's 'Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II' on the PC. The graphics were poor for the time but the levels were huge and we were able to really experience being a Jedi Knight. Leveling up our force powers as we went and choosing the light or dark path. Plus modding on the game was sooo easy to do, meaning even I could change sounds, change saber colours and even change textures with ease. I must have replayed the whole game from start to finish 20 times.

1999's 'Episode I: Racer' on the N64. The dramatic speed and reaction times needed in this game practicaly meant you had to be a Jedi to beat some of the tracks. You had to play the tracks until you knew every inch of the courses. I played this until I literally couldn't play it anymore... my right thumb would continue twitching for long periods after I'd stopped play!

Over to you guys, let the debate begin!

(There have also been some absolutely terrible SW licenced games along the way so I'd like to hear about them also).

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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The Super Star Wars series on SNES, and Rougue Squadron. 

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Hey, it's me. said:

The Super Star Wars series on SNES, and Rougue Squadron. 

Never had a SNES but Rogue Squadron was also a great game. Hoth was an amazing level.

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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Rogue Squadron was brilliant. All three of the Super Star Wars games were quality. Remember many a night I used to stay up late playing them! 

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Tie Fighter

Shadows of the Empire 64

Jedi Knight

Jedi Knight II

 

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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X-Wing!

Being a teenage SW fan in the 90s was awesome.  Some decent EU stuff (Thrawn trilogy), the 1995 Faces/THX release, and some amazing video games.  Then of course there was the excitement of the SE theatrical releases (little did we know at the time...).  And the world wasn't as saturated with SW garbage like it is today.

I was constantly playing X-Wing, Rebel Assault, Dark Forces, Rebel Assault II, TIE Fighter.  X-Wing is actually what got me back into SW.  Ah, those were the days.

 

Am I the only one who thought Rogue Squadron was just an awful game?  Boring surface battles with mediocre controls, lame story.  Just not fun at all for me.

I thought the snowspeeder level in Shadows of the Empire was a million times better.  I played that over and over.  But I really hated Rogue Squadron.

Anyone remember different camera angles from ROTJ?

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all about Super Star Wars on the SNES for me (the series, that is)

Unlike most movie fans, Star Wars fans are totally spoilt for good video game adapations, hard to choose a best, but still

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Rogue Squadron got me into Star Wars. Enough said.

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SpilkaBilka said:

I thought the snowspeeder level in Shadows of the Empire was a million times better.  I played that over and over.  But I really hated Rogue Squadron.

Total oposite for me. Loved Rogue Squadron (Though I agree the controls could be annoying if you didn't tinker with them in setup as I recall) then played Shadows Of The Empire hoth mission and thought it compared badly so ignored the rest of the game.

Only ever read one EU novel and it was the superb SOTE. Maybe I just thought the game couldn't measure up

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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 (Edited)

Star Wars: Rebellion/Supremacy from 1998, was a lot of fun also. Nothing like blowing up a whole quadrant with your death star then watching the whole galaxy turn against you and join the rebellion lol

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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Ryan McAvoy said:

Star Wars: Rebellion/Supremacy from 1998, was a lot of fun also. Nothing like blowing up a whole quadrant with your death star then watching the whole galaxy turn against you and join the rebellion lol

This game was so underrated. Some people hated it, and it certainly had faults, but if you wanted to completely get absorbed in the SW universe this was the best game at that time. I loved all the micromanagement, using characters on missions, etc. Just a really fun game that didn't quite get its due. Expectations were so high for it being the first big SW strategy game.

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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I'm in the camp that pretty much hated Rogue Squadron. And it was strictly about the controls. I thought all three games were awesome but the controls utterly sucked. It was like someone who had ZERO concept of how flying vehicles are controlled was put in charge of designing the control scheme. "Oh push the stick left or right and the ship should just turn left or right like a car (and we'll make the roll control require an additional button so you can't roll and turn at the same time). Push up or down and it should go higher or lower from the ground WITHOUT ANY REGARD for the actual attitude of the craft. And hey, let's translate that to the space levels too where there IS NO point of reference for a horizon! It'll be awesome!" Ugh. And those games would've been great if it weren't for the awful controls. I really enjoyed the ground levels driving AT-ST's and such though (the Endor ground battle level in the third one was great!).

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I'm so glad that someone else mentioned Rebellion/Supremacy. I LOVED that game. In fact, out of all of the classic games that I go back to play every now and then, that is the game that gets reinstalled. I love it. I wish they'd do a sequel to it.
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My all time favorite SW games are X-Wing, Dark Forces, Rebel Assault II, Shadows of the Empire, the Rogue Squadron games, and finally Star Wars: Dark Forces III: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast along with Star Wars: Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy.

Tie Fighter was fantastic too, but I never clocked in the insane number of hours I did with X-Wing.

If I had to pick one favorite, it would be a very difficult toss up between Dark Forces and Shadows of the Empire. I wish there were more Star Wars games that didn't involve lightsabres and the force.

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I remember absolutely loving StarFox on the N64 (okay its obviously not a Star Wars game) and thinking how good a Star Wars game would've been had Nintendo got the rights to do a game. Their in house development team was shit hot back in the day!

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Would love to play some old SW PC games but I can never get win 7 to install them.  Once win 7 has the game installed it runs it fine, which is wierd.

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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CP3S said:

Star Wars: Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy.

Lol

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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I'd say it's a 3-way tie between Dark Forces, X-Wing, and TIE Fighter.

Each was awesome in its own way. Getting these games to run was also a great learning experience in building and upgrading a computer.

I'll throw in an honorable mention for Jedi Outcast, which had awesome mechanics for lightsaber duels.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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I'm surprised no one's mentioned Knights of the Old Republic.

 

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Erikstormtrooper said:

Getting these games to run was also a great learning experience in building and upgrading a computer.

Oh yeah.  I became a master of editing autoexec.bat and config.sys to get them to run, and to extract every scrap of memory possible.  X-Wing had to run on EMS memory (unlike just about every other DOS game at the time which used XMS).  That was a pain to configure.  I had a bootdisk for every game.

Anyone remember different camera angles from ROTJ?

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Erikstormtrooper said:

I'll throw in an honorable mention for Jedi Outcast, which had awesome mechanics for lightsaber duels.

that game nailed using the lightsaber. especially with the slice n dice unlocked.  rest of the game didn't quite match up to DF2 for reasons that I could never quite put my finger on...

VIZ TOP TIPS! - PARENTS. Impress your children by showing them a floppy disk and telling them it’s a 3D model of a save icon.

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I also loved Star Wars Supremacy. I spent days (weeks?) playing it.

There's a guy "Slocket" on SW:rebellion

http://forums.swrebellion.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=27919

trying to remake the game but update it.

I also played Knights of the Old Republic and Empire at War to death.

Great games, KotOR was so absorbing, it felt like a "real" Star Wars story. They could be the basis for excellent films, sufficiently different from the original trilogy.

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I'll join SpilkaBilka and Erikstormtrooper here:

X-Wing

TIE Fighter

Dark Forces 

I wasn't impressed with level design in Jedi Knight, everything reeked of "Quake multiplayer arenas", even the blaster bolts f/x looked inferior to Dark Forces ones. I weeped of joy in the first level of Jedi Outcast - beautiful Imperial base to explore, no Force powers, return of iMUSE... just like in the best days!

I couldn't switch myself to the XvT flight engine changes, what ruined my experience of X-Wing: Alliance (which had very nice look&feel).

I'm not into arcade action games, I've never owned a console. All those Rogue Squadron games are forgettable for me.

Rebellion/Supremacy had a lot of problems and design issues, just like Empire at War. Force Commander was horrible. Galactic Battlegrounds was just a cheap clone of aging Age of Empires (256 colors palette?!? in 2001?)

KotOR was a decent game on its own (despite consolish origins), but is it still STAR WARS? Or just a remote spin-off?

EU and prequels made me realize that STAR WARS sans the Empire loses its identity. And it's no longer my thing. For those who can't understand: ask a history buff who is into Napoleonic wars if that means he's automatically into World War I...

I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...