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The history of Star Wars games

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Being an avid gamer and a fan of old-school stuff (I still play 15-year-old-games!) I simply can't resist to post here about an interesting feature presented at gametrailers.com

They're preparing a series (10) of "documentaries" about Star Wars themed games... and not only those PC titles old RRS used to play when he was young, but even going back to Atari & Commodore hits from the yesteryear.

First 2 episodes are already available, go see them here:
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/6389.html
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...
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Thanks I enjoyed that.

I loved Super Star Wars for the snes and before that had only briefly played Star Wars on the nes so it was nice to see the evolution of games that came before those.

"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt

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I really like GameTrailers retrospectives, glad to see they are doing one on Star Wars.

That first SW arcade game is fun to play. I own all of the NES and SNES games, but I have never beat any of them. They are incredibly hard. I made it as far as the Tie Fighter battle while excaping the Death Star in Star Wars for the NES, I only made it there once after spending hours playing, after the great disappointment of dying I never made the attempt again. On Empire for the NES I never even managed to make it past the Rebel Base level. The SNES versions were even more frustrating.

The DOS/Win95 SW games were the absolute best though. Nothing beats games like the X-Wing series and Dark Forces. I even liked the Rebel Assult games, even thiough they often come under a great deal of criticism, I found them very enjoyable, some levels more than others though.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I want this for MAME. Somebody make me one.

Last time I tried MAME, the 3 original Atari games from the 80s played fine. Sega's Star Wars Trilogy Arcade ran but had missing graphics and was too slow to be playable. (I also remember once seeing another Star Wars arcade game, had 3D polygon graphics, don't know if this was ever emulated.)

Talking of MAME, I was thinking we could set up a ot.com "hall of fame". It would work like this: someone who thinks they're a bit handy at the Atari games plays for a while and sets some high scores. They then upload their savestate, highscore.dat or eprom files (whatever it is that MAME uses) for others to download and drop into their game folders. First person to beat the high score uploads a new revised file.

What do you think, would this work?

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Yeah, it would work if people are interested in participating. I'd do it. Doubt I could set any super high hard to break scores or anything, but I'd make an attempt. The one I am really good at (or was really good at) is the original SW arcade game, the one where you shoot transparent polygon Tie Fighters and blow up the Death Star.

Hmm, so is there no way to play the SEGA Star Wars Trilogy Arcade Game via emulation? That would be a really cool game to be able to play at home.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I want the Star Wars trilogy sega game. The one that came out around the SE? It's amazing, and my childhood.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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Wow 10 parts. That should carry us all the way up the Force Unleashed.

Someone should make a nice DVD out of this series when its done.

*hint*hint*
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C3PX said:

Hmm, so is there no way to play the SEGA Star Wars Trilogy Arcade Game via emulation? That would be a really cool game to be able to play at home.

I tried it with the very latest version of MAMEUI, and it's still not playable - it mostly just displays a black screen and runs at 20fps. In fact on the surface the emulation seems to have gone backwards (although I'm sure it's been developed underneath) - the older version of MAME32 I previously tried had at least some of the 3D graphics implemented.

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Some people have gotten it to work, but I can't. I use MAME for the TMNT & Simpson games. Most of the 3D games I've tried fail miserably.

Wait, which star wars trilogy game are we talking about? The one I mentioned, or the one that is out on the SEGA 32x?

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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Yeah, the arcade game where you sit down and choose which movie to play through. I think it had a 32x release, but from what I understand the 32x release is inferior to the arcade version.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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The first SEGA one had the 32X release, not the second. Just clearing that up.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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To be a bit more specific.....Sega's "STAR WARS Arcade" was released to the 32X. Sega's "STAR WARS Trilogy Arcade" was the one that you picked which of the three movies to play, & has never been released on anything other than arcade cabinets.
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Ah, thanks. Now that makes sense.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I remember the 32x game got dismal reviews.

I think the reviewers also confused the two arcade games.

Sega's Sega cd, Sega saturn and sega dreamcast were all before their time, the 32x apparently sucked as much as the virtual boy.

The gametrailers people skipped the ground breaking rebel assault cd rom game, as well as x-wing and tie fighter, dark forces and the whole Kyle katarn jedi knight series.

they barely mentioned kotor.

the next episodes they are doing revolve around the shitty prequels.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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the latest episode released covered episodes 1-3 and at the end it states the next episode in 2 weeks will cover x-wing and tie fighter.

"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt

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Yeah, they are not doing them in order, though I had kind of hoped that would be the case, but instead they are doing them based on OT, PT, then it looks like they will get into the extras. It is suppose to be ten parts right? Two parts for the OT so far, hopefully no more than two parts for the PT, that leaves six parts for everything else. That seems like a lot though, is it really going to be ten parts?

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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For those of you interested, they did a star wars game countdown previously.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WxJeIbwxhtA

The #1 game was the best! It's still tough, I always have to go for help on it.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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Yeah, Jedi Outcast was among the last of the good SW games, along with KOTOR.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I like Jedi Academy [the sequel] if only for JA+ (an AMAZING mod), and its active modding community. The game itself kinda sucked tho

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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Don't forget Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy!
My lad and I must've spent hours playing that in 2-player mode.

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I have not played Lego SW II, but I have seen demos of it at different shops. While I find it kind of silly, I think it would be a pretty fun "father-son" sort of game. I remember how many great times I had playing two-players on Pac-Man with my dad when I was a kid. It is kind of nice there are still some two player games like that being made, games that are kid friendly but interesting enought to entertian an adult too. Wii seems like a great system for that aswell, if I had kids I would not hesitate to buy one.

As for Jedi Academy, it felt kind of rushed. I was disappointed, but still enjoyed it (though I still have yet to beat it), it wasn't that bad if you didn't pay full price for it, and consider it more of an expansion pack for Jedi Outcast. I liked the master and apprentence OT style setup, and the way you traveled around from planet to planet doing different missions. I found that somehow reminicent of the original Dark Forces. I really wish they would make a new SW game that puts you in the shoes of an average shmoe in the SW galaxy. A shmoe who knows nothing about the force, has never met Luke Skywalker, and had little or no connection to the Rebels. It is an interesting galaxy with a lot to explore, too bad most games are bogged down with the same ol thing again and again. This is the reason why Dark Forces and the X-Wing series still rank as my favorite SW games of all time. How cool would a GTA Coruscant be? You could be involved in organized crime SW style. Imagine being able to choose your character from a large rang of various aliens, and being chased by Imperial Stormtroopers instead of cops. This coming from a guy who is not a GTA fan, it would be pure gold.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Moth3r said:

Don't forget Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy!
My lad and I must've spent hours playing that in 2-player mode.


+ 1 definitely.

"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt

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http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6017/swrilogygz3.png

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