Star Wars in the Arcades

One of the few things Star Wars is never lauded enough for is its contributions to the world of arcade games. While people often talk about the amazing recent classic RPGs like Knights of the Old Republic or the killer old-school classics like the DOS/Windows 95 X-Wing and TIE Fighter simulations, rarely will you hear mention of the awesome arcade experiences that the franchise has bestowed upon us over the years.  Star Wars is essentially the godfather of the under appreciated “rail shooter” genre.  Let’s take a look at some of the franchise’s under-loved milestones.

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Star Wars from Atari was a technological marvel back in 1983. 3D wireframe graphics were originally introduced in the early days of computer gaming by such forgotten milestones as Lunar Lander (for the DEC GT40 graphics terminal), then later bestowed upon the mainstream gaming public via such arcade classics like Asteroids and Tempest. These arcade games were cool, but it wasn’t until 1980’s Battlezone that the true potential of 3D games started to come to life. Following in the steps of its big green tank roaming cousin, Star Wars was a true 3D space combat game. Your ship traveled through a 3D space, scaling, scrolling, twisting, and turning in real time 3D spaces while trying to destroy TIE fighters and eventually destroy the Death Star itself. An actual opening scroll demo accompanied (now charmingly dated) real time speech taken from the movie. Though Return of the Jedi had already come and gone by the time of this game’s release, climbing into the deluxe cockpit version of this game back in 1983 had to be a mind blowing experience. Never before had people been able to contemplate the concept of of actually flying an X-Wing through the trench of destiny outside of their imaginations, let alone so realistically.

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Star Wars was later followed by a The Empire Strikes Back game on the same hardware which had you roping AT-AT walkers on Hoth with your vector Snow Speeder, and then dodging asteroids in space with the Millennium Falcon. Empire was arguably even more technically impressive with all enemy craft being approximately on scale. This was but a taste of the glorious space combat that the Star Wars series was yet to experience in the world of quarter munching amusement.

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Most astute Star Wars gamers know of Star Wars Arcade for the infamous Sega 32x. It was probably the single reason to own the Genesis “expansion” device. Star Wars Arcade was amazing, make no mistake. Good Star Wars games were hard to come by back then, let alone a Star Wars game that lets you take down Star Destroyers by your lone self with a single X-Wing. Yet as fun as it was to play on a stacked Genesis, almost nobody has ever gotten the chance to see, let alone play the arcade game on which the port is based. Make no mistake; the 32x port is impressive for what it is, but it’s a sad substitute for the real thing. Consisting of a full two player setup (pilot and gunner), Star Wars Cockpit was a graphical showpiece featuring full scale Star Destroyers, hordes of enemy fighters, voice clips, and a heavy duty flight yoke mounted on the cabinet. For its era, Star Wars Cockpit was like a stripped down Star Tours for arcades. The flat shaded Model 1 graphics worked well with the gray-tastic monochromatic designs of Star Wars ships, and the sense of flight was fluid and intense in cockpit mode.

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This was the first Star Wars arcade title to blare the real movie score at you in beautiful high quality. Even PC games were struggling to do this in the early 90s. Keep in mind that that the THX remasters of the original movies weren’t even out yet. You had to see one of these babies to believe it in 1994, and your odds of finding one then (let alone now) were astronomically low. There were only twelve of them imported to the US when it was first released in 1994. Even now, Star Wars Cockpit is a sight to behold, but Sega had one more trick up their sleeve for classic trilogy fans before moving on to the lucrative and lush fields of Naboo…

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In 1998, Sega took one last stab at the original Star Wars Trilogy just in time for the Special Edition re-releases of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. In the process, Sega created one of the most jaw-dropping Star Wars video game experiences of all time. It’s Star Wars Trilogy Arcade for Sega’s then top-of-the-line Model 3 arcade board. Building off the rail shooter design of the classic Atari title, Trilogy takes you through major battle scenes from all three original trilogy films in arcade style action. With the exception of the ROTJ speeder bike section (where you control the movement of the Swoop Bike), you only control the aiming cursor (via an analog joystick) and blast as much stuff as you can for high scores. Some sections are space flight oriented, while others feature ground based Time Crisis type gameplay involving Storm Troopers. Notably, this was one of the first major Star Wars titles to break LucasArts heavy 1990s resistance to outright reenacting actual scenes from the movies in video game form. Locations include the Death Star (both I & II), Speeder Bike Chase, the Death Star shield generator, the Battle of Endor, the Battle of Hoth, as well as a bonus duel with Boba Fett on Jabba’s sail barge and a final duel with Darth Vader himself – arguably the most interactive and well executed light saber duel in a video game to date.

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Star Wars Trilogy Arcade almost made it to Dreamcast, but the port was canceled – likely due to the fact that LucasArts was already fully focused on Phantom Menace promotion when it came time to port and didn’t want to shine the light on the original trilogy for obvious reasons. It has never seen a console release and likely never will. Emulation is also currently unfeasible. Your only option is to find one in the wild. Fortunately, there are quite a bit more of these than Sega’s previous Star Wars outing. You’ll be hard pressed to find a better straight up Star Wars arcade title.

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Sega’s final Star Wars arcade title was a racing game released in the midst of the Episode I marketing tornado. Star Wars: Racer Arcade is often confused with the N64/Dreamcast title of a similar name. While the two look awfully similar from a casual glance, they play nothing alike. The N64 LucasArts title goes for a more mainstream F-Zero look with single stick controls and sparse tracks with more maneuvering room, Sega’s game took a more authentic approach with raw speed and authentic movie controls. On the cabinet you will find two full sized throttles. These control each of the two engines on your Pod Racer – exactly like the movie. You control your direction by throttling down one, and throttling up the other. Pull both back to slow down; push both forward to speed up. It takes a little time to master the setup, but once you got into a groove, nothing else is more authentic. Sega’s game only had three brilliantly designed tracks (like most Sega racers), but it looked better, played more authentically, and ran faster than anything else. Certainly Racer is one of Sega’s all-time greatest racing titles, and that’s saying a lot from the house that built Daytona USA and S.C.U.D. Race.

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With the sole exception of the original Star Wars Atari title, none of these games were ever made available for home consoles/PC, and none of them can be emulated through unofficial channels. Unless you can find one out in the wild, you’re out of luck. It’s tragic, because these are some of the best Star Wars video game experiences that one can find. If you ever see any of these games in the wild, however unlikely that may be, do yourself a favor and spend a good long while with them. Each is a classic in its own right and a requirement for any Star Wars fan who has ever picked up a flight yoke.