Star Wars: Galactic Racer might be set in the New Republic era, but podracing screams “Star Wars Prequels” louder than Pepsi, and the bloodsport is largely beloved thanks to a video game.
The saga is no stranger to incredible games, but titles based on Episodes I, II, and III get lost easily among the KOTORs and TIE Fighters of the galaxy. The Prequel Trilogy has earned a second look from fans after Star Wars’ modern decade of disaster, and developers are starting to be at least Clone-curious with bangers like Zero Company.
The Prequels may have more motion than we thought, and it’s worth a trip back to BBY to explore their gaming past. Where can Star Wars games go from Galactic Racer onward, and what should be left behind like Anakin’s mom?
These are the best, worst, and weirdest Star Wars prequel trilogy games. We’ve got shooters, racers, and ecology simulators all on deck, so let’s start with the straight adaptations of the films:
The Movie Games
The flagship game for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace released alongside the film in 1999. Like most Phantom Menace merch at the turn of the millennium, the game was a commercial success for PC and PlayStation, but that’s more indicative of the massive Star Wars Prequel hype than quality. They sold a lot of Jar Jar Binks lollipops too.
The game recreates the film from its opening tea service to the Battle of Naboo, controlling a veritable Mount Rushmore of beloved protagonists in Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé Amidala, and Captain Quarsh Panaka, all voiced by rather dubious soundalikes.
Fate is a big theme through the Prequel Trilogy, the idea that one’s destiny is fixed and uncontrollable. The same could be said of the camera in the Episode I game. Pinned high above your character, the POV renders gameplay extremely unpleasant as you leisurely lob blaster bolts back at battle droids. You can embrace the dark side and cut down innocent civilians who side-eye your rat-tail as you push boxes and complete fetch quests in a garish Otoh Gungah, but you won’t find it fun for long.
Jedi Power Battles is the superior game. Released a year later on PlayStation and Dreamcast, it follows Episode I’s entire plot in order, but only to the extent that Turtles in Time is invested in the story of Shredder stealing the Statue of Liberty. We’re in beat-’em-up territory, complete with a handful of fighters, combos and minigames, and a few fun secrets.
It’s far from the best example of the genre, but if you simply need to experience the plot of The Phantom Menace and you’ve had your fill of haggling and handmaiden intrigue, Power Battles is the answer.
There aren’t really many options for Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Scenes like the Geonisian arena and its kaizo platformer droid factory seemed tailor-made for games, but the starcrossed tale only received one proper adaptation: a ponderous sidescroller on the Game Boy Advance which fails to capture the burning passion of the film’s love story.
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: the Movie: the Game fared much better. A hack-and-slash romp through 17 stages, it’s a bit like Power Battles with a bigger budget and some basic XP upgrades. It’s packed with unlockable characters and noncanonical missions where Anakin unalives everybody and seizes control of the galaxy. For a film that lives and dies by its duels, the single-player boss fights and PvP combat don’t miss. Even the ubiquitous handheld ports were solid.
The Episode III game oozes a prestige package. Cutscenes completely spoiled the film which came out ten days later, though there are some crucial differences for gameplay purposes that kind of make more sense than the movie, like Anakin personally killing Mace Windu to cement his Dark Side heel turn.
EA’s Lord of the Rings: Return of the King has a similar vibe, and also spoiled the heck out of its trilogy-topping movie before anyone could see it. The games are alike in a lot of ways, though from our point of view we’d give the edge to Mordor over Mustafar.
Whatever happened to games like these? It turns out you don’t need full-motion-video or fancy motion capture to convey the essence of a cinematic story. Sometimes all you need is a little Danish plastic.
Traveller’s Tales began their decades-long dominance of the licensed kid’s-game space with Lego Star Wars, whose simple title doesn’t need to stipulate that it’s covering the Prequel stories, because that’s just what “Star Wars” was in 2005.
The Prequel era appears in numerous Lego entries, largely delivered through grunts and pantomime without an ounce of gravitas, and it works. The first Lego Star Wars, with 6.1 million copies sold, is easily the most commercially successful Prequel Trilogy game despite largely being a joke.
Star Wars movies are vehicles for drama, action, and special effects. The plots and characters aren’t really built with controllers in mind, and the best Prequel games do well to explore their margins in side stories.
Side Stories
Some of the more interesting titles of the era are prequels to the capital “P” Prequels, like the Xbox-exclusive Star Wars: Obi-Wan. Not to be confused with the disappointing Disney+ show, or Obi-Wan’s Adventures, the Game Boy Color game that might be a better use of your time than the nine-figure streaming series.
Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan makes for a great protagonist. He literally sits out the worst parts of The Phantom Menace in a spaceship, so you don’t really associate him with extensive haggling and child slavery, and Jar Jar Binks and the Gungans do not appear at all in his self-titled game. Instead, we explore young Kenobi’s journey from the mean streets of Coruscant to the fateful Neimoidian breakout room that kicks off the entire saga.
Originally planned for PC, with a unique control scheme where mouse gestures controlled a lightsaber, the game was personally kiboshed by George Lucas and reworked for the launch window of Microsoft’s console. The padawan’s green blade, aglow with emerald Xbox synergy, would instead answer to the analog stick of the mighty Duke.
The exploits of Obi-Wan are nice to have, but Star Wars: Bounty Hunter has a lot more to explain. Released shortly after Attack of the Clones in 2002 and set years before Jango Fett’s decapitation, it tells the story of how the simple man making his way in the universe was chosen to stand at stud for an army of armored doppelgangers.
You’re given access to Jango’s entire arsenal and a surprising amount of freedom, blasting through seedy underbellies with a jetpack and roasting civilians and bounty targets alike. Industrial Light and Magic and Skywalker Sound all worked directly with LucasArts for the first time to create the game’s cutscenes, with great performances from the movies’ Temuera Morrison, plus Clancy Brown as a rival Mandalorian bounty hunter who is no longer compatible with canon.
The story explores the unsavory side of Star Wars, the dirty, dangerous places far from the Force where crime lords rule with a cortosis fist and a guy like Jango fits right in. Bounty Hunter was cited as an inspiration for the doomed “1313” project, and you don’t have to squint too hard to see shades of Andor, either.
Films convey character much differently than video games, a medium where Kyle Katarn and Cal Kestis carry more clout than Luke and Leia. Star Wars games are great at focusing on characters that the movies don’t have time for. The foxholes of a galactic war are filled with Iden Versios.
Begun in Episode II, the Clone Wars were, a brutal conflict that rages across 400 billion stars and largely takes place off screen. Wrapped up tidily in Episode III, the Clone Wars created a huge void that expanded media was well fit to fill.
Released in 2002 for PS2 and GameCube, “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” waged the opening salvos from behind the wheel. Developer Pandemic used the vehicular combat game as a testing ground for the in-house Zero engine that would usher in the era of Battlefront and its many Prequel Trilogy trappings.
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