The Movie Games<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nThe 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\u2019s more indicative of the massive Star Wars Prequel hype than quality. They sold a lot of Jar Jar Binks lollipops too.<\/p>\n
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, Padm\u00e9 Amidala, and Captain Quarsh Panaka, all voiced by rather dubious soundalikes. <\/p>\n
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Fate is a big theme through the Prequel Trilogy, the idea that one\u2019s 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\u2019t find it fun for long.<\/p>\n
Jedi Power Battles is the superior game. Released a year later on PlayStation and Dreamcast, it follows Episode I\u2019s 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\u2019re in beat-\u2019em-up territory, complete with a handful of fighters, combos and minigames, and a few fun secrets.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s far from the best example of the genre, but if you simply need to experience the plot of The Phantom Menace and you\u2019ve had your fill of haggling and handmaiden intrigue, Power Battles is the answer.<\/p>\n
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There aren\u2019t 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\u2019s love story.<\/p>\n
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: the Movie: the Game fared much better. A hack-and-slash romp through 17 stages, it\u2019s a bit like Power Battles with a bigger budget and some basic XP upgrades. It\u2019s 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\u2019t miss. Even the ubiquitous handheld ports were solid.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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EA\u2019s 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\u2019d give the edge to Mordor over Mustafar.<\/p>\n
Whatever happened to games like these? It turns out you don\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n
Traveller\u2019s Tales began their decades-long dominance of the licensed kid\u2019s-game space with Lego Star Wars, whose simple title doesn\u2019t need to stipulate that it\u2019s covering the Prequel stories, because that\u2019s just what \u201cStar Wars\u201d was in 2005.<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
Star Wars movies are vehicles for drama, action, and special effects. The plots and characters aren\u2019t really built with controllers in mind, and the best Prequel games do well to explore their margins in side stories.<\/p>\n
Side Stories<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nSome of the more interesting titles of the era are prequels to the capital \u201cP\u201d Prequels, like the Xbox-exclusive Star Wars: Obi-Wan. Not to be confused with the disappointing Disney+ show, or Obi-Wan\u2019s Adventures, the Game Boy Color game that might be a better use of your time than the nine-figure streaming series.<\/p>\n
Ewan McGregor\u2019s Obi-Wan makes for a great protagonist. He literally sits out the worst parts of The Phantom Menace in a spaceship, so you don\u2019t 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\u2019s journey from the mean streets of Coruscant to the fateful Neimoidian breakout room that kicks off the entire saga.<\/p>\n
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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\u2019s console. The padawan\u2019s green blade, aglow with emerald Xbox synergy, would instead answer to the analog stick of the mighty Duke.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re given access to Jango\u2019s 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\u2019s cutscenes, with great performances from the movies\u2019 Temuera Morrison, plus Clancy Brown as a rival Mandalorian bounty hunter who is no longer compatible with canon. <\/p>\n
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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 \u201c1313\u201d project, and you don\u2019t have to squint too hard to see shades of Andor, either.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t have time for. The foxholes of a galactic war are filled with Iden Versios.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Released in 2002 for PS2 and GameCube, \u201cStar Wars: The Clone Wars\u201d 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. <\/p>\n
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A GBA game, New Droid Army, emerged around the same time, while the amusing Age of Empires reskin Galactic Battlegrounds rolled out a Clone Campaigns DLC that let you lead the fight against space tariffs by playing as the evil Separatists.<\/p>\n
These titles barely scratched the limitless possibilities offered by a war fought over trade routes between clones and robots. An animated series or two was in order. <\/p>\n
Genndy Tartakovsky’s god-tier Clone Wars microseries made the fight look actually cool for the first time, but its only interactive representation came as a Flash-based browser game. Dave Filoni, the ascended fan who now essentially runs Lucasfilm, cut his teeth on his own Clone Wars series in 2008, and this one made the leap from Cartoon Network to consoles.<\/p>\n
Republic Heroes is a bog-standard platformer, while Jedi Alliance takes advantage of the DS\u2019s stylus swiping for its dual-character lightsaber skirmishes. Both games meet the standard of \u201cwhelming\u201d one might expect from a spinoff to a spinoff, but they\u2019re overshadowed by \u201cThe Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels,\u201d the game every single person imagined the first time they held a Wii Remote.<\/p>\n
The plot takes a back seat to motion-control action, de-emphasizing the outsourced assassination and turgid love affair that defines the film. Instead, it zeroes in on one memorable aspect of the movies for a fun and satisfying power fantasy as a vertical slice of the saga.<\/p>\n
The Vertical Slice<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nLore is great. Expanded Universes are beloved for a reason. There are thousands of well-worn paperbacks yellowing in the Legends library that can attest to that, but too much lore can elbow out the cinematic impact that made Star Wars a phenomenon. What is \u201cStar Wars\u201d if not a series of archetypical characters engaged in blockbuster setpieces, any one of which could be separated from the whole as a standalone experience? <\/p>\n
The trench run, the Battle of Hoth, Teras Kasi kombat\u2026 You can carve out any given ten minutes from a Star Wars movie and probably find a decent game in there. \u201cSpaceship combat\u201d was the first place anyone looked, which quickly evolved into a sub-line of respectable flight sims and shooters.<\/p>\n
1998\u2019s Rogue Squadron was an Original Trilogy affair, but the devs at Factor 5 included a secret that evaded even GameShark detection for seven months. The UK release of The Phantom Menace was celebrated by revealing the Naboo Starfighter that was hidden in the code. A gleaming art deco Buck Rogers ship that mogged the busted-up Y-wings in the Rebel hangar, the Starfighter made it clear that the future was here, and it was all about the past.<\/p>\n
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Battle for Naboo is Rogue Squadron with a Prequel coat of paint. Like its predecessor, it\u2019s a mission-based series of skirmishes that makes the most of the N64 Expansion Pak, with a propulsive plot powered by dialogue and dogfights. <\/p>\n
The Starfighter itself is back, with a little less aura now that we\u2019ve seen a nine-year-old boy master it in seconds, along with a fleet of the finest ships the Royal Security Forces have to offer. Unlike other games in the series, you play as RSF Lieutenant Gavyn Sykes throughout the whole story. Cool guy, but he\u2019s no Wedge Antilles. <\/p>\n
Battle for Naboo is exactly what you\u2019d expect from Rogue Squadron: the Episode I version. The game is most notable for including concept art and an hour of developer\u2019s audio commentary crammed into the N64 cartridge. It was especially impressive in 2001, when DVDs spoiled us with treats and bonus features. We at IGN were sure it was going to be the beginning of a major development trend to come. You can\u2019t always get it right for 30 years.<\/p>\n
Factor 5 took their talents back to the OT for the GameCube\u2019s twin Rogue Squadrons, but LucasArts didn\u2019t leave the Prequel age behind. <\/p>\n
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2001\u2019s Starfighter, the series PS2 debut, is no slouch. Less Star Fox than Ace Combat, the game mixes sim and arcade as it weaves through the narrative of Episode I from the perspective of three characters, including fan favorite Nym, a mononomic space pirate who would one day earn an 18,000 word Wookiepedia article.<\/p>\n
Nym and his signature ship, Havoc, would return the next year in Jedi Starfighter, scrapping with Separatists in the antebellum of the Clone Wars. It\u2019s a fuller package than its predecessor, but both rate highly among Prequel games. <\/p>\n
For all its faults, the Prequel Trilogy always excelled when it came to space and aerial action, full of big battles between cool looking ships that sound awesome. Now this is podracing!<\/p>\n
Actually, this is podracing: Thanks to George Lucas\u2019s lifelong fascination with fast cars, so much of Star Wars is propelled by the energy of a showstopping death race, a promise fully realized in the Phantom Menace. <\/p>\n
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The film\u2019s entire second act revolves around the Boonta Eve Classic, a 500 mile-an-hour grand prix through the twisted canyons of Tatooine. For the competitors, ILM dreamed up enough pilots to fill a Glup Shitto graveyard, most of whom die horribly while Greg Proops cracks wise. Star Wars: Episode I Racer dares to ask: What\u2019s their<\/em> story?<\/p>\nThe 1999 game for N64 and PC features 23 playable pods, nearly all doomed to expire on Boonta Eve.<\/p>\n
We embody racer Ratts Tyerell, family man, racking up wins and wupiupi in the months before he\u2019s vaporized. We become Ben Quadinaros as he purchases pit droids and upgrades his extremely dangerous ride so it doesn\u2019t fail when he needs it most. We are Anakin, forced against our will to endure Watto\u2019s gurgling as we dream of freedom on the track.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s little combat in the game for technical reasons, and while it diminishes the chariot race tension of the movie, it\u2019s still a standout racer on a system that had a lot of them. <\/p>\n
A code allowed you to dual wield two N64 controllers, analog sticks akimbo as you cranked the engines yanking you toward victory or oblivion. It almost felt like the real thing. The arcade game basically was <\/em>the real thing. <\/p>\nSEGA created several Star Wars cabinets with interesting hardware, but nothing ever let you enter the world of Star Wars butt-first like Star Wars: Racer. Plop into Ani\u2019s plexiglass pod, place your hands on the throttles and pray the Force is with you. All that\u2019s missing is the plasma coupler.<\/p>\n
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The well-received console game was followed in 2002 by a more aggro sequel, Racer Revenge. With an emphasis on interpod violence, it\u2019s a more fleshed-out game mechanically that never quite took off, a possible casualty of the Prequel backlash. <\/p>\n
Criticism was calcifying into consensus and fans had fallen out of love with the pastime of podracing. It would take two decades for another game to pick up the torch, first with the VR title Beyond Victory, followed by Galactic Racer, which proudly features the sport and its foremost ambassadors among several modes of roguelike run-based racing.<\/p>\n
Pods aren\u2019t the only way to burn rubber in the Star Wars galaxy. You\u2019ve got ships, speeders, swoops, and, in 2001, super-deformed mascots. <\/p>\n
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Super Bombad Racing is the first and thus far only Star Wars kart racer. The physics are floaty and fun, and the chibified characters are cute. It won\u2019t unseat Mario, Sonic, or Garfield as kings of kart canon, but it\u2019s unique and almost charming at times, which is more than you can say for a lot of the games we\u2019ve talked about so far.<\/p>\n
Thank the maker for the weird ones.<\/p>\n
The Weird Ones<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nWith its jaw-dropping Dinotopia aesthetics and dialogue no sentient being would ever speak, the Prequel Trilogy is George Lucas\u2019s own Death Stranding: the brazen self-belief of an artist with a budget and no one around to say no. Star Wars has been pretty buttoned-up as a brand ever since the Holiday Special, and with Disney at the reins we\u2019re unlikely to see anything as wild as Episodes I, II, and III again. <\/p>\n
The games they inspired looked and sounded the part, but rarely matched the unfiltered ingenuity of the films. There are a lot<\/em> of platformers and third-person action adventures on this list, and even awesome racers and dogfight sims are pretty par for the Star Wars course, but a few titles tried something different.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
Lucas founded LucasLearning in 1996, riding the CD-ROM edutainment wave that brought Number Munchers and Incredible Machines to middle school computer labs around the world. <\/p>\n
The imprint released several Star Wars Prequel games designed to fit in school curricula, betting on the children\u2019s love of Jar Jar Binks to teach them about fractions and natural science.<\/p>\n
Star Wars: The Gungan Frontier sees the titular species in crisis: their bubble cities are overpopulated, they\u2019re surrounded by giant sea monsters, and half the planet can\u2019t stand them. <\/p>\n
Boss Nass enlists your aid in colonizing the moon, manipulating its barren ecosystem for imported Naboo flora and fauna in a simplified Sim Life with hints of Spore. Planting trees and balancing the food chain while vibing to the ambient soundtrack is such a pastoral, zen experience that you almost forget that you\u2019re assisting an invasive, extremely annoying species.<\/p>\n
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Anakin\u2019s Speedway offers kids ages four and up the opportunity to help the enslaved child build tracks for racers to die on, while Pit Droids makes use of the adorable automatons as Lemmings-style problem-solvers, guiding them through mechanical puzzles that teach basic logic and spatial reasoning skills.<\/p>\n
The quirky little cluster of learning games are a breath of fresh air after traversing Theed for the thirtieth time, but they didn\u2019t exactly revolutionize early childhood education. If you\u2019re curious how the whole edutainment venture panned out, the last game LucasLearning developed was Super Bombad Racing, which most would agree has little pedagogical value to speak of. The division folded in 2001, ceding the market shortly before the entire space imploded amid widespread internet adoption.<\/p>\n
Games have always been quick to chase trends, even the ones based on movies that bucked them at the expense of good taste and narrative coherence. Flash games were in their heyday in the 2000s, and Star Wars embraced the Macromedia madness of it all with a clutch of Prequel-era games for Cartoon Network. More impressive was the expansive browser-based MMO called Clone Wars Adventures that boasted 10 million registered players before it folded in 2014.<\/p>\n
Nothing chased a trend harder than Kinect, the much-maligned Microsoft peripheral that jumped on the motion control bandwagon by tracking your body movement with a creepy camera. Kinect Star Wars on the Xbox 360 might be its most infamous title. <\/p>\n
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The 2012 release is built on the Prequel Trilogy, at least as much as a grab bag of gimmicky minigames can be built on anything. There\u2019s an obligatory podracing mode where you grip a pair of throttles that don\u2019t exist, while the story campaign thrusts you into war as a Padawan of your own design, using the Kinect to control a lightsaber with flailing limbs in a quite uncivilized fashion.<\/p>\n
The lasting legacy of Star Wars Kinect, however, has little to do with the Prequels. The Galactic Dance Off is a Just Dance-inspired collection of Now That\u2019s What I Call Music hits repurposed for Star Wars, with parody lyrics that make one yearn for the subtle wit of \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic. <\/p>\n
Hollaback Girl becomes Hologram Girl, La Roux\u2019s Bulletproof is Blasterproof, and Jason Derulo’s triumphant ode to self-reliance is repurposed as \u201cHan Solo,\u201d spun by DJ Lobot while the titular rogue leads his dance crew of fascist collaborators in moves like \u201cthe Trash Compactor.\u201d Even in the weirdest and most embarrassing Prequel game, the Original Trilogy still takes precedence. <\/p>\n
LucasArts went down dancing. Kinect Star Wars would be the last game from the legendary studio before Disney moved development out of house, an ignominious end to an uneven era for Star Wars games.<\/p>\n
Most of what we\u2019ve discussed so far has been bad to mid at best, with a few standouts brushing against the ceiling of \u201cpretty good.\u201d We wish that we could just wish away our feelings, but it’s true: for whatever reason, it\u2019s hard to mine genuine excellence from the Prequel setting. Only a few games have.<\/p>\n