Retro Gaming Australia

Not as good as you remember.

Super Star Wars came out at a time when the Star Wars saga was in a kind of hiatus – 10 years or so after the release of the Return of the Jedi, almost a decade before the prequels, and just prior to the onslaught of Star Wars video games. It’s technically accomplished, but needlessly difficult.

We’ll never see another stretch of quality Star Wars games like we did on the PC in the 90s.

Star Wars: Dark Forces puts you in control of Kyle Katarn, a former Imperial officer who has turned into a rogue for hire. The Rebel Alliance has sought out his help to find the plans to the Death Star, but he discovers a much more sinister threat while on this mission – the Dark Trooper project. Arguably one of the best Star Wars games released.

Developed here in Melbourne by Beam Software.

While not the first Star Wars game to debut on Nintendo’s 8-bit system (a Namco developed game for the Famicom predates it), Beam Software’s take on Star Wars was hyped up as one of the biggest things to hit the NES. It wasn’t particularly great, but you’d have been easily convinced otherwise judging by the press reaction of the time. Then again, Lucas hadn’t allowed the worst of the Expanded Universe to happen yet, and had not touched Star Wars himself for many years. In fact, if I am not mistaken, the NES game was the first time LucasArts (then Lucasfilm Games) was allowed to do anything with the Star Wars IP.

Over the last two years, LucasArts released revamped versions of its classic adventure games The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The games included new visual styles (to fit in with the newer games such as Curse of Monkey Island and Tales of Monkey Island), speech, enhanced control and a hint system.

Despite numerous opportunities for you to get them for a pittance on Steam, LucasArts has decided to release the game on a disc. (continue reading…)