It’s May the Fourth. You knew it was going to happen. The staff here have gotten together to give you GOA’s Favourite Star Wars Games!
Pete
Rogue Squadron (N64)
I still have a real soft spot for Star Wars Rogue Squadron from the Nintendo 64! It’s probably because it’s absolutely dripping in nostalgia given it was released in 1998 and here we are now in 2023. A much younger me would go to the video shop to take it out as a THREE DAY new release and bring it home on a Friday night so I’d have it for the whole weekend.
It was one of the first memorable experiences for me of being able to get into an X-Wing in a 3D environment, and it was also one of the first N64 titles to make full use of the expansion pack for “better graphics”. It also featured a mission from my favourite Star Wars setting, the Battle of Hoth. I spent hours and hours throwing out hooks to wrap around the legs of the AT-AT Walker trying to get perfect scores for gold medals.
But it wasn’t even all of this that blew us as players away at the time. Rogue Squadron held one of the N64 era’s greatest secrets – The Naboo Starfighter.
What made it such an incredible cheat at the time is the sheer level of trust given to the game developers by LucasArts. We weren’t meant to see this model starfighter for the first time until six months later when the Phantom Menace was released in cinema. This was a huge deal because the Phantom Menace was shrouded in the height of secrecy given it was the first Star Wars movie to come from the LucasArts studios since 1983’s Return of the Jedi, and highly anticipated as it was to set up the next trilogy.
LucasArts revealed the cheat a month after the release of the Phantom Menace, but not before some incredible planning to ensure the starfighter’s secrecy. Most of the development team weren’t aware of the cheat at the time of development. Those that were did not know the code to unlock it, and a scrambling system was put into the game’s code to make sure it remained hidden!
That’s why Rogue Squadron is my pick for GOA’s favourite Star Wars games.
Arlentric
Lego Star Wars: The Video Game
It might be a bit of a surprise inclusion, but purely for nostalgic purposes, the original Lego Star Wars is by far the most fun I’ve had with any Star Wars game in recent memory, and I highly doubt the joy I had with it will ever be topped.
I’m not the biggest fan of the lego games altogether, but I’ve also been a huge Star Wars fanatic, and this title happened to be the first I ever received as a gift solely for me (growing up with 3 siblings, a lot of the time it was a ‘shared’ gaming experience but this was for me, and me alone, which I absolutely cherished).
It might have been my childish sense of wonder, but the entire formula of star-wars and lege blended seamlessly together, and having the option of playing through critical story points as characters that never belonged in the scene felt really scandalous and fun, and with the option of collecting hundreds upon hundreds of characters, I lost A LOT of my time to this game.
It won’t be a chart-topper, but it absolutely is in the nostalgic charts, and I still adore it to this day! Nothing can beat it for my GOA’s favourite Star Wars games
Mikeey
Knights Of The Old Republic/Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
First of all, I’m a HUGE Star Wars fan and I can honestly say I love pretty much all the games that have come out, with a few exceptions ofcourse.
I feel like the safe answer would be Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic because that was truly one of my first ever experiences with a RPG game that completely consumed my life. If my wife (then girlfriend) called me up and said she would be over at my house in 10 minutes, I would rush over to the PC and fire KOTOR up and play for those 10 minutes. I was OBSESSED with its story telling, gameplay and characters that Bioware introduced.
BUT.
Before that came out there was a little game called Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. I loved the story and gameplay in that game and admittedly when I first bought it I thought it was just a shooter. Then I lent it to my mate and he called me telling me how awesome it was once you got a lightsabre. I responded with ‘There are lightsabres? DUDE! Give it back’
He was right you know. That single player experience was incredible but then to my surprise I really got into the multiplayer aspect of the game. Running around the maps fighting other Jedi was a joy.
I got involved with an Aussie clan and it was so full on that we would challenge other clans, have lightsabre duels against other players where you would bow before you started and was always amazing to have people watching these epic battles unfold in a clan tournament form.
So if I was to pick one, I honestly can’t, these two are my favorite Star Wars gaming experiences.
Jim
Jedi: Fallen Order
This is hard for me. I have played a lot of Star Wars games and there are just so many good ones. From the flight sims like X-Wing and TIE Fighter (or X-Wing Vs TIE Fighter if you like multiplayer space battles) to the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series, there is so much fun to be had, and that’s before we even get into what is possibly one of the greatest games ever made, Knights Of The Old Republic.
Given my fondness for old titles my pick might surprise readers. I’m going with Jedi: Fallen Order, and I have my reasons.
The bulk of my favourite Star Wars games came from the golden age of Lucasarts. The quality of games they produced was crazy good. That quality dipped a little during the prequel era of Star Wars games, but that was more to do with the number of games they were putting out. There was still gold in there as well. Republic Commando, Empire At War, Knights Of The Old Republic and the original Battlefront games all received releases after The Phantom Menace was released and they are great games.
But there was a dark time in Star Wars gaming. In 2012 Disney bought Lucasfilm, dissolved Lucasarts and gave EA a 10-year contract to make Star Wars video games. According to their website, in those 10 years EA made 6 games. The first game they released under the agreement was the new Battlefront, probably most known for causing countries to take a serious look at loot boxes. When the most memorable thing about your game is that it prompted countries to make new laws, well that’s not a good thing.
There was a bright spot in EA’s reign and that was Jedi: Fallen Order. After saying for years that people don’t want single player experiences, Fallen Order proved EA wrong. I enjoyed the combat and the story immensely. It scratched an itch that had been annoying me for so long. It took seven years for EA to give me something I could enjoy and when not long after they announced that a sequel was in the works (the recently released Jedi: Survivor), I was so happy that we were getting video games that were contributing to the Star Wars universe in a significant way again.
That’s why my favourite Star Wars game is Jedi: Fallen Order.
Those are our picks for GOA’s favourite Star Wars games. What do you think? Did we miss your favourite? Let us know!
