Classic star wars computer games

Star Wars is one of the most prolific franchises in the world. There are countless movies, books, and video games based on the space opera.

Nearly every Star Wars game is playable on PC, anyway. Dark Forces was one of the first Star Wars first-person shooters, released in , just two years after the first Doom.

Their new engine allowed the developers to create more varied, and bigger levels and higher fidelity graphics. Players take on the role of Kyle Katarn, a mercenary hired by the Rebel Alliance to first get the plans to the Death Star later retconned by Rogue One, of course and then investigate the creation of Dark Troopers. Dark Forces, while no longer cannon, laid the groundwork for several major elements of the Star Wars universe even now — Kyle Katarn and Dark Troopers are both part of the new Disney cannon.

It follows a similar structure to the original Star Wars: Battlefront games in that its primary single-player mode is Galactic Conquest, where players must conquer the galaxy as the Empire, or liberate it as the Rebels. Empire at War features an entire galaxy for the player to tackle. A great deal of strategy comes in deciding to attack a resource-producing planet, its weapon and production facilities, or its bonuses conferred to various unit types.

Petroglyph's Empire At War even has multiplayer again these days, after the developer switched it back on in September. If one sci-fi multimedia series isn't enough for you, check out Andy's recent feature where he pitted the ships of Star Wars against those of Star Trek in a brilliantly detailed mod, then try it out yourself.

Rogue Squadron, I suspect, was created to emulate Nintendo's brilliant Star Fox 64, with planets represented as little hubs and most completable in the space of about ten minutes. It's a really easy game to get to grips with in terms of the way each Rebel craft moves, and it was nice counter-programming to the X-Wing series if you weren't always in the mood for a sim experience.

The only thing that drove me insane about Rogue Squadron is that its two best levels—and surely a reason to buy the game for most people—were the Death Star trench run and the Battle of Hoth, both of which were hidden bonuses that had to be arduously unlocked by collecting gold medals.

They should've been the first missions in the game! Hopefully it happens someday. Knights of the Old Republic's success comes down to a single smart creative decision.

By setting their story thousands of years before the events of the films, BioWare neatly removed themselves from the complex and contradictory state of the expanded universe in the early noughties. Given the freedom to do more or less what they wanted, they were able to build a Star Wars RPG that made that galaxy far, far away feel fresh again. This was an era when Star Wars fiction was frequently tripped up by its addiction to iconic characters and set-pieces.

The original Knights of the Old Republic demonstrates that repetition can actually be a good thing if it's sufficiently well executed. The plot is, after all, built from familiar parts—easy-going smugglers and their lifebound wookiee companions, deadly battlestations, young Jedi learning about the Force. Knights of the Old Republic works because it drills deeper into these ideas than anyone had for a long time, capturing what made those original moments special in the first place.

I'm pretty sure that Revan moment was the most surprised I'd been by a Star Wars story since the first time I saw The Empire Strikes back, even though the two reveals are structurally equivalent to each other. This, incidentally, is the key to understanding the difference between KOTOR and its sequel—the former is an intelligent reconstruction of familiar Star Wars notions, while the latter is an intelligent deconstruction of them.

That's perhaps a tangent too far. The point is: this series represents a high point for developers investing serious thought into their Star Wars stories. You should play it for that reason. It had the ambition and the credentials for it—one of Ultima Online's lead designers creating a fully-3D persistent world where everything was driven by players. A ground-to-space simulation of the Star Wars universe with player houses, player cities, player ships, player factions.

It's the dream that currently powers Star Citizen, and it almost saw the light of day a decade ago. I'm still a little heartbroken that it didn't. SWG sits near the top of the list of my personal games of all time, and I'm still angry about the way it all panned out. This was an extraordinary game for roleplayers. The chance to just live in a totally open, totally customisable simulation of the Star Wars universe was an irresistible one, and when it worked, it worked wonderfully.

I feel like Roy Batty at the end of Blade Runner saying this, but man—I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. I've played through Star Wars stories that you'll never get a chance to because they only existed because of the power SWG gave its players. I've taken down a rival bounty hunter in a duel in the streets of Bestine.

I've flipped an Imperial gunboat upside-down so that the fleeing spy manning the top-mounted railgun can get a clear shot at the A-Wing on our tail. Star Wars Galaxies was killed by two things: balance problems and its license. The former is something that should have been handled with far more care, and the latter is something that shouldn't have been a problem at all. By the time the game matured, Star Wars had become a set of symbols, and the game was ripped apart by the need to cram as many of them into it as possible.

Iconic 'theme park' worlds. Collectible movie trinkets. A little button at the start that lets you be a Jedi by clicking a picture of Luke Skywalker. All of this was utterly contrary to the spirit of the game SOE originally set out to make, but it can't take away from how many wonderful experiences I managed to have before it all fell apart. Jedi Knight 2's lightsaber mechanics are important not only to the history of Star Wars games, but to multiplayer gaming on the PC in general.

This was the game that established a passionate, competitive community dedicated to the concept of the one-on-one melee duel. Jedi Academy expanded and improved many of these ideas, but Jedi Outcast was there first. This was the first game to make duels feel like duels—acrobatic contests between two skilled combatants using deadly weapons. Most Star Wars games still get this wrong, treating sabers like regular swords.

Jedi Knight 2 made the weapon in your hand feel hot, lethal, precarious. Each contest with Dasaan's dark Jedi was imbued with a sense of danger. A note of praise, too, for the campaign. Early-noughties Raven shooters were a staple of my adolescence, reliably exciting action-adventures with colourful characters and great set-pieces. Jedi Knight 2 is among their best work, particularly the sense of mounting power it encourages.

You start off without a lightsaber, crawling through vents and blasting Stormtroopers a la other Dark Forces games. By the end you're a force of nature, culling whole squads at a time as a blur of Force power and hot blue light. Well worth revisiting. The successor to a Bioware game, developed at a frenzied pace in only a year and a half, littered with cut content to hit its release date, and at times like, a lot of times utterly crippled with bugs.

Even playing KotOR 2 years after its initial release, with a forum-brewed concoction of bug fixes and content-restoration patches , it's quite possibly the buggiest game I've ever completed.

And yet it's brilliant, in spite of all those issues. At least, not the classical film Star Wars of unambiguous heroes and villains, where the light side of the Force is always right. Lead designer Chris Avellone took Star Wars to the darkest place it's ever been.

The Jedi are imperfect. The Sith are nuanced—manipulative, intimidating, but obviously scarred and broken in human ways that led to their downfall. Your mentor Kreia spends much of the game criticizing the Jedi, and she always speaks about the Force in shades of gray. Knights of the Old Republic 2 is the rare Star Wars game—really the rare video game, in general—that will show bad things happening to characters even when you try to help them. Kreia is the key to KotOR 2's greatness, a character who is clearly haunted, bitter, manipulative, and yet right in so many ways.

Set in a galaxy far, far away, Star Wars Pinball lets you interact with the most iconic characters, and relive the greatest moments in the Star Wars universe. In Pack 2, feel the disturbance in the Force in Star Wars Pinball: Balance of the Force, featuring three brand new pinball tables, immersing fans in the most iconic from the films. Experience the power of the dark side with a special Darth Vader tribute table.

Finally, choose to support the Rebel Alliance Fleet or the Galactic Empire's Armada as you take your place in the battle and complete missions to establish your position as an elite force in the Starfighter fleet. Join the Angry Birds in their biggest adventure yet! A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away Rebel birds, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Imperial Pigs.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Pig Star, and are racing to deliver the plans to the Rebel birds.

Now they need your help! Join an epic adventure with the Angry Birds in the legendary Star Wars universe! Use the Force, wield your Lightsaber, and blast away Pigtroopers on an intergalactic journey from the deserts of Tatooine to the depths of the Pig Star -- where you'll face off against the terrifying Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Pigs! Can you become a Jedi Master and restore freedom to the galaxy?

Time to grab your Lightsaber and join the adventure! May the birds be with you! Star Wars: Card Trader app offers a fun and engaging way to collect and trade digital collectibles, complete missions to unlock special content, trade-in lower tier collectibles for rarer ones, and the ability to customize your profile by showcasing your favorite collectibles and choosing character-based avatars.

You can also channel your inner droid builder in an all-new virtual experience where you can build a digital droid and create a whole new virtual collection of droids! Awaken your iMessages with this exclusive animated Star Wars sticker pack! Express yourself with iconic Star Wars imagery that you can place anywhere in your iMessages. This exclusive animated Star Wars sticker pack is something truly special.

We only know one truth. Layer stickers over your photos to compose images for your friends and family. Express yourself with classic phrases from the original Star Wars film. Go rogue with this exclusive animated Star Wars sticker pack! Skip Navigation Disney. Log In.