Liesel Plays Star Wars Games

The Atari 2600 was before my time. I never played one, saw one, or even heard of one as a kid, so as a result, I have no nostalgic fondness for the console whatsoever. I can definitely appreciate its importance in the history of video games, but I can’t experience the wow factor that its games originally provided. Most of my knowledge about the system comes from YouTube. I’ve played some 2600 games on emulators, and while some of them are fun for, well, a few minutes, give me a good NES game any day.

So what did the 2600 have to offer in terms of Star Wars games? Let’s find out. Oh, and just so we’re clear, I’m playing these games on emulators because I’m freakin’ poor and I’m not going to the trouble of finding a working Atari 2600 system, then finding a TV it will work on, then buying the carts just for this blog. Call it cheating all you want, I don’t care. I think I can still get the basic gameplay experience through emulators.



First off is Star Wars: The Arcade Game. This is a port of the arcade game that was pretty revolutionary for its day, due to the use of early 3D graphics. I don’t think I’ve ever played the actual arcade version, but as for this port, there’s a nice little chiptune rendition of the Star Wars theme on the opening screen, so that’s a point in its favor. Graphically, it’s pretty impressive by Atari 2600 standards. It gives you a first-person view inside an X-Wing – I assume you’re Luke since your goal is to destroy the first Death Star, but you could be any random X-Wing pilot. Hey, pretend you’re Biggs – then he can not only live, but save the day!

The controls are pretty damn wonky, though. What really got on my nerves was that you can’t move your crosshairs and shoot at the same time. Yeah, if you’re shooting, your crosshairs is stuck in one place, and if you’re moving the crosshairs, you can’t shoot, which makes shooting stuff more of a hassle than it needs to be.

Anyway, the game is in three parts, none of which are very long. At the beginning, you’re in space, shooting TIE Fighters. You can get hit nine times before you die, as the game so helpfully informs you at the top of the screen. The TIEs set off little balls that I guess are supposed to be explosives, since if you don’t shoot them on time they blow up and you take damage. But maybe I’m wrong – maybe they’re mini Death Stars. After The Last Jedi included miniaturized Death Star technology, it wouldn’t surprise me. Or maybe they’re oranges. Yeah, exploding oranges.

After about a minute of shooting TIEs, you fly over to the Death Star and shoot gun towers and more explosives on the surface. This goes on for about another minute, then you’re into the trench, where you keep shooting and duck around forcefields until BOOM, Death Star bye bye. Of course, this being an arcade game, then the whole thing starts all over again on a higher difficulty. Yeah, remember the days when beating the first level of a game was an accomplishment? I’ve only been able to reach the third difficulty level on this one.

So, what’s my verdict? Well, the graphics are good – everything is recognizable except for the explosives/mini Death Stars/exploding oranges. However, the gameplay hasn’t aged well. I mean, you can’t move and shoot at the same time? That’s just a joke. It’s definitely playable (which is more than can be said for some Atari 2600 games), but it shows its age rather badly.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.



Next up, The Empire Strikes Back. ESB was a superior movie sequel, so will this be a superior game sequel? Let’s find out.

This time you’re on Hoth, flying around in a snowspeeder. Again, you’re probably supposed to be Luke (and dearly departed Dak), but you could imagine that you’re, say, Wedge if you want. Or hey, you could even imagine that Han and Leia are fighting in the battle. The graphics aren’t as good as in the first Star Wars game, in fact they’re rather pathetic – they have that blocky MS Paint look that a lot of Atari 2600 games have. Also, the sky is pink for some reason. I guess the Empire decided to attack at sunrise.

Anyway, you’re flying in your snowspeeder and shooting at the AT-ATs. This time, you can actually move and shoot at the same time – how about that! The AT-ATs also, I’m not making this up, change color as you shoot them. Seriously, they turn all the colors of the rainbow – I don’t know why the Empire would install that feature, but it’s pretty funny. Of course, they’re also shooting at you – and they can shoot out of their asses, make up your own joke about that. Every so-often, the AT-AT’s weak spot will flash for a few seconds – shoot the weak spot a few times and it explodes.

This game is actually pretty fun. It’s basic as all hell (like many Atari 2600 games), but it’s fun to fly around and blast those AT-ATs (and watch them change color). It also offers a decent challenge, seeing as how the AT-ATs can blast you from anywhere and you can only take a few hits before your snowspeeder explodes. Also, when you get a game over, the sky explodes in a multitude of colors. I guess that’s supposed to be the Echo Base power generator blowing up – let’s hope everyone evacuated in time. The sound that accompanies the explosion is actually a bit unsettling, believe it or not.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.



Now we have Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle. As you can imagine from the title, now you’re battling to destroy the second Death Star. No fancy first-person graphics this time around, though. You’re piloting the Millennium Falcon – I wonder if this was the first time players could control the Millennium Falcon in a video game. Damn, just my luck, I get to fly the Millennium Falcon, but my Han’s not in it.

What was I talking about? Oh right, the game. It’s in two parts, both of which are, of course, really short. At the beginning, you’re shooting TIEs and Imperial Shuttles and whatnot outside the second Death Star’s shield, which keeps changing color for some reason. I guess the Empire really likes color-changing weapons. After a few seconds, an opening in the shield reveals itself – fly in there and you get this neat 3D-ish transition of flying through it. Pretty impressive for the time.

Part 2 involves chipping away at the actual Death Star to get to its reactor core in the center. Yes, you’re blasting pieces off the Death Star – it’s pretty funny to watch. At first my firing range was too short to hit the inner parts of the Death Star, but then I realized that you get a longer range if you hold down the button. Some Imperials fly in with blocks to fix the Death Star, but I’m not sure what happens if they finish building it, since I always either get blown up or destroy the thing before its finished.

It sounds easy enough to take out the Death Star bit by bit while avoiding TIEs and other Imperial ships, but there’s one BIG complication. Guarding the reactor core is a little green block that shoots at you relentlessly – I don’t know what it’s called, so I’ll name it the Green Block of Doom. The Green Block of Doom is bound and determined to protect the reactor core and it only takes one blast from it to blow up the Falcon. Seriously, I lost count of how many times this thing killed me. You have to carefully lure it out of the way to get a shot at the reactor core, which is easier said than done given how relentlessly it shoots at you. When you finally get the core, the Death Star blows up with some nice animation, then rinse and repeat.

This game’s all right. Though the Green Block of Doom is frustrating as hell, it’s still pretty creative how it executes destroying the second Death Star (chipping away at it piece by piece is priceless). Nothing overly special, but fun to kill a few minutes with.

Rating: 3 out of 5.



Now we have Return of the Jedi: Ewok Adventure. This is a prototype for a game that was cancelled before its release, but it’s still playable – well, playable in a loose sense of the word, at least. This one tries to be more complicated than the other Atari 2600 Star Wars games. Instead of one or two screens, this one has an actual map. Yeah, you fly in – I guess it’s an Ewok glider – all over Endor and the environment changes colors as you change screens. There’s an arrow at the bottom of the screen to tell you which way to go.

The glider’s kind of hard to control – I don’t know if it’s because I’m using an emulator or if the control is just bad. Another gripe I have with this game is that you have a limited amount of ammo, so you don’t get to have fun shooting everything in sight. Nope, you’ve got to just avoid most of the stormtroopers, speeder bikes, and AT-STs, which isn’t as much fun.

But you wanna know my BIGGEST gripe with the game? Every time you get hit, the Ewok gets out of the glider, slowly walks back a short distance, and gets back in. You have to watch this EVERY. SINGLE. TIME and it gets super annoying when you just want to get back to the game. Also, at one point I stole an AT-ST by sheer accident, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it again.

Anyway, eventually you reach the second Death Star’s shield generator. Hopefully you have ammo left, so shoot it and it explodes in a psychedelic blast of colors (the fuck? We give Han’s big moment to a random Ewok?). Yeah, it’s probably not a good idea to play this game if you have epilepsy.

Is it fair for me to give this game a rating when it wasn’t actually released? Well, seeing as how you can play the prototype, yeah, it’s fair. This game REALLY shows its age, more than the others. The controls are clunky and watching that damn Ewok walk back EVERY time you get hit REALLY gets on your nerves. I had the least amount of fun with this one.

Rating: 2 out of 5.



Finally, we have Star Wars: Jedi Arena. I never would have guessed that this was a Star Wars game just by looking at it. Seriously, look at that – it looks like some weird pinball game. Well, turns out that the paddle-things are supposed to be lightsabers and the ball thing in the middle is a training remote.

The goal of the game is to destroy the forcefield-thing in front of your opponent’s goal by using blasts from the remote and then shooting a blast into the goal. The remote moves on its own, but you can press the button to make it shoot blasts and with timing, it might break a section of your opponent’s forcefield, but most likely your opponent will block it with its lightsaber. I don’t know if this game sucks or if I just suck at it, but I almost never broke a bit of the computer’s forcefield.

This game is super basic and super weird and super not-fun. There’s a good idea in here somewhere and with a bit more polish it might have been fun, but as it is . . . eh. Again, maybe I just suck at it, but it takes forever even for the computer to break my forcefield. I really don’t have much more to say about it, but . . . at least there’s a cool lightsaber hum sound effect.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Okay, this is probably the only time that I’ll review five games in one post, given that most of the games I’ll be playing aren’t as simple as these. In fact, most of the time it will probably take me more than one post to review a single game. Next time, I’ll be looking at the NES Star Wars game, so I’ll see you then.