Before my love for Atari computers kicked into gear, my favorite thing as a kid was Star Wars. I’m old enough to have seen the original Star Wars (before it was called A New Hope) in the theatre. As I recall, my Dad took me when I was 6 years old and I can clearly remember the opening crawl and that giant Star Destroyer. I remember when Darth Vader first appeared, entering the rebel ship, I leaned over to my Dad and asked him if that was the bad guy. He just shushed me and said to watch the movie and I’d find out. I think my Dad was just as in awe as I was.
Star Wars Atari Games
Star Wars was made to become a video game and the one most people remember is the amazing arcade game release by Atari in 1983. Star Wars arcade used vector graphics to recreate the Death Star battle from A New Hope. I always loved the arcade version, but mostly just to watch other play it. I found it rather hard for me to play. There were other Star Wars arcade games that came out later, but don’t think I’ve actually played any of them.
Of course, being the most popular home console of the early 80s, the Atari 2600 had a few Star Wars games, with Empire Strikes Back being the best known. This game from Parker Brothers was essentially a clone of Defender, but it reasonably recreated the opening Battle of Hoth from the Empire Strikes Back. In it you controlled a snow speeder and had to take down the AT-AT Imperial Walkers before they reached the base. This game was a thumb and joystick-breaker as it took many, many shots to finally destroy a walker. Autofire would have been helpful back then!
There was also Jedi Arena, which I never liked. This was some sort of lightsaber-themed game, but I could never figure it out.
Star Wars: The Arcade Game was also released for the 2600, which has a surprisingly good port considering the limitations of the 2600. There were no vector graphics, of course, but the overall gameplay was there as well as some snippets of the Star Wars theme.
There was also Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle, which I always found to be fun. It consisted of multiple parts starting with the Millennium Falcon having to bust through the force field to get to the Death Star. In some ways it is similar to Yars Revenge.
Star Wars The Arcade Game was also released for the 8-bit computers and the graphics were much better there, as you’d expect.
In the 80s, popular games were often rereleased for new platforms so there was also a version of Star Wars arcade for the Atari ST. It is even more impressive.
After the break, paid members can continue reading about some of my treasured Star Wars figures that I’ve had since the late 80s and early 80s, all stored in this equally old case.