Star Wars games today.

[CaptHawkeye]

So I decided to be all nostalgic and shit and play Jedi Knight II and it occurred to me that despite being so old JKII is the last Star Wars game I ever played that actually felt like Star Wars. I'm not sure what causes this feeling though, when I crack open JKII I feel like watching the movies and when I watch the movies I feel like playing JKII.

Yet this is despite the game's spastic controls and combat and that at face value don't look right at all. Plus the game's typical by-the-numbers "Sith long johns of doom" plot device. I play JKII when i'm in the mood for Star Wars, not necessarily a well designed video game.

Compare this to KOTOR. KOTOR is basically a really good RPG that's well designed and very interactive. Yet despite being a good game, never once in any of the Bioware made Star Wars games has it ever actually felt like Star Wars. It feels like an RPG game with droids and lightsabers and these Jedi characters, but not Star Wars.

I say this lately because I looked at The Old Republic and while it may be a good/bad MMORPG I don't really care. It calls itself Star Wars but it doesn't look at all like Star Wars. Which produces this weird uncanny valley feeling when I think about it. All this has made me think about the old SW video games vs. the new ones and why I haven't had interest in any SW game for years. (Except for LEGO Star Wars.) IE: The new games generally don't embody the feeling of SW very well, which is a simple space adventure serial. In fact the newer games (IE: KOTOR, Force Unleashed, Empire at War etc) feel more like the prequels. Slow, self absorbed, confusing, and excessive. While the older Star Wars games, like TIE Fighter, Jedi Knight, Shadows of the Empire, Racer etc all feel like they're parts of the original movies.

So am I the only person who feels this way? That their is a big dissonance between what Lucasarts does now vs. back then?

[Aaron MkII]

Nope, I've long abandoned SW games, except the Lego ones, they capture the feel because there is a light hearted element to them that was present in the OTHER.

[Stark]

You might be disabled, because the JK games had almost nothing that sold the game as 'Star Wars'. I mean the lightsabre cuts thing was so poorly implemented it was silly, and the fights looked retarded.

It was probably just the low-budget videos of awesome that did it to you.

And man Kotor has a fucking visor equipment slot desipte literally nobody in Star Wars ever wearing one, because GOTTA HAVE HELMETS AM I RIGHT. Bioware = best developer ever.

PS play SW Kinect; just like real rancors only largely immune to TIE bombers!

[Aaron MkII]

Can I dance with Han?

[CaptHawkeye]

But mang they did. I play JK and it feels SW-y. I think the level design, settings, and art design is probably what really makes the association. The gameplay was Quake-copy shit even by 2001 standards but god damn I had fun with it. Don't get me started on the goofiness of the saber mechanics I was no fan of that shit either. But it had the look of one of the films, not all the ass ugly shit in TOR that resembles nothing. I mean hey it's probably just me but you'd think games like Force Unleashed then would appeal to me for the same reasons JK did and they don't.

[Stark]

Force Unleashed has platforming. No idea what they were thinking.

Also I'm so glad that the carbonite's gone.

[houser2112]

all feel like they're parts of the original movies.

I think you answered your own question. Nostalgia for the OT is making the games set in the Rebellion era resonate more with you. I feel the same way.

[CaptHawkeye]

But I liked Lego Clone Wars, even though it's set in the prequels and hate Force Unleashed, which is set in OT.

[Knife]

Honestly, JKI was way better, especially in the SW feel. It had more... npc's, random neutral people wandering around. JK II, by comparison, had huge maps that were empty of people besides the poor louts you were going to force choke off a bridge. That's not to say I disliked JK II, rather found of it but as a SW feel, JK I was better. Running through the doomed ship to get to the Moldy Crow and escape... Awesome.

[TheFeniX]

Honestly, JKI was way better, especially in the SW feel. It had more... npc's, random neutral people wandering around. JK II, by comparison, had huge maps that were empty of people besides the poor louts you were going to force choke off a bridge.

It was hard to really get into Nar Shadda in JK2 because it was so fucking empty and it didn't capture the scale or the depth JK1 did years ago. Did the game even have neutral NPCs? I honestly can't remember. I know the NPC system has support for neutral NPCs, but I can't remember any in the actual game. I still think it did a pretty good job capturing the feel of Star Wars.

I didn't particularly like Jedi Academy (JK3) Single-player, but it definitely did feel like a new generation of Knights trying to protect the galaxy. I don't know if it's true, but it feels like completely different teams of programmers were brought it to design different levels and it shows. This level was particularly awesome.

As for KOTOR it was pretty hit or miss. There were loads of fantasy elements and the combat always felt more like D&D than SW (no surprise there though). And it's hard to feel like Star Wars when many of the sidequests were just carbon copies of those we had for years. The whole Mind link plot and twist was cool, but didn't strike me as SW. KOTOR2 was more a game about morality and how we influence other people.

It's hard to feel epic in SWTOR when you're running around collecting bear flanks for 50% of the game. That said, there were definitely moments that got me going. The Jedi Knight has one boss where you're fighting a Sith Lord while dodging death ray LAZORS FROM SPAAAACE! How that wasn't instead a flashpoint or raid boss, I'll never fucking know.

EP3 for Xbox did a good job capturing the feel of Star Wars. Too bad it was never really fleshed out more. But for a "movie game" it was exceptional.

I think the main problem is people have different ideas of what the Star Wars "feel" is. But I think the old WEG D6 game did a good job explaining how an adventure should go. Game developes don't focus on scenes like "The Chase," The "run like Hell scene" or that the heros in SW spend a good amount of time sneaking around. Many of these games lack a sense of desperation that's critical for that Star Wars feel IMO.

[Losonti Tokash]

I think the only SW game I've ever really liked a lot was KOTOR2, a lot of which had to do with how Obsidian used Kreia to basically dismember and ridicule the entire concept of Light side/Dark side morality.

[Havok]

Jedi Knight was garbage. I hated the way it played, looked and felt. It didn't feel "Star War-sy" at all to me. Kyle Katarn felt like just another rip off of Han Solo: NOW WITH FORCE POWERS! He was about as original as Dash Rendar.

As far as "feeling" Star Wars, sorry, but no game comes close to me. There are some that have their moments, but that is it.

Putting aside any movie based games, which are all gawd awful, there are...

The X-Wings/Tie Fighter series .
The Jedi Knight series.
The KOTOR games.
The Battlefront series.
The Lego Star Wars series.
And then the MMOs, Galaxies and The Old Republic.

Honestly, do any of those feel like Star Wars? I mean, even the PT doesn't feel like Star Wars according to like 95% of fans.
The closest is Lego Star Wars, and that is because it is FUN.

None of those other games are fun, they just have their cool Star Wars moments, but none of them are fun to play. They are tedious or serious or overly dramatic. Most at their best are just bad attempts to bunch the cool moments together, the rest are just crap.

[Stark]

The best part is the way the horrid flight games which were obviously nothing like Star Wars then created an EU author that redefined SW as 'like X-Wing'. It's fascinating recursion, but that's probably why people think those games 'feel Star Wars' when they are objectively nothing at all like star wars.

[Havok]

Well look at what Los just said... "Deconstructs biggest theme in Star Wars = Feels most like Star Wars!"
I mean...

[Stark]

He just said he liked it, maybe because it turned the setting on its head (well the stupid EU shit anyway). But no game has any swashbuckling feel or mobile, fast paced plots because they're corridor strollers or scripted RPGs, ap it's no surprise.

[Havok]

He just said he liked it, maybe because it turned the setting on its head (well the stupid EU shit anyway). But no game has any swashbuckling feel or mobile, fast paced plots because they're corridor strollers or scripted RPGs, ap it's no surprise.

That is for sure.
And true, he did only say he liked it. However, liking that one for that reason says everything you need to know about every Star Wars game... like, ever.

[Stark]

I think that's what he was saying.

For me a SW game where the answer isn't 'blast it' or 'trust your feelings' has missed the mark. Hell, deciding when to blast and when to trust feelings would make a fun boardgame. Blast too early and cause problems! Trust wrong feelings and cause problems! Pace, pace, pace!

I can't even think of a single SW game where you got the sense you were going anywhere fast. I don't mean in speed terms; but in 'death star levels' you're strolling down corridors, not zipping back and forth all over a huge base sometimes trusting your feelings and sometimes blasting and then running the hell away (and blasting, then trusting your feelings). But modern video games don't really do situations or problem-solving or 'challenges' in the board game sense very well, preferring to just have endless set-piece battles and push-the-box puzzles.

[CaptHawkeye]

The X-Wing series is funny too because so many people want it back for all the same reasons your average space sim would suck today. Long periods of "fly to point 15km today" and "inspect crate", "inspect another crate". I admit nostalgia is the main draw to a lot of these games today. If you made JKII back in 2001 today it would be shit. Hell, plenty of people thought it was shit back in 01.

Meanwhile LEGO Clone Wars is around and people don't believe me when I tell them "it's the best SW game in years". Not enough grimdark Sith brooding I guess?

[Stark]

Its both funny, fast-paced, has variety, and a frankly really impressive battle thing going on.

But yeah, not enough SITH ARTEFACTS.

Hell just the blast off -> fight -> land -> fight thing is a really good flow. If the galaxy conquest thing was a full game it'd be amazing.

[Havok]

Meanwhile LEGO Clone Wars is around and people don't believe me when I tell them "it's the best SW game in years". Not enough grimdark Sith brooding I guess?

I made a whole thread about this.

[Eleas]

But mang they did. I play JK and it feels SW-y. I think the level design, settings, and art design is probably what really makes the association. The gameplay was Quake-copy shit even by 2001 standards but god damn I had fun with it. Don't get me started on the goofiness of the saber mechanics I was no fan of that shit either. But it had the look of one of the films, not all the ass ugly shit in TOR that resembles nothing. I mean hey it's probably just me but you'd think games like Force Unleashed then would appeal to me for the same reasons JK did and they don't.

I agree that JK II felt like Star Wars. The original JK, though, was an abominable brown-grey smudge on the monitor with very little commonality to either the movies or its direct predecessor. Mysteries of the Sith was, if possible, even worse.

[Rahvin]

I know the X-Wing/TIE Fighter games had their flaws, and it's entirely possible that this is just nostalgia influencing me, but I would immediately throw down money for a modern update of X-Wing vs TIE Fighter. And buy a new joystick, because I haven't owned one since like 2001.

The console Star Wars space action/sims didn't quite do it for me, and neither did the Rogue Squadron series. TIE Fighter remains one of my favorite games of all time, let alone Star Wars, and perhaps the biggest "OMG STAR WARS" trigger for me is flying near a massive Star Destroyer, having flashbacks to the opening scene of ANH or the introduction of the Executor in TESB. That shit hits me way harder than just lightsabers.

[TC Pilot]

So am I the only person who feels this way? That their is a big dissonance between what Lucasarts does now vs. back then?

I think that the only difference is between how they try to go about making a game "feel like Star Wars."

Every game rehashes something from the movies, whether it's the sound (effects, music, even dialouge), visuals, or plot. I'm pretty sure Dark Forces 1 and 2 are the only games that don't have you revisting Hoth or Tatooine for the trillionth time, and some games virtually just rehash the movies (take for example blowing up either Death Star in X-Wing or X-Wing Alliance). The difference, though, is whether or not the game lets you play out some aspect of "Star Wars." X-Wing let you fly around in ships and blow stuff up. Jedi Outcast gives you a lightsaber and Force powers (and does it well enough). KOTOR gives you the Star Wars story. Lego Star Wars gives you a bit of everything. If you like a particular aspect more than others, the game that lets you experience that is going to feel Star Wars-y.

[Stark]

Being near a massive star destroyer with hit points and six guns and being shot a dozen times before you die and killing swathes of no threat TIEs and juggling power bars and shunting laser power to shields.

Just like in Star Wars. :v if people are hooked on the shapes and colours that's fine, but it's pretty shallow. People should just admit they like slow bland turning simulators and not action games.

[TC Pilot]

I dunno, for a game that came out in 1995, I think TIE Fighter did it alright. Though what the hell do I know about flight sims?

I don't doubt nostalgia plays a big part in it. The last game widely considered "good" (aside from Lego) was Republic Commando, which came out back in 2005. After that? We've gotten Empire at War, Force Unleashed, and now The Old Republic. Compared with all the books and stuff LFL is churning out, Lucasarts is practically closed down.