A couple months back I saw Obi Wan for the Xbox in a Goodwill store. Now, I'll admit, I would have purchased it if it came complete with the manual as anything in a DVD or bluray sized case is $5/3. Fortunately it didn't but it did get me thinking about certain titles that I avoided over the years but otherwise would have bought simply because they were Star Wars.

For me this starts post NES. I did purchase and complete Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back for the NES. I got my first real PC probably in 1996 and that's really where the selectivity starts.

I gobbled up most of the early PC games as they were on CD-ROM by that point. I remember picking up Rebel Assault II and loving it. Back then it was the next best thing to a new Star Wars film. Then again, it still might be considering all of the film post OT but I digress. At some point, either with that title or something else, I was exposed to the demo for the first Rebel Assault. It might of been revolutionary for it's time but it seemed unplayable to me.

The next game I remember intentionally avoiding is Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi. Now I didn't own a PS but an awesome Star Wars game would have persuaded me to purchase one. In fact, later, I would pick up an N64 and I think I have all the Star Wars games released for that. Same for the Gamecube.

It must have been around this time as well that Star Wars: Rebellion was released. It just wasn't my sort of game. I think I might have borrowed it from someone but I don't remember getting anywhere with it.

Force Commander is another one I would have purchased if not for all the negative reviews. I liked RTSs a lot back then. It used to be that games were pretty pricey so that aspect really influenced all of these decisions especially if it entailed a new system.

You could say that I avoided Flight of the Falcon for the GBA I guess. I was deployed the first time to Iraq in '03-04 and was using my daughters pink Game Boy Advance (that drew criticism, too bad we didn't have the breast cancer thing to hide behind then). I would have ordered it but the reviews were poor. I don't remember if I ever tried the rom on the DS with the flashcart.

Last one I can think of is Star Wars Galaxies. I've intentionally avoided all MMOs.

In contrast to all of this is that the only game I ever pre-ordered was a Star Wars title and that was to get a bonus disc with the original vector graphics Star Wars arcade game. Maybe later I'll try to list all of the games I did purchase.

Oh, never purchased a Star Wars Battlefront game until Santa was nice enough to give us a PS4 that came with the newest one. Wasn't really opposed to them but being more interested in story driven single player games, I never picked one up.

I bought almost every PC game from Rebel Assault up to and including the Episode I game. At that point I realized that the good old LucasArts was gone.

Ugh Force Commander. I was so excited for that game and we made a site and put a bunch of effort into it... then it sucked bad. I never played Rebel Assault but one I liked that a lot of people didn't was Shadows of the Empire. I played it on N64 and we played through and got all the challenge points which was a huge PITA. That might be the last game I spent time replaying the levels over and over to get the extra crap (one prior to that was Mario on N64).

The latest Star Wars games I bought and liked was Empire at War, though that was ages ago. I avoided all of the racing games and aside from the X-Wing and Tie Fighter games I kept away from the flight sims. As much as I love the games I think it all boils down to the atmosphere they emit, and a small amount of those games have it, but most don't. I got quite a few of the classics in a humble bundle recently and have been tinkering around in them, and it never ceases to amaze me how cobbled together some of the games in the late 90's and early 2000's feel. Though, at least there was Republic Commando.

I was into Force Commander, and very much wanted it to be good too.

I invited a friend over and we played a one-on-one match. Sadly, the match never ended, and we had to call it a draw, since the game seemed to be so poorly balanced in favor of defense, and neither of us succeed in breaking through the other's defenses.

I know that I rented the N64 just to play that game. I remember it being well received for a console game back then and it was a part of the whole "multi-media" launch of Shadows. That was a pretty cool time to be a Star Wars fan. Sometime around '99 I picked up a Star Wars bundle of the N64. I think it came with two controllers and Star Wars Ep I Racer. I enjoyed it and if you ever watch the full Boonta Eve race in the DVD special features I think the track is dead on in the game.



Yeah, probably really hit and miss in that time frame. I know there were several titles for other systems that just didn't appeal to me. There certainly were many good titles though.

Its a game I keep telling myself I like, but only for the soundtrack, which I know got a lot of crap, but it subverted the trend of using straight up music from the films, whereas Force Commander was a weird but enjoyable blend of film score and electronic rock.

I forgot about the music in Force Commander! I loved it, too!

There's only one Star Wars game that I intentionally avoided, and that's the new Battlefront, because I'm boycotting EA.

There are a ton that I avoided incidentally, because I either didn't have the console or I just didn't care enough to remember to buy them. It's not like they looked gross to me, they just didn't look interesting or important enough to think about.

Star Wars Starfighter, for example. I actually played that one about 8 years after it came out, it wasn't an awful game or anything, but it wasn't special. Like, if video games had a flavor, Starfighter's would be body temperature saliva. Do you feel like basically just existing for two hours, but not really contributing to the world or being changed by it? Then try Starfighter, it's probably what you're looking for.

There are a lot of Star Wars games like that. Most of them, even.

I was responding to this yesterday but the PC locked up. I doubt I would have picked up Battlefront if it weren't included in the console. It just so happened the best PS4 deal came with the Star Wars bundle. I actually already had three of the four games though. Anyway, one thing I hate about EA is their age restriction. I had to create a sub-account with a bogus age so my son can play online in EA games. Thanks for making it harder to use the parental control features EA!

It'd be easier for me to tell you the ones that I didn't avoid.

• Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
• Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
• Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
• Jedi Knight II: Jedi Academy
• Star Wars Episode I: Racer
• Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
• Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

I didn't hate any of the games above, but I could've done without a few of them. I've purposely avoided most Star Wars games because they were either too expensive for me or they didn't appeal to me once they weren't. For instance, I would've probably enjoyed playing Dark Forces had I not pretended that I was too cool for Star Wars back then & it's too silly to bother with now. I would've probably not given away my copy of Republic Commando after playing it for about an hour if I had some friends that were playing it online. X-Wing Alliance appeals to me in hindsight but looks like ass by today's standards, even with the updates. I don't typically like SP RPG games, so I handed KotoR off to a friend after less than an hour of gameplay. I've heard it's decent so maybe I'll try it again some time. I'd probably try the Battlefront games if they we're outdated by the time they were inexpensive enough for me to justify. I have a bunch of Star Wars games on Steam that were either gifted to me or included with something that I actually wanted in a bundle, but they're nearly all at the bottom of my to-play queue (with the possible exception of Empire at War--I don't know anything about the game but the idea of a SW RTS appeals to me).

I'm not gonna lie, the Death Star DLC for Battlefront does look rather enticing... but paying 50 EURbux for the Season Pass just to get it (at this stage, maybe it'll be available as a standlone later)? Meh.

As for the thread subject, well, I didn't exactly intentionally avoid any Star Wars games back in the day. When I first started SW gaming, I was always a bit bummed that I never found a copy of Rebel Assault 2 and thus missed it´out (on that matter, I think I only tested out Rebel Assault 1 from some Russian pirate CD - man, those were the days).

It's absolutely insane to me that we have to make accounts on external services to play console games. It seems like every game my son wants requires us to create a new account on some service. Ugh.

I don't mind so much if the process is very easy and can be completed in game. When I was looking up the issue we were having with him being able to play Battlefront or Need For Speed I found a conversation about a guy that was pissed that the game he purchased (digital download) for his son on his son's game account was essentially unplayable on that account due to his age and, of course, non-refundable.

Yeah it's asinine. I either have to make an account with my personal (or fake) information or make him an account with fake information. In both fake cases we risk losing access to the game if the company ever finds out.

I get that games are very expensive to make, but I don't want to be part of this economy where every company has to keep records of my personal life. The only way to keep your information safe is to not share it in the first place, and for sure to not share it with companies that are incapable of keeping it secure. They're all scumbags.

GOG is running some sort of Back to School sale this week and adding more deals everyday. Might be a good time to pick up some old Star Wars titles. None listed at this moment though.

Mentat referred to KoToR above. That game took me a couple tries to get into but once I did I was definitely hooked so maybe give it another shot. I managed to snag a free copy in the Amazon Appstore a couple years ago but I've never tried it yet. Still have the XBox version.

Ted Kaczynski was right.

Nah though, this is a really big problem. Data collection is huge and private corporations know more about us than should make us comfortable, and the legal system is woefully inadequate to defend our rights.

You can't protect your personal data with "the legal system" though. Even if companies promised, in writing, to do their best to keep our information secure, and they actually attempted to do this (as opposed to the current system in which they tell you they're going to sell your info), they'd still get hacked and the information would be out there.

I liked it last year when my bank refused to let me access my account unless I responded to a tiny questionnaire of theirs.

Which included the question "do you pay any taxes to the USA".

Now who wouldn't do that?

The legal system would have to make it illegal to actually collect the data.

Interesting. In a sane world I would correct you and say that the legislative system would have to do that but we do have the legal system essentially making laws now so no correction to your statement is really required in that regard.

The only game I've actively avoided was Super Bombard Racing.

(Every few years I get the urge to check this place is still going and it makes me so happy when it is.)

So I am messing around with DOSBox tonight. First thing I've installed so far is Dark Forces. I swear, it's just unplayable to me. I'm far too spoiled now. I downloaded Joy To Key and setup various controls for my 360 controller and I think I'd be pretty happy except strafe and turn conflict with each other so even though I have them both mapped to different buttons I still don't get the benefit of being able to turn and strafe at the same time. I remember back in the day I had strafe assigned to a button on top of the joystick. Hmm, maybe I need to rethink the setup I'm trying to emulate. Maybe if I put forward/back and turn on one stick and strafe and look up/down on the other. There were some really great classic levels I played twenty years ago. Assassinate Darth Vader by Jereth Kok and The Bounty Hunt by Peter Klassen. I met both of them through email back then (20 years ago) and that's pretty much how we came to collaborate on Condition Red. Funny, someone was concerned about calling it Red Alert because of the Command & Conquer game so we came up with Condition Red. It was supposed to be a last hoorah level for the game but there's been darn near 20 years of new levels still! Anyways, Jon, if you have a few spare minutes could you update the engine to properly support a four axis controller? k`thanx

I'm pretty sure you can buy the Death Star DLC separately without buying the season pass.

Condred was one fabulous level, Steve Miller.

I was honored to work with them. They did all the heavy lifting. Funny thing is that I can still remember that Cool Edit 96 registered to Steve Miller has the password FNKPVRNO. Or as I like to remember it, Funk Pervno. Peter knew how to hack the passwords and we needed that to convert WAVs to whatever format DF used. What's a recent let's play. Totally forgot I was Grand Admiral Thrawn. Bow down, *****es!

If you have dosbox up and running you should check out Master of Magic. One of my favorite games of all times. If Zelda didn't exist it might be my favorite game of all time.

At the time of that writing, at least, you couldn't (in Finland at least). Haven't checked the situation after that.

Reminds me of the time I replayed Might and Magic IV and V via Dosbox on my Nokia N900. Good times. Too bad that Dosbox sucks on Android phones without a keyboard.

Scumm-vm is pretty fun. If I remember correctly I've messed around with it on Windows Mobile PDA, Android, and Nintendo DS. I know that's totally different from DOSBox but cool to mess with on different platforms.

Jepp, ScummVM is always one of the first things I install.

I see it on GOG. Maybe I'll pick it up on sale sometime. A few years back I picked up a Command & Conquer bundle on Origin (EA) through Amazon for $5. I downloaded Red Alert the other night and got a few episodes in on the Soviet side. I probably beat it back in the day and still have the CDs but 1) I wanted to see how it would work and 2) it's just a cool game. It's bundled with DOSBox so that's how it launches. I forgot that was a DOS or Windows game. I remember generally choosing to run games under DOS because they were more likely to work. At some point that changed and Windows launchers got better and more reliable and some games actually had features that didn't exist when played through DOS.

I think at some point they released Master of Magic for free. And also I used to have the floppies and I still have a cd version that was included in some huge pack with the old master of orion and other old games.