Star Wars (1983 video game)

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Star Wars
Developer(s) Atari, Inc
Publisher(s) Atari, Inc
Designer(s) Mike Hally
Platform(s) Arcade, Acorn Electron, Amiga, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit family , Atari ST Apple II, Apple Macintosh, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, ColecoVision, MS-DOS, ZX Spectrum
Release date July 1983 (Arcade)
1987 (Computer)
Genre(s) Retro/Simulation
Mode(s) Single player
Input methods Yoke (analog, 4-way);
1 button
Cabinet Upright and sit-down cockpit
Display Vector horizontal

Star Wars is an arcade game produced by Atari Inc. and released in 1983. The game is a first person space simulator, based around Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope. More specifically the game's action covers the final act of the movie: the attack on the Death Star. The game is composed of 3D color vector graphics.

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[edit] Gameplay

The player assumes the role of Luke Skywalker ("Red Five"), as he pilots an X-wing fighter from a first-person perspective. Unlike other arcade games of similar nature, the player does not have to destroy every enemy in order to advance through the game; he must simply survive as his fighter flies through the level, which most often means he must avoid or destroy the shots that enemies fire.

The player's ultimate goal is to destroy the Death Star through three attack phases.

  • In the second phase (occurring beginning with the second wave), the player reaches the Death Star's surface as laser turrets on towers rise to confront the player. If the player manages to destroy all of the towers, he will receive a sizeable point bonus.
  • In the final scenario, the player finds himself speeding through the trench of the Death Star, avoiding obstacles and blasting gun turrets until, finally firing a proton torpedo at the correct time for a direct hit on the exhaust port target. What follows, if the player is successful, is the Death Star exploding in a multitude of different colours. If the player manages to do this without firing at anything but the exhaust port, he will receive a sizeable point bonus for "using the force." Then it is on to do battle again.

Each successive Death Star run greatly increases the difficulty; TIE Fighters shoot more often, there are more Laser towers and batteries in the second round, and there are many more obstacles and laser fire during the trench run. Unlike the movie, where the units shoot beams similar to lasers, the enemy units in this game shoot projectiles resembling fireballs, in order to give the player a chance to destroy the fired shots.

[edit] Arcade details

The game featured several digitized samples of voices from the movie, including Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, Harrison Ford as Han Solo, the mechanized beeps of R2-D2, and the growls of Chewbacca.

The game is available as a standard upright or a sit-down cockpit version, both of which are elaborately decorated. The controls consist of a yoke control (similar to a steering wheel — twisting left and right gives combined roll and yaw; twisting forwards and backwards with the side control gives pitch) with four buttons — two trigger style and two in position to be pressed by the thumbs — each of which fired a laser positioned on the four leading edges of the X-Wings.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Ports

The game was published for the Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, Acorn Electron, BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum in Europe by Domark in 1987 and 1988. These ports were developed by UK-based Vektor Grafix. That same year Broderbund acquired the rights to develop Star Wars games from LucasFilm. Broderbund published the Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Commodore 64 and DOS versions of the arcade game in North America in 1988. Amiga and Atari ST versions are very similar to the original one. They allow possibility to mouse control and feature digitized sound effects. The Macintosh version contains sampled speech from the films, but has no in-game music other than a monophonic theme during the "attract" mode.

This game, along with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, was also included as an unlockable extra in the Nintendo GameCube game Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike. In the United States and some European countries, customers could get the Nintendo GameCube version of this game for free when they pre-ordered Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike.

Acorn Electron port by Vektor Grafix

Commodore 64 port by Vektor Grafix

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • In 2005, Brandon Erickson set a world record by playing for over 54 hours on a single credit. [1]
  • In the films Gremlins and No Small Affair (both released 1984), both cabinets were depicted. The trench sequence was seen in Gremlins when the titular creatures play the game during a bar sequence, and in the film No Small Affair, an upright cabinet is used.
  • Players with attention to detail may notice that after the TIE fighter waves, when flying towards the Death Star, the yellow grid lines on the Death Star spell out either "MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU" on odd-numbered waves or names of some of the developers on even numbered waves.
  • The plot for this game was used in the Nintendo Gamecube game, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader. The first level of the game (after the tutorial) is the attack on the Death Star, divided into three parts, just like the arcade game: dogfighting with TIE fighters, destroying gun turrets, and the final attack run on the Death Star.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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