The signature Star Wars universe offers such ultimate opportunities for developers that almost every type of game has a Star Wars version. Shooters, simulations, adventures, mobile platformers, lego, pinball.., It just goes on and on, and seems to be getting more and more wide-ranging. There are even mods for other games to turn them into Star Wars games (search Skyrim Star Wars mods). And as technology improves the scale and vividness will increase until… well… until we will be plunged one day into some Massively Multiplayer Virtual Star Wars Ongoing Conflict, which moves on, I suppose, a cyclical time-loop of all movies that have been made. In that universe, many types of game will exist, from entering a Tatooine pod-racer or an Endor speed-bike to piloting the Falcon on smuggling missions or Death Star raids. The question will only be how long will a character survive for, in whatever path they choose to take? How will we die and be reborn and delay player fatigue and frustration? How can we stop ourselves playing any other Star Wars games, outside of this futuristic game-world vision??
Today we exist in a world of fragmented Star Wars experiences, the newest of which as I write – the new Battlefront reboot game – surely captures a vivid sense of participating in the major battles.
Star Wars is a fantastic universe that offers a package outlined by the vivid movies: an array of exciting scenarios, characters and aliens, from the reluctant good guys (Han Solo) ,strong females to the guardian Jedis, with an even greater array of charismatic evil characters, including one of these Jedi Knights turned bad. It was just a unique combination of mythical elements brought carefully together. A deep saga for the space age with iconic fighting devices and sound effects.
How can games take advantage of all this, to create the most resonant or involved experience?
I’m still playing Star Wars games. Due to limits on time I’m reduced to the absorbing distraction of Zen Pinball and the fortify game Star Wars Commander on my phone.
But I remember a different time… especially the time of Kyle Katarn in Dark Forces. This was the first time 3d shooters post-Doom entered the Star Wars domain and we could properly begin first-person adventures in these realms.
Let’s think about what these early developers decided to do for a moment to really capture and sell an engrossing, exciting, educational experience, entering and enhancing the star wars universe (which they did).
Cut-scene.
Level.
Boss/Objective.
Cut-scene.
Level.
Boss/Objective.
Cut-scene.
The above format simplifies a large part of it. Just as in Wing Commander the trick was firstly to make an engaging story with levels set in different – old favourite – worlds or scenarios, with a brand new character to engage interest and act as our avatar. Of course, he'd be a mix of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, and we'd see him interact with old favourite characters. Next, the story would be coloured by exciting cut-scenes that described his situation, before we enter the first-person shoes of the hero. Over now to the level designers who – in the Jedi Knight series – continuously came up with surprising, challenging, memorable and frustrating(!) levels. On top of this progression must come the Force, of course, and the possibility of choosing a binding path through the game which is either Good or Bad, with a number of force powers to employ.
You could say this is pretty impressive and long-awaited since the credits rolled and left us stranded after Return of the Jedi. LucasArts pulled it off here at the beginning of the Age of Gaming. Add to this the variety of weapons with all our favourite sound effects and music, and a graphics engine that got better with every release, enabling it to cater for more and more widespread multi-player action.
This format is still in use today with such focussed adventure shooters. In fact, even the larger-scale open-world games simply contain this format, but offer us more widespread or prolonged interaction with a universe. But the focus gets lost and for many these ambitious games are simply too much.
There are game formats that Star Wars hasn't yet breached. I don't think there's a Wing Commander-type Star Wars game, with a campaign that gets positively or negatively affected. There isn't a full-scale RPG Elder Scrolls type game yet (although the online Star Wars Galaxies came quite close). And meanwhile we see some newer developments arising in games, in response to the improving technology. In games these days, a scenario can be more fully explored without compromising game-play or switching to cut-scenes anymore. The focus seems often now to be about not compromising one, fluid, elaborate first-person gaming experience. I’m thinking Alien: Isolation and the Nathan Drake games.
How can game companies escape the passive cut-scene without jeopardising our sense of story and character? The answer has come by bringing the cut-scene into the game itself, by merging the two into a fluid, continuous action set-piece. Or by making it a part of the world itself that the character is watching. Or by making the game one big scenario, so cut-scenes are no longer necessary. The Assassin’s Creed series still breaks into cut-scenes which tend to go on forever. But games instead are largely moving away from the retro Single-Player story experiences. Everything – perhaps - needs to be connected online and unfolding in the games of tomorrow.
So I think back with real affection at my time in the Dark Forces and Jedi Knight strategic shooters, (even where cartoon/animated elements described the blaster fire and cut-scenes). We were this separate commando-type character yet operating within this vast, familiar conflict. How would we get the Death Star plans out of the secret Imperial base? How would we free the captured rebel spy from the Detention Centre? You'd lie awake wondering how you were going to get through the tricky bits. It threw us into its large levels (where one blaster shot might shoot an alien off a walkway from long distance) and we knew we had to work it out using stealth, map consultation and the right combination of weapons, in order to achieve the exciting star wars-related objectives. Check out the Youtube videos of these old, engrossing classics.
Recently, I've been to gog.com to buy Jedi Outcast, because I might be able to find a moment to actually play this later Jedi Knight sequel, one that I missed when my PC was too slow. At the end of the day, such Star Wars games, those that enable you to 'become' a Jedi, offer an exciting promise to young adults; a chance to escape and explore, to become something, be good at something, and also to test themselves against others. Therefore the physics and keyboard controls etc. had to be finely tuned for in-depth PC controlling immediacy. It had to be a platform for wannabe hero gamers. Online, Jedi Knight was the first time I truly felt the power of Multiplayer Gaming... I would be running down a corridor and an opponent would be running towards me. I would use Force Pull to take his weapon out of his hand, and then use it on him before slashing him down with a sabre stroke. A complicated keyboard-assisted move and not so easy on a console. The pace of action was quick (when Internet was running well) and players would be re-spawning continually, but the trick was to use speed and to die less than others...
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