The Ten Worst Star Wars Video Games of All Time

When it comes to storied movie franchises turned into video games, one can easily look in one general direction: Star Wars. Obviously Lucas’s epic masterpiece became a huge source for every source of merchandise from action figures to lunch boxes, and the video games were an obvious outlet into which players could become their favorite characters. However –and just like everything else– there are a few mis-steps in the myriad choices for just about every system available.

From the very first arcade versions of the original film as a first-person space shooter from 1982 all the way through the most recent release of LEGO Star Wars III, Luke Skywalker and company have graced over 100 different video games. Amazingly, 90 percent of which have been hits in one way or another on every console from PC’s to PSP’s. Yet, the bad often time over shadow the good, and go on to become as infamous as them, as well. The following are ten examples of the very worst from the Star Wars lot… likely of all time. But no one can see the future and it’s likely there’ll be more.

10

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (2010)
  • Eurogamer: “Feels like it was created out of obligation rather than inspiration…”
  • GameSpot: “Least Improved Sequel of 2010”
  • IGN: “the game ‘occasionally present(s) a challenge.’ “

Wow, with rave reviews like that –yeah– you’d think this sequel to one of the coolest Star Wars games ever would be a shoe-in huge hit. It wasn’t. It was demon dull and just didn’t feel as fulfilling as its predecessor.

9

Star Wars Episode I: Obi Wan’s Adventure (2000)
  • IGN: “Murky visuals and slothful control destroy any hope of greatness in this game.”
  • Game Vortex: “Flawed control and lack of depth make for a generally average experience.”
  • The Sydney Morning Herald: “The characters look like a garbled confusion of black pixels.”

Despite the simple fact that this only appeared on the GameBoy Color is no excuse, as there have been excellent games on the system. This one literally looks like an Atari 2600 game in both execution and visuals.

8

Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels (2008)
  • Eurogamer: “No matter what you do, the game is terrible at reading your movements.”
  • IT Reviews: “Disappointingly, all battles are conducted in the third person…”
  • GameSpot: “No matter how many midi-chlorians flow though your veins, you don’t so much wield as you do waggle the Force.”

Sad really. The Wii was a rime candidate for a Lightsaber battle game! It basically is the handles and the sabers appear right on the screen! How hard could it have been to make an awesome game out of that? Apparently very.

7

Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi Wan (2005)
  • Wikipedia: “Media outlets and players criticized SOE for the substantial time commitment to unlock a Jedi, penalties for in-game death of a Jedi character which was permanent after three deaths, and monotonous game play required to acquire the Jedi character.”

MMORPG’s have become huge business, and several based on Star Wars have gone on to be huge hits in their own right. However, when one makes issue of becoming a Jedi, yet making it nearly impossible to do so… well, such are the downfalls of a potentially engrossing property.

6

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (2002)
  • UK Playstation 2 Magazine: “A Star Wars-themed 3D shooter with some optional bounty hunting. Good fun, but it promised more.”
  • GAME FAQ’s: “And by far one of the biggest let downs of the entire game is the aspect of catching bounties.”
  • GameSpot: “Serious Star Wars aficionados should enjoy the game’s story, but they’ll be forced to slog through a lot of tedious action to see how it pans out.”

So, the prospect of using one of the Original Trilogy’s most overrated yet popular characters, Boba Fett, turned into, instead, a weak attempt to cash in on his father, Jango’s iffy popularity and it didn’t work? Huh… didn’t see that coming.

5

Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi (1997)
  • Wikipedia: “Masters of Teräs Käsi received generally mediocre reviews from the gaming press. Most were disappointed in the fighting engine, which was inferior compared to competing games such as Soul Edge and Tekken. Players were also disappointed that lightsabers, which are usually depicted as capable of slicing off limbs, were treated much like baseball bat-type weapons in the game. While characters with guns would need to charge the weapon up before being able to fire by which time they could have been defeated by a lightsaber character.”

It definitely had promise. A hired assassin on the hunt for Luke and friends after their destruction of the second Death Star brings the family together to ferret her out and take her on. Sadly, the fight was never brought.

4

Star Wars Rebellion (1998)
  • IGN: “Some feel that its orientation is an ‘electronic card game’, which makes the gameplay rely on tactics and thought rather than action, graphics or sound.”
  • GameSpot: “The only action part of the game is the space battle simulator…”
  • Wikipedia: “Many (fans) loathed it, reacting with heavy criticism, considering it to be one of the lowest-quality products of LucasArts, a failed attempt to bring Star Wars into strategy.”

Strategy games are always hit or miss, especially when a product otherwise rests so heavily on action, visuals, and interaction. But, since the Star Wars Universe is so vast, it seemed that it was ripe for that very style. Not in 1998 it wasn’t.

3

Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon (2003)
  • IGN: “(The game can not) handle what the level designers wanted to pull off in the game.”
  • Game Informer: “The framerate chugs along to a point where many of the stages should be classified as unplayable.”
  • The Australian: “Despite a smorgasbord of environments and craft to fly, the game’s 3D engine is not up to the task and play is made even less pleasant by awkward controls and a lamentable aiming system.”

Who hasn’t wanted to pilot the Millennium Falcon? It made the Kessel Run in 12 Parsecs! It assisted Luke in destroying both Death Stars, and Han Solo is practically in love with it! It is an awesome machine! Sadly, this game makes flying it even less fun than not.

2

Star Wars: Jedi Arena (1983)

So why is this on the list? It’s obviously going to suck in comparison with the games of today, it came out in 1983, you idiot! Yeah, I can hear your gripes. Well for one thing, even the Atari 2600 had a higher ability for playing games than most give it credit for. Sure, most were just differently colored squares moving at random, but something like the designers of this game ought to know better. Basically all you had to do was deflect blasts from a Jedi training drone toward your opponent. But that’s just the point: it was very difficult and just not made for a system like the Atari after all. Oh well, it was boring anyway.

1

Star Wars: Yoda Stories (1997)
  • Wikipedia: “The graphics are not as detailed or colorful compared to the computer game due to the limitations of the Game Boy Color hardware, and controlling the main character is more difficult and less fluid in this version due to the lack of a mouse. Because of these factors and lackluster, repetitive gameplay, the game has received consistently low scores from several gaming sites; Gamespot cited it as “possibly the worst Star Wars game ever produced”, and consequently it has the lowest score for a GBC game, a 1.8.”

I did play this game on an old Windows 98 machine and, for what it was, it was acceptable at at least kind of quashed one’s hunger for a decent Star Wars game. But, when I got a copy for GameBoy Color, forget about it. It was quite possibly the biggest waste of 20 bucks at least that year. Crap.