You simply cannot replicate the look of the game on a modern display. A real vector monitor has a sharpness and pop that you can't faithfully replicate on a pixel based display. The controller itself was the star of the show, and offers a fidelity of control that simply cannot be matched with a mouse or analog controller. It doesn't matter how faithfully something like MAME can emulate the software, because it's the display and controller hardware that makes it spectacular.
The liquor store next to my high school used to have both Star Wars and Gauntlet for a couple of years. Yeah, I spent a few quarters there. I don't think I ever saw a sit down version of Star Wars.
There was an original machine in good working order at what was called the “retro arcade” in the boardwalk at Seaside Heights NJ. It had a bunch of the arcade games, real, full sized there. I drove 1.5 hours from north Jersey just to go play the Star Wars game and did. Months or a year later the hurricane struck and demolished the pier. I have no idea if they got the arcade games out in time as they did have a bit of warning time. The boardwalk is being reconstructed but isn’t done yet so I don’t know the state of things there today.
Along with Robotron, the sound of this game is the most evocative for memories of my youth - I'm almost right back there when I hear the sounds, music and speech! Boscome Pier, south coast of England in the 80s, wow, this game made an impact. Absolutely incredible, and amazingly, it's still fantastic now in all respects. An absolute all-time classic, right up there with the likes of Robotron and Defender.
Thanks, dude! Did not know about those. Just loaded up the Wii and the GameCube game and unlocked them. Really hate this GameCube controller and the inability to invert the control stick, though... but the games are unlocked, now. =)
Now this is actually one of the first arcade games you've covered that I've played. My dad had the ZX Spectrum port for a while before giving that copy to his nephew so I never played it. But a few years ago when I went to London Film & Comic Con I did get to play a stand up arcade version of it. It's a fun game with amazing graphics for the time and I completed it. I also played Tron there but never completed that game.
One of my local pizza parlors had the sit down version and it looked so cool. It cost a dollar though so it was never one of favorites because that dollar went fast. I usually opted for pinball. More fun for the buck
I played the sit down one it is really good. I also love pinball and still do to this day. My favorite of all time is either Adams family or Terminator two
I remember being so disapointed when i played the parker brother version on my 2600 back in the day. The only thing good about that version was indeed the commercial. the rest was complete crap. Finally 34 years later we got a good conversion, thanks to arcade1up, which i'm proud to own. Best arcade game of all time along with Star wars trilogy arcade
While there was no way the 2600 pull off those vector graphics the conversion was only average at best. It's amazing we have a miniature one available to purchase for around $300.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Your right about the 2600 unable to do vector graphics, even the 5200 couldnt do it. But when your 8 years old you don't understand that. And the one thing i understood right away when i inserted this cartridge, was that I got screwed over big time :) Its unfortunate also, that it took 37 years to get a faithful conversion. This is the one game i waited for, all my life. Even though i played on mame for many years since the end of the nineties, the YOKE is the golden piece of this game. Cause the game is not the same without the yoke. I'm just happy we now have both. Nice vid cheers !
Vector graphics are just one of those things. Unless the system is purpose-built for it (eg. Vectrex style), it just requires an insane amount of brute force to draw vector graphics. I did some rough calculations for it at some point and to do non-trivial vector graphics at speed you'd need like a 10 mhz CPU. And to do flat shaded graphics justice you'd need about 20. (and what do you know, that's right around where stuff like the SNES superFX sits) And to do fully textured 3d in software without lots of hacks requires about 100 mhz... Guess when we started seeing the first such games on PC? Yeah... Obviously this is all very rough estimates with lots of caveats (I was basically estimating how much CPU time would need to be spent just plotting pixels - and using higher framerates than games for that era actually would bother with. I did make some attempt to account for other factors. Plus obviously 8/16/32 bit processing is also a factor.) You can do semi-decent full 3d on a 50 mhz 486 if you apply enough tricks (these tricks limit what you can do. Descent will run on such a system, which is a full 3d game. But this is due to the use of portal rendering, which is great at dealing with overdraw, but only works well when your scene consists of small, confined interior spaces...) But yeah... Absent a purpose-built vector based system, a 1-2 mhz 8 bit CPU is really going to struggle doing vector graphics, much less filled polygons or the like...
@@KuraIthys I'm definitly not going to argue with you on that :) I think at the time the only console that may have handle part of the star wars atari game, it would have been the Vectrex. Although even if they did release that game on this machine back in the day i'm pretty sure it would have been closer to the arcade version but it would also have been a hit and miss conversion.
I managed my expectations when the Atari 2600 version came out, so actually enjoyed it quite a bit. It was challenging and had all the basic elements present. I also picked up the Arcade1up version when it came out and agree, it's fantastic and a wonderful alternative to buying an original collectible cabinet!
I don't remember seeing either the Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi games, but the original Star Wars game was my all time favorite game with Star Trek, Tron, and Krull coming after for movie tie-ins. I would make a beeline for the Star Wars game as soon as I entered the arcade. I think it might have cemented me as a hard core fan of the Wars.
Nicely done. I am really enjoying your Arcade game retrospectives. You may want to revisit this retrospective now that Arcade1up has added the STAR WARS Arcade Game to their lineup of games. I have one myself, and I am truly enjoying replaying this game.
Thank you, glad you enjoy my content. It's amazing we have a miniature version of the cabinet we can go to Walmart and buy. What a great time to be a retro gaming fan :-)
In the arcade version using "The Force" involves not shooting at all in the canyon level until you shoot the death star, this will result in a force bonus!
my all time favourite arcade game. used to get top score regular. the trick was to start on medium or hard difficulty. you would get a huge point bonus for doing that. scratched my initials on the back of the cabinet and that was there for years after when i went on holiday and played it again. probably had that machine there until 1999 maybe even into the 2000s. brilliant game
When you fly down the trench, old obiwan says to 'use the force' Basically dont shoot until you are at the exhaust port for a bonus and a message on screen. What i REALLY liked was if you got your name up, it was written in the lines of the Death Star
There was / is a huge arcade on the seafront near me in Portsmouth and they had the sit in version there in the 80’s .. it blew my mind at the time seeing it being played
Hi. I see that there are already 248 comments here and I’ve not read them. I’d like to say thank you for this comprehensive review of the origins and story of the Star Wars vector game. I was never a big arcade person but then Star Wars game came along and I was hooked! Pumped many quartered into it as often as I could go to an arcade. After arcades drifted downward and I was busy with college and then working, I found myself longing foe the game again. Sadly I knew of few of the intermediate versions you show and I’d love to have tried them out. Finally a couple years ago I found that they’d released the original game in a 3/4 size real stand-up version! It even had a real yoke, essential to the game. Well I bought one for Christmas. I’ve had it 1.5 years now and still love it! Thanks for the look back about my favorite arcade game. Hey, are any of the PC versions of the game still available? I wouldn’t mind trying it out on my desktop/laptop.
Thanks for the nice words and glad you enjoyed it so much. It's very cool all these mINI arcade games we are getting Especially with the unique controllers such as Star Wars. Not sure if the PC versions are still available or not
The original Star Wars arcade game was actually the first video game I ever played though that was the stand up version. I first saw A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back that evening (I played the game at luchtime) then saw Return of the Jedi the next day. What;s interesting is that in the A New Hope novelization Luke actually does miss the exhaust port on his first pass resulting in him making a second trench run. And the Return of the Jedi novelization includes a section where the Millennium Falcon leads a fighter strike to finish off a damaged Star Destroyer so I wonder if that's the basis of the Star Destroyer level in the arcade game.
I grew up right alongside arcades to watch they thrive and ultimately go the way of the do do. It seems to me you hit most the major successes. Some games u haven’t covered yet I remember being at least semi popular... Defender, Pengo, Qix, Cloak and Dagger, Thunder Blade, Power Drift, Mappy, the Metal Slug series and Marvel vs. Capcom. I’d also selfishly like to see a video on Crazy Kong- cuz I used to see that machine all over and wonder to this day how they got away with it!
I loved this game as kid. A buffet restaurant my parents took us to as kids had the sit down cabinet and it was awesome! It was the only place you went for dinner where you wanted there to be a wait.
I was a fan of the vector graphics games including such classics as Star Castle, and the mentioned Battle Zone and Gravitar, and of course good 'ol Asteroids. I think the original Star Wars sit down cabinet was the peak of that experience, though Battle Zone has a special place since I was able to break the game, played for over an hour on one credit and had to just walk away lol.
Flair Flop and Yes Chant confirmed! Wooooh! I don't even remember seeing this game! I remember that Atari 2600 commercial, though and the tons of ads on the back of my comics. Empire was pretty cool for Atari, my cousin had it and I got to play it at his house....once...
I did see an arcade version of ROTJ where the Millennium Falcon was Piloted and the player had to fly it into the Death Star to Destroy it - similar to "Afterburner" playability and cabinet style.
I never saw the Empire strikes back arcade game. I did see the return of the Jedi one time at an amusement park back in the mid-80s. Apparently those to just Weren't's as widespread as the original Star Wars
I still remember playing this game as a little kid. Walmart, in the little town of Malvern, Arkansas had it, galaxian, and a couple of others. They had a stool for us little kiddos to stand on and play it. Ah , the good ole days of just being a kid.
I feel so fortunate being able to play the original in the 90's & a few years back. Still fun & was so advanced. Almost like when I was flying from Melmac...
Loved playing as a kid. A while back I was in an arcade here in Utah that had old arcade games you could actually play for a nickel. (You had to pay to get in though.) And lo and behold there was Star Wars right there in the back. Spent the whole time there and about $5 worth of nickels playing it.
I had only played the sit down Star Wars cabinet & it was awesome,I also played the Coleco Vision version & it wasn’t bad.I liked the home version of the one that came out in 1987 the best
The levels reset back to 1 after 15. You also got bonus points for doing the entire trench without shooting ie. using the force (except for the one shot into the exhaust port).
Nice! I remember finding this game for Amiga 2000 way back when, and I was so happy on the way home, anticipating the game. It did not disappoint at all. Awesome fun on the Amiga IMO.
Definitely one of those games that I feel is only best played with the original arcade controls. Thank goodness 1Up Arcade came out with a cabinet for those games that has it! The cockpit version though was my absolute favorite.
For me, the best versions (other than the actual arcade versions) are the ones found on the Nintendo Gamecube _'Rogue Squadron III - Rebel Strike'_ game. All 3 full games are featured and are extremely close, nearly or fully identical to the arcade versions. Plus, if your system is hooked up to a good sound system/speaker system, the sound will rival and maybe surpass the original games. Same with the video. Now you can play these classics on bigger, modern flatscreen TV's. Not to mention, the controls are spot on and the Gamecube controller handles the job quite well. Still, for the most realistic and immersive SW piloting experience, *_NOTHING_* beats the original _'X-WING'_ series of PC games - _'X-Wing', 'TIE Fighter', 'X-Wing VS. TIE Fighter', 'X-Wing Alliance'._ To anyone interested or fans of _'X-Wing',_ check out the XWVM project - a fan-made project aimed at updating and upgrading the classic _'X-Wing'_ PC game...
Why the Acorn Electron sold so well, was because a deal was made to supply British schools with them. Every 80s British schoolkid has played the Acorn, but nobody I knew actually owned one.
Didn't know STAR WARS: THE ARCADE GAME was based off the vector graphics of BATTLEZONE, and the Army's Bradley simulator. I always thought it was nearly identical to THE RED BARON in how it played and felt.
In my 1st year in college, I got good at this game being a huge Star Wars fan... back then anyway. I once played a single game for just under 12 hours for a score of 33 million. It was unbeaten 4 years later when they returned it for a newer game.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries It was in Boston. At any given time after the first hour, there were large groups of people watching. At that same arcade I finally got all gold medals in 720°, another amazing game. :)
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries The content's awesome and I realize this is an older video so it's only fair to critique you for it if it's a recent video. Keep up the good work though
I love your vids. Sitting here playing Final Fight on the C64 mini and enjoying the hell out of your vids every night. But, man that outtro was loud compared to the rest if the vid. :D You scared my cats bro. ;-)
This was an early video of mine and I was still learning the ropes. My newer videos offer more gameplay and audio without me talking just so the audience can experience it
I really wish they could've released the "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back" vector graphics games onto the Vectrex. That could've been so freakin' sweet... I picked up the 2600 game the day Toys 'R Us was stocking it at their Fort Worth store. =)
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I know. Grabbed the Vectrex after they quit making them. Toys 'R Us had them for $50, so I grabbed it and "Armor Attack," "Cosmic Chasm," "Scramble," "Star Trek" and "Star Hawk." Wish I could've gotten a second controller. Had a buddy who picked up a unit for himself with a couple of games I didn't have. No idea what happened to them, though. Phenomenal little console that should've had a longer run. Over the years, I've found that the cartridges started having contact issues when inserted. Folding a playing card and placing it underneath them when inserting them into the slot seems to fix that problem by lifting them up to where they need to be in order to make contact. Just something to keep in mind if you ever pick one up and the person selling it says it doesn't play the carts. Fold a small index card or playing card and give it a try. =)
Tron flopped at the box office because it was ahead of it's time. This was back in an era if you said you were a user most of the public would think you were admitting to being a drug addict. The only people that understood the movie were old school computer nerds and one of the most repeated descriptions of Tron by the non-computer literate was that it was "strange". Another example of how uncommon general computer usage by the public was at the time, the high school basic programming computer class I was in had to hold fundraisers to buy computers (it was 2-3 people per computer) because the school board felt that personal computers were just a passing fad.
The BBC Micro version looks very good! ... It looks suspiciously almost like a sequel of its greatest ever game "Elite", which is a wire-frame 3D space classic. [the creation of that game is a massive long documentary in itself - ending with today's Elite: Dangerous] ... also - the BBC Micro and Acorn were related ... but the Acorn Electron was an inferior version. The schools I went to in the UK - from primary, right into secondary - used the BBC and not the Electron. I remember I.T. class once a week - the computer room was all BBC Micro's & green monitors and we got taught some BASIC commands. Strangely ... in a sort of way, the Acorn Archimedes was the successor to the BBC Micro - and boasted the best ever version of the original ELITE, including full solid 3D and more than one enemy ship in the environment; - and the "Sibelius" professional music scoring application, which even in the mid-90s had no equal on any other system. (I spent days and days using "Sibelius" for my music degree ... it didn't crash once. It was a very solid system, much better than the dreadful Apple Macs I also had to use for midi sequencing - "Cubase" kept freezing and crashing if you so much as looked at it funny)
Bally tried doing something with their home arcade system, all that it was, was just an X-wing an a Tie fighter flying around in the trench of the death star shooting at each other to see who could get the most wins from a set number of points
If you're confused as to what an Acorn Electron is... Remember that this is from the same company that made the BBC micro. But while the specs of the BBC system were defined by the BBC (yes, THAT BBC), the systems were expensive, and more something owned by schools rather than individuals. Sure, you COULD by a BBC, but you probably wouldn't. What then is an Electron? Well, it's basically a stripped down BBC micro to bring the cost way down. Same company made both, so they have a lot in common... Then again, this isn't that unusual really. Acorn's no longer with us... But it's legacy on the other hand, is the ARM processor. (Aka Acorn Risk Machine) And chances are you have a half dozen of those in close proximity to you right now... Underlying hardware being similar isn't that unusual of course. The reason Atari 5200 and Atari 8 bit microcomputer games often seem so similar is because they're basically the same hardware. The 5200 is hamstrung by having all of about 2 kilobytes of RAM, but they are otherwise very similar. The reason this is a problem is because ANTIC can easily chew through 8 kilobytes of RAM or more. Some of that you can substitute for ROM, which makes sense on a cartridge based system, but some of it... You definitely want that memory. Granted you can in principle add memory in a cartridge, but it still limits what a 5200 can do with it's hardware compared to say an 800XL even though most of their feature set is identical...
In a galaxy far, far, far away....when developers cared what the fans wanted and how important Star Wars really is. We have regressed my friends and I don't know if we will ever see a good film on the big screen again. There's hope for the games as EA apparently unstuck their heads from their...ahem. We shall see if we continue to get decent games from now on, I'm not holding my breath. The Star Wars Arcade cabinet was absolutely excellent. Some of the conversions were fantastic. I didn't get into any of the other games until X-Wing and Star Wars Arcade for the 32X. That game alone made my purchase of the 32X absolutely worth it.
The "critics" who never played video games called it a flop, but it was considered a classic by a generation who did. Anyway Mattel had the licensing rights so...
sunteam it was a flop in the sense that Disney wanted it to make three times as much. You have to figure they only take in half of that 33 million. The other half is split with the theaters. There's also doesn't count the advertising budget
I fooled the people at the local arcade back then on this machine. Me and some friends have found a lot of metal coins that resembled real cash in size and weight. And it being the early 80's, the machines weren't equipped to filter this out.
rw:hey PATMAN long time no C ,oh and btw speaking of STAR WARS the arcade and Return of the Jedi versions,there was a game called STARWARS REBELS STRIKE 3 for the GAMECUBE(Personal Favs) that if you found the cheat codes for the game you would be able to Unlock those Arcade Masterpieces Both the STARWARS ARCADE and THE RETURN OF THE JEDI ,and i do believe you can also unlock the empire strikes back arcade aswewll.
PatmanQC There was a Star Wars game that came out before this (late 70's 1979/80??). It was in black & white only. There were Tie-Fighter like ships to shoot at and a Pirate Ship that looked like a Colonial Viper that was supposedly the Millennium Falcon and you had limited supply of ?Proton Torpedos to shoot. I cannot remember the name of it though and it wasn't as wide spread as other video games, but it was definitely some Star Wars rip off.
I know jedi nerfherder extraordinaire Jeff Minter don`t do movie TIE ins (Doh!) but Id really love to see him lightspeed these classics into this galaxy
My brother and cousin took turns playing this all day in one go and got a score of several million but the disgruntled arcade owner switched it off before they could enter the high score.
Here in the UK the Acorn Electron was a n affordable version of the expensive BBC micro which as used a lot in Schools at the time ................... that and Acorn were the ones charged with making the BBC Micro in the first place and so most of the software was probably compatible as well .......... I didn`t have any of those but I did have a Spectrum and then a C64
Being in the states, I first saw the spectrum in a friends German computer magazine in the late 80s And Couldn't believe How ugly and colorless the graphics were. My how my opinion has changed :-)
Funny story there is a movie called "Midnight Madness" Where they have to play a game called "Star Fire" which is a loose rip off of Star Wars game to get a clue.
I am lucky, as I have played all 3 of these games in the arcade; they were the stand - up console versions but still excellent. Thank you so much for reviewing these games~! I think I played so much of Star Wars ( the first one ) that I probably could have bought my own machine. LOTS of fun and great memories of the Arcade days gone by. Modern 'Arcades' seem to all have those games that aren't games, and are basically gambling machines that spit out 'tickets' which players can redeem for crappy little prizes. - NO SIR, I DON"T LIKE IT!
"The year is 1983 and Atari is scouting potential IPs for their next arcade blockbuster. They (Atari) have their eyes set on the movie Tron & production is starting to ramp up on the game until....the movie opens and it is a huge flop." If you wouldn't mind, please cite your source that Atari was working on a Tron game. My understanding is that Star Wars evolved from Jed Margolin's "Warp Speed" prototype. Your statement of Atari doing this in 1983 makes no sense since the Tron movie (and the first of two Disney-licensed Bally/Midway coin-op games based on the movie) came out in 1982.
Mmmm I don't recall Tron being considered a HUGE flop. It certainly didn't perform to Disney's expectations but the movie alone grossed 2 1/2 times its production cost.
I always loved the "Red Five--Going in and "The Force is strong with this one."
So did I, the voices were phenomenal in this game
Along with Arkanoid, and T2, this is one of those games that you simply must play in the original cabinet. Phenomenal.
You simply cannot replicate the look of the game on a modern display. A real vector monitor has a sharpness and pop that you can't faithfully replicate on a pixel based display. The controller itself was the star of the show, and offers a fidelity of control that simply cannot be matched with a mouse or analog controller. It doesn't matter how faithfully something like MAME can emulate the software, because it's the display and controller hardware that makes it spectacular.
Arkanoid? No… Omega Race.
This has been my favorite arcade game since I first played it in 1983
It is definitely my top 10
The liquor store next to my high school used to have both Star Wars and Gauntlet for a couple of years. Yeah, I spent a few quarters there. I don't think I ever saw a sit down version of Star Wars.
I saw one once back in the day
There are only a few left of the original cabinets...and I played one a few weeks ago, as good as remembered from my childhood
There was an original machine in good working order at what was called the “retro arcade” in the boardwalk at Seaside Heights NJ. It had a bunch of the arcade games, real, full sized there. I drove 1.5 hours from north Jersey just to go play the Star Wars game and did. Months or a year later the hurricane struck and demolished the pier. I have no idea if they got the arcade games out in time as they did have a bit of warning time. The boardwalk is being reconstructed but isn’t done yet so I don’t know the state of things there today.
New favorite channel. It's fun to learn more about old consoles/computers and what they were capable of. Nice work, PatmanQC!
Thank you so much,I appreciate that
Along with Robotron, the sound of this game is the most evocative for memories of my youth - I'm almost right back there when I hear the sounds, music and speech! Boscome Pier, south coast of England in the 80s, wow, this game made an impact. Absolutely incredible, and amazingly, it's still fantastic now in all respects. An absolute all-time classic, right up there with the likes of Robotron and Defender.
I agree, the sound and the graphics both pull you in and you actually feel like Luke Skywalker
You can play all of these Star Wars games on the Gamecube version of Rogue Squadron III with a cheat code.
Gamevet ya I’m surprise he didn’t mention that
That's cool and all. But I would rather play them on my Arcade 1Up Star Wars machine.
Thanks, dude! Did not know about those. Just loaded up the Wii and the GameCube game and unlocked them. Really hate this GameCube controller and the inability to invert the control stick, though... but the games are unlocked, now. =)
It’s not the same to play on the GameCube or PS… you need the Star Wars controls!!!
Now this is actually one of the first arcade games you've covered that I've played. My dad had the ZX Spectrum port for a while before giving that copy to his nephew so I never played it. But a few years ago when I went to London Film & Comic Con I did get to play a stand up arcade version of it. It's a fun game with amazing graphics for the time and I completed it. I also played Tron there but never completed that game.
Absolutely, especially considering it's almost 40 years old. Tron is another classic :-)
One of my local pizza parlors had the sit down version and it looked so cool. It cost a dollar though so it was never one of favorites because that dollar went fast. I usually opted for pinball. More fun for the buck
I played the sit down one it is really good. I also love pinball and still do to this day. My favorite of all time is either Adams family or Terminator two
Funny, The Adams Family was one of the pinball machines that ended up next to that same Star Wars Game. Star wars was there FOREVER..
was still .25 when i played it.
I remember being so disapointed when i played the parker brother version on my 2600 back in the day. The only thing good about that version was indeed the commercial. the rest was complete crap. Finally 34 years later we got a good conversion, thanks to arcade1up, which i'm proud to own. Best arcade game of all time along with Star wars trilogy arcade
While there was no way the 2600 pull off those vector graphics the conversion was only average at best. It's amazing we have a miniature one available to purchase for around $300.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Your right about the 2600 unable to do vector graphics, even the 5200 couldnt do it. But when your 8 years old you don't understand that. And the one thing i understood right away when i inserted this cartridge, was that I got screwed over big time :) Its unfortunate also, that it took 37 years to get a faithful conversion. This is the one game i waited for, all my life. Even though i played on mame for many years since the end of the nineties, the YOKE is the golden piece of this game. Cause the game is not the same without the yoke. I'm just happy we now have both. Nice vid cheers !
Vector graphics are just one of those things.
Unless the system is purpose-built for it (eg. Vectrex style), it just requires an insane amount of brute force to draw vector graphics.
I did some rough calculations for it at some point and to do non-trivial vector graphics at speed you'd need like a 10 mhz CPU.
And to do flat shaded graphics justice you'd need about 20. (and what do you know, that's right around where stuff like the SNES superFX sits)
And to do fully textured 3d in software without lots of hacks requires about 100 mhz...
Guess when we started seeing the first such games on PC?
Yeah...
Obviously this is all very rough estimates with lots of caveats (I was basically estimating how much CPU time would need to be spent just plotting pixels - and using higher framerates than games for that era actually would bother with. I did make some attempt to account for other factors. Plus obviously 8/16/32 bit processing is also a factor.)
You can do semi-decent full 3d on a 50 mhz 486 if you apply enough tricks (these tricks limit what you can do. Descent will run on such a system, which is a full 3d game. But this is due to the use of portal rendering, which is great at dealing with overdraw, but only works well when your scene consists of small, confined interior spaces...)
But yeah... Absent a purpose-built vector based system, a 1-2 mhz 8 bit CPU is really going to struggle doing vector graphics, much less filled polygons or the like...
@@KuraIthys I'm definitly not going to argue with you on that :) I think at the time the only console that may have handle part of the star wars atari game, it would have been the Vectrex. Although even if they did release that game on this machine back in the day i'm pretty sure it would have been closer to the arcade version but it would also have been a hit and miss conversion.
I managed my expectations when the Atari 2600 version came out, so actually enjoyed it quite a bit. It was challenging and had all the basic elements present. I also picked up the Arcade1up version when it came out and agree, it's fantastic and a wonderful alternative to buying an original collectible cabinet!
I don't remember seeing either the Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi games, but the original Star Wars game was my all time favorite game with Star Trek, Tron, and Krull coming after for movie tie-ins. I would make a beeline for the Star Wars game as soon as I entered the arcade. I think it might have cemented me as a hard core fan of the Wars.
Those are all classic Arcade games
So many memories with this one. Great video man.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it
Arcade1Up released a Star Wars console with all 3 games. AWESOME to play!
Yes it is very cool
I got the sit down one, fantastic version.
Someone recently built a realistic cockpit around this 1up cabinet. $500 for the materials and it looks just like a real Star Wars cockpit.
Still waiting for a UK release
Nicely done. I am really enjoying your Arcade game retrospectives.
You may want to revisit this retrospective now that Arcade1up has added the STAR WARS Arcade Game to their lineup of games. I have one myself, and I am truly enjoying replaying this game.
Thank you, glad you enjoy my content. It's amazing we have a miniature version of the cabinet we can go to Walmart and buy. What a great time to be a retro gaming fan :-)
In the arcade version using "The Force" involves not shooting at all in the canyon level until you shoot the death star, this will result in a force bonus!
Thank you
my all time favourite arcade game. used to get top score regular. the trick was to start on medium or hard difficulty. you would get a huge point bonus for doing that. scratched my initials on the back of the cabinet and that was there for years after when i went on holiday and played it again. probably had that machine there until 1999 maybe even into the 2000s. brilliant game
Excellent, thanks for sharing your story. I wonder whatever happened to that machine?
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries i went back there last september and did have a look. wishing both that and empire strikes back would still be there.
When you fly down the trench, old obiwan says to 'use the force' Basically dont shoot until you are at the exhaust port for a bonus and a message on screen.
What i REALLY liked was if you got your name up, it was written in the lines of the Death Star
There was / is a huge arcade on the seafront near me in Portsmouth and they had the sit in version there in the 80’s .. it blew my mind at the time seeing it being played
Now I can enjoy all 3 with my Arcade 1Up Star Wars machine!
this brings me wonderful memories of ShowBiz Pizza in NJ.
Hi. I see that there are already 248 comments here and I’ve not read them. I’d like to say thank you for this comprehensive review of the origins and story of the Star Wars vector game. I was never a big arcade person but then Star Wars game came along and I was hooked! Pumped many quartered into it as often as I could go to an arcade. After arcades drifted downward and I was busy with college and then working, I found myself longing foe the game again. Sadly I knew of few of the intermediate versions you show and I’d love to have tried them out. Finally a couple years ago I found that they’d released the original game in a 3/4 size real stand-up version! It even had a real yoke, essential to the game. Well I bought one for Christmas. I’ve had it 1.5 years now and still love it! Thanks for the look back about my favorite arcade game. Hey, are any of the PC versions of the game still available? I wouldn’t mind trying it out on my desktop/laptop.
Thanks for the nice words and glad you enjoyed it so much. It's very cool all these mINI arcade games we are getting Especially with the unique controllers such as Star Wars. Not sure if the PC versions are still available or not
The original Star Wars arcade game was actually the first video game I ever played though that was the stand up version. I first saw A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back that evening (I played the game at luchtime) then saw Return of the Jedi the next day. What;s interesting is that in the A New Hope novelization Luke actually does miss the exhaust port on his first pass resulting in him making a second trench run. And the Return of the Jedi novelization includes a section where the Millennium Falcon leads a fighter strike to finish off a damaged Star Destroyer so I wonder if that's the basis of the Star Destroyer level in the arcade game.
I grew up right alongside arcades to watch they thrive and ultimately go the way of the do do. It seems to me you hit most the major successes. Some games u haven’t covered yet I remember being at least semi popular... Defender, Pengo, Qix, Cloak and Dagger, Thunder Blade, Power Drift, Mappy, the Metal Slug series and Marvel vs. Capcom. I’d also selfishly like to see a video on Crazy Kong- cuz I used to see that machine all over and wonder to this day how they got away with it!
I loved this game as kid. A buffet restaurant my parents took us to as kids had the sit down cabinet and it was awesome! It was the only place you went for dinner where you wanted there to be a wait.
That is cool, I always loved to sit down version of this game. I can recall going to Pizza Hut and they had arcade games there as well
I was a fan of the vector graphics games including such classics as Star Castle, and the mentioned Battle Zone and Gravitar, and of course good 'ol Asteroids. I think the original Star Wars sit down cabinet was the peak of that experience, though Battle Zone has a special place since I was able to break the game, played for over an hour on one credit and had to just walk away lol.
LOL, that's great. Thanks for sharing
I played the stand up version of Star Wars as a very young child in Showbiz pizza many times. I loved it.
I was lucky enough to play in the sit down version at an indoor/outdoor flea market in PA.
Flair Flop and Yes Chant confirmed! Wooooh!
I don't even remember seeing this game! I remember that Atari 2600 commercial, though and the tons of ads on the back of my comics.
Empire was pretty cool for Atari, my cousin had it and I got to play it at his house....once...
Empire was fantastic for the Atari.
I love my arcade1up machine, but the sit-down cabinet was an amazing game.
Absolutely
I did see an arcade version of ROTJ where the Millennium Falcon was Piloted and the player had to fly it into the Death Star to Destroy it - similar to "Afterburner" playability and cabinet style.
I never saw the Empire strikes back arcade game. I did see the return of the Jedi one time at an amusement park back in the mid-80s. Apparently those to just Weren't's as widespread as the original Star Wars
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries It must have been an Australian or limited release ...
Just awesome! Great video, Patrick! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much, keep up the great work on your channel I look forward to seeing them
I still remember playing this game as a little kid. Walmart, in the little town of Malvern, Arkansas had it, galaxian, and a couple of others. They had a stool for us little kiddos to stand on and play it. Ah , the good ole days of just being a kid.
Absolutely, back when arcade games were literally everywhere
I feel so fortunate being able to play the original in the 90's & a few years back. Still fun & was so advanced. Almost like when I was flying from Melmac...
It was very advanced for its time
Love my arcade 1up Star Wars cabinet.
It looks really cool
So many hours used playing those games. Loved them.
So do I, they are classics
Loved playing as a kid. A while back I was in an arcade here in Utah that had old arcade games you could actually play for a nickel. (You had to pay to get in though.) And lo and behold there was Star Wars right there in the back. Spent the whole time there and about $5 worth of nickels playing it.
I had only played the sit down Star Wars cabinet & it was awesome,I also played the Coleco Vision version & it wasn’t bad.I liked the home version of the one that came out in 1987 the best
The levels reset back to 1 after 15. You also got bonus points for doing the entire trench without shooting ie. using the force (except for the one shot into the exhaust port).
Nice! I remember finding this game for Amiga 2000 way back when, and I was so happy on the way home, anticipating the game. It did not disappoint at all. Awesome fun on the Amiga IMO.
Yes, I'm surprised how much of the original arcade game they managed to squeeze in
Definitely one of those games that I feel is only best played with the original arcade controls. Thank goodness 1Up Arcade came out with a cabinet for those games that has it! The cockpit version though was my absolute favorite.
For me, the best versions (other than the actual arcade versions) are the ones found on the Nintendo Gamecube _'Rogue Squadron III - Rebel Strike'_ game. All 3 full games are featured and are extremely close, nearly or fully identical to the arcade versions.
Plus, if your system is hooked up to a good sound system/speaker system, the sound will rival and maybe surpass the original games. Same with the video. Now you can play these classics on bigger, modern flatscreen TV's. Not to mention, the controls are spot on and the Gamecube controller handles the job quite well.
Still, for the most realistic and immersive SW piloting experience, *_NOTHING_* beats the original _'X-WING'_ series of PC games - _'X-Wing', 'TIE Fighter', 'X-Wing VS. TIE Fighter', 'X-Wing Alliance'._ To anyone interested or fans of _'X-Wing',_ check out the XWVM project - a fan-made project aimed at updating and upgrading the classic _'X-Wing'_ PC game...
On the arcade version if you turn up the monitor briteness, you'll see the programmers signatures in the background.
Wow, very cool
In the arcade version of Star Wars, in the trench run, if you only fire at the exhaust port, you will get bonus points, since you used The Force.
Vector Star Wars was fantastic to play. I mastered it and got to level 57 and could play for 2.5 hours on one quarter.
Holy moly, I could make it to level III but that's about it
Why the Acorn Electron sold so well, was because a deal was made to supply British schools with them.
Every 80s British schoolkid has played the Acorn, but nobody I knew actually owned one.
I never knew that thanks
In the arcade version, if you got through the trench without firing a shot, you got 100,000 points.
Thanks, I didn't know that
Good job, thanks for all the research and hard work, it shows.
Thank you very much
Didn't know STAR WARS: THE ARCADE GAME was based off the vector graphics of BATTLEZONE, and the Army's Bradley simulator. I always thought it was nearly identical to THE RED BARON in how it played and felt.
It does play similar
In my 1st year in college, I got good at this game being a huge Star Wars fan... back then anyway. I once played a single game for just under 12 hours for a score of 33 million. It was unbeaten 4 years later when they returned it for a newer game.
Holy moly, that's awesome
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries It was in Boston. At any given time after the first hour, there were large groups of people watching. At that same arcade I finally got all gold medals in 720°, another amazing game. :)
Those damn loud volume spikes, my poor speakers...
Sorry about that
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries The content's awesome and I realize this is an older video so it's only fair to critique you for it if it's a recent video. Keep up the good work though
@@DrethNET Thanks, I've upgraded my equipment since that time so I may be going back and remastering some of my old ones. Thanks for the nice words
HeadPhone Users "Feel" The Audio Levels Change...Drastically.
Audio Level Knobs Need to Be Adjusted&Tested.
Great Info Vids Though!
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries just download mp3gain and run your audio through it.
I love your vids. Sitting here playing Final Fight on the C64 mini and enjoying the hell out of your vids every night. But, man that outtro was loud compared to the rest if the vid. :D You scared my cats bro. ;-)
sorry about that, this was an older video and I was having technical difficulties the newer ones aren't like that
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Yeah Its good for the cats with a little jolt sometimes anyway. I cant complain. Loving the vids.
@@insearthanamesaheera5712 Thanks, I appreciate the nice words
Amazing arcade game. We could do with hearing the audio when you show the different versions though ;)
This was an early video of mine and I was still learning the ropes. My newer videos offer more gameplay and audio without me talking just so the audience can experience it
I really wish they could've released the "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back" vector graphics games onto the Vectrex. That could've been so freakin' sweet... I picked up the 2600 game the day Toys 'R Us was stocking it at their Fort Worth store. =)
It seems like such a natural for that system.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I know. Grabbed the Vectrex after they quit making them. Toys 'R Us had them for $50, so I grabbed it and "Armor Attack," "Cosmic Chasm," "Scramble," "Star Trek" and "Star Hawk." Wish I could've gotten a second controller. Had a buddy who picked up a unit for himself with a couple of games I didn't have. No idea what happened to them, though. Phenomenal little console that should've had a longer run.
Over the years, I've found that the cartridges started having contact issues when inserted. Folding a playing card and placing it underneath them when inserting them into the slot seems to fix that problem by lifting them up to where they need to be in order to make contact. Just something to keep in mind if you ever pick one up and the person selling it says it doesn't play the carts. Fold a small index card or playing card and give it a try. =)
The music at 5:41 was hilarious!!
This was one of my all-time favorite arcade games as a kid. Later, as a teen, I don't see how the buttons on my Amiga mouse ever survived this game.
LOL, my mouse went through the same thing :-)
Tron flopped at the box office because it was ahead of it's time. This was back in an era if you said you were a user most of the public would think you were admitting to being a drug addict. The only people that understood the movie were old school computer nerds and one of the most repeated descriptions of Tron by the non-computer literate was that it was "strange". Another example of how uncommon general computer usage by the public was at the time, the high school basic programming computer class I was in had to hold fundraisers to buy computers (it was 2-3 people per computer) because the school board felt that personal computers were just a passing fad.
The BBC Micro version looks very good! ... It looks suspiciously almost like a sequel of its greatest ever game "Elite", which is a wire-frame 3D space classic. [the creation of that game is a massive long documentary in itself - ending with today's Elite: Dangerous]
... also - the BBC Micro and Acorn were related ... but the Acorn Electron was an inferior version. The schools I went to in the UK - from primary, right into secondary - used the BBC and not the Electron.
I remember I.T. class once a week - the computer room was all BBC Micro's & green monitors and we got taught some BASIC commands.
Strangely ... in a sort of way, the Acorn Archimedes was the successor to the BBC Micro - and boasted the best ever version of the original ELITE, including full solid 3D and more than one enemy ship in the environment; - and the "Sibelius" professional music scoring application, which even in the mid-90s had no equal on any other system.
(I spent days and days using "Sibelius" for my music degree ... it didn't crash once. It was a very solid system, much better than the dreadful Apple Macs I also had to use for midi sequencing - "Cubase" kept freezing and crashing if you so much as looked at it funny)
I know elite well, I used to play it on my Commodore 64. The BBC version is very good, I was really impressed by it
Are the versions you speak of software based and if so, are they available to get?
only 2500 of the sitdown versions were made? I played so many of them in the UK we must have had a large amount of that number
Bally tried doing something with their home arcade system, all that it was, was just an X-wing an a Tie fighter flying around in the trench of the death star shooting at each other to see who could get the most wins from a set number of points
If you're confused as to what an Acorn Electron is...
Remember that this is from the same company that made the BBC micro.
But while the specs of the BBC system were defined by the BBC (yes, THAT BBC), the systems were expensive, and more something owned by schools rather than individuals.
Sure, you COULD by a BBC, but you probably wouldn't.
What then is an Electron? Well, it's basically a stripped down BBC micro to bring the cost way down.
Same company made both, so they have a lot in common...
Then again, this isn't that unusual really.
Acorn's no longer with us...
But it's legacy on the other hand, is the ARM processor. (Aka Acorn Risk Machine)
And chances are you have a half dozen of those in close proximity to you right now...
Underlying hardware being similar isn't that unusual of course.
The reason Atari 5200 and Atari 8 bit microcomputer games often seem so similar is because they're basically the same hardware.
The 5200 is hamstrung by having all of about 2 kilobytes of RAM, but they are otherwise very similar.
The reason this is a problem is because ANTIC can easily chew through 8 kilobytes of RAM or more. Some of that you can substitute for ROM, which makes sense on a cartridge based system, but some of it... You definitely want that memory.
Granted you can in principle add memory in a cartridge, but it still limits what a 5200 can do with it's hardware compared to say an 800XL even though most of their feature set is identical...
Excellent technical info, thanks for the great write up
Excellent stuff. Thanks for putting this together 👍
Thank you for the comments, I appreciate it
I was hoping you would cover the Sega arcade Star Wars games
It's not related to the original Star Wars game except in name
In a galaxy far, far, far away....when developers cared what the fans wanted and how important Star Wars really is. We have regressed my friends and I don't know if we will ever see a good film on the big screen again. There's hope for the games as EA apparently unstuck their heads from their...ahem. We shall see if we continue to get decent games from now on, I'm not holding my breath.
The Star Wars Arcade cabinet was absolutely excellent. Some of the conversions were fantastic. I didn't get into any of the other games until X-Wing and Star Wars Arcade for the 32X. That game alone made my purchase of the 32X absolutely worth it.
The Acorn and the BBC micro computer Did so well in the UK because every school in the UK had either an acorn or a BBC and usually about 10 of them
Similar to the Apple II here in America. Thanks for the tip
Loved this game as a kid!
Eh? Tron wasn't a flop. It made $33 million (domestic) on a $17 million budget.
The "critics" who never played video games called it a flop, but it was considered a classic by a generation who did. Anyway Mattel had the licensing rights so...
sunteam it was a flop in the sense that Disney wanted it to make three times as much. You have to figure they only take in half of that 33 million. The other half is split with the theaters. There's also doesn't count the advertising budget
I thought it was a good movie personally
I liked that Star Wars arcade where you’re fighting Darth Vader. Not sure what year that came out. That one was a lot of fun.
It's in a later video of mine were I cover all Sega's Star Wars arcade games
Dp you know if the bbc and acorn are the same release or different? Im not able to find any information om a specific acorn version
I think they are the same released but I'm not for sure
I fooled the people at the local arcade back then on this machine. Me and some friends have found a lot of metal coins that resembled real cash in size and weight. And it being the early 80's, the machines weren't equipped to filter this out.
LOL, that's hilarious. The reason I got so good at Mario brothers was that the machine at our local bowling alley would count Nichols as quarters. :-)
That guy @4:30 was Jim Carey before Jim Carey was.
LOL, he does look like him
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries More importantly he ACTS just like Jim Carrey... especially the very end of the commercial
@Brian Bagnall I couldn't agree with you more! This guy has major Jim Carrey vibes. I believe the commercial starts at 4:23
rw:hey PATMAN long time no C ,oh and btw speaking of STAR WARS the arcade and Return of the Jedi versions,there was a game called STARWARS REBELS STRIKE 3 for the GAMECUBE(Personal Favs) that if you found the cheat codes for the game you would be able to Unlock those Arcade Masterpieces Both the STARWARS ARCADE and THE RETURN OF THE JEDI ,and i do believe you can also unlock the empire strikes back arcade aswewll.
Hey Patrick, I have a lot of info about a rare Vector Star Wars Simulator called The Hot Seat made by Balance Technologies. How can I reach you?
Sounds interesting, you can email me at pdbowling71@gmail.com
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries Sent you an email
The best conversion was the Sega 32X and now the Arcade 1up version
Thanks - Great video. SW & ESB was my fav game!
You really sped up your delivery in this one with less dead air.
Jim Carrey pitching a Star Wars video game made my morning...
I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing
fun times as a kid
One of my absolute favorites from that era
PatmanQC There was a Star Wars game that came out before this (late 70's 1979/80??). It was in black & white only. There were Tie-Fighter like ships to shoot at and a Pirate Ship that looked like a Colonial Viper that was supposedly the Millennium Falcon and you had limited supply of ?Proton Torpedos to shoot. I cannot remember the name of it though and it wasn't as wide spread as other video games, but it was definitely some Star Wars rip off.
4:32 I never knew that there was a commercial for this game but it he looks and sounds like Jim Carrey 😂
LOL I never noticed
If you connect the dots on the deathstar it says may the force be with you.
There was an Empire Strikes Back vector conversion kit. Also, you forgot about the Macintosh port of Star Wars.
Thank you for pointing that out
I know jedi nerfherder extraordinaire Jeff Minter don`t do movie TIE ins (Doh!) but Id really love to see him lightspeed these classics into this galaxy
LOL, nice
The reason atari's ESB didn't do well is that it simply isn't a good game. At all.
I enjoyed it although not as much as the original
Nice! Would love to see one for the Indiana Jones arcade game.
My brother and cousin took turns playing this all day in one go and got a score of several million but the disgruntled arcade owner switched it off before they could enter the high score.
That's ridiculous, congratulations on the high score though
Here in the UK the Acorn Electron was a n affordable version of the expensive BBC micro which as used a lot in Schools at the time ................... that and Acorn were the ones charged with making the BBC Micro in the first place and so most of the software was probably compatible as well .......... I didn`t have any of those but I did have a Spectrum and then a C64
Being in the states, I first saw the spectrum in a friends German computer magazine in the late 80s And Couldn't believe How ugly and colorless the graphics were. My how my opinion has changed :-)
Funny story there is a movie called "Midnight Madness" Where they have to play a game called "Star Fire" which is a loose rip off of Star Wars game to get a clue.
If they had made a vector graphic version of Return of the Jedi, I wonder what the 3 or 4 levels would have been?
Wow, I didn’t realize the ROTJ game came before TESB.
The Aaro 2600 version was just too hard to control. The cross-hairs would start slow and then jump across the screen.
Great video Pat!
Thanks
That Atari2600 Version, is about The Only Atari2600 Game I Never Played!
I Was TheMan, at PS2 BattleFront!
I am lucky, as I have played all 3 of these games in the arcade; they were the stand - up console versions but still excellent. Thank you so much for reviewing these games~! I think I played so much of Star Wars ( the first one ) that I probably could have bought my own machine. LOTS of fun and great memories of the Arcade days gone by. Modern 'Arcades' seem to all have those games that aren't games, and are basically gambling machines that spit out 'tickets' which players can redeem for crappy little prizes. - NO SIR, I DON"T LIKE IT!
At 4:20 (hee) is that Jim Carry in the commercial?
Is it me or does the guy who does the commercial look like or sound like Jim Carry
"The year is 1983 and Atari is scouting potential IPs for their next arcade blockbuster. They (Atari) have their eyes set on the movie Tron & production is starting to ramp up on the game until....the movie opens and it is a huge flop." If you wouldn't mind, please cite your source that Atari was working on a Tron game. My understanding is that Star Wars evolved from Jed Margolin's "Warp Speed" prototype. Your statement of Atari doing this in 1983 makes no sense since the Tron movie (and the first of two Disney-licensed Bally/Midway coin-op games based on the movie) came out in 1982.
I have the Atari XE version ruclips.net/video/COBLCqLTVgg/видео.html It was always so exciting to see a Star Wars Game at a arcade back in the day!
That version looks very good. I didn't know it existed.
Mmmm I don't recall Tron being considered a HUGE flop. It certainly didn't perform to Disney's expectations but the movie alone grossed 2 1/2 times its production cost.
Perhaps flop was too harsh of a word. It didn't perform to Disney's expectations
Great video!
Thank you very much