
- #STAR WARS JEDI KNIGHT JEDI ACADEMY LIGHTSABER TIPS MOVIE#
- #STAR WARS JEDI KNIGHT JEDI ACADEMY LIGHTSABER TIPS PC#
Of course, you’re not given much time to admire these flourishes, as Super Empire Strikes Back is hard. Luke’s lightsaber slash gets repetitive, but when it connects with Vader’s blade, it looks like they’re clashing just like in the movies. The finished product looks a bit stiff by today’s standards, but for the period it was a glorious rendition of one of cinema’s most iconic battles. The hardest part to get right? Darth Vader’s cape, apparently. The Empire Strikes Back‘s best-known setpiece is Luke’s first ever duel with Darth Vader, a beautiful multipart battle that takes them through the bowls of Cloud City and ends with Darth Vader’s famous reveal: “ No, I am your father.” In the September 1993 issue of Nintendo Power, LucasArts developer Jon Knoles discussed the process of capturing that famous battle, juxtaposing the animations in the game with actual scenes in the movie.

Super Star Wars, which envisioned A New Hope as a 16-bit platformer, had a lightsaber, but it was Super Empire Strikes Back where developers started to get really ambitious. The advancement of graphics into the 16-bit era made more faithful depictions of the lightsaber possible.

| Mobygames Refinement: Super Empire Strikes Back (1992) Super Empire Strikes Back strove to capture the feeling of the movies. Not terrible, but maybe not the most auspicious start for the lightsaber game sub-genre. As most games of the era were space shoot ’em ups, it only made sense to stick players in an X-wing.Īs for Jedi Arena, it was basically Pong with a laser sword. Most of the Star Wars games of the period were instead based around the original trilogy’s famous space battles, most notably the trench run-another video game holy grail. It was probably neat for the time, as the extremely limited technology of the period made it all but impossible to make a fully-realized lightsaber game. Instead, you use the control paddle to block what appear to be lightning bolts from a floating ball in the middle of the screen. Despite the name, you never actually battle one another. As a first effort, it’s rather uninspiring. The first real example of a lightsaber video game is probably Star Wars: Jedi Arena, an Atari 2600 game built around the famous scene in which Luke Skywalker practices deflecting shots from a robotic remote.

| Mobygames The Beginning: Star Wars: Jedi Arena (1983) Jedi Arena was the first real lightsaber game. Even the best of them have at least a few compromises, but they nevertheless represent halting steps toward not just improving lightsaber combat, but the action genre as a whole.
#STAR WARS JEDI KNIGHT JEDI ACADEMY LIGHTSABER TIPS PC#
From the Atari 2600 to the SNES, and on to the PC and modern consoles, lightsaber combat has seen many different interpretations in games-some good, some quite bad. Still, that hasn’t stopped developers from trying. The sight of a bloodied and severed arm lying on the ground is proof enough that the lightsaber is not a weapon to be trifled with. The first time we truly see a lightsaber in action, it’s used to carve up a belligerent Aqualish thug in the Mos Eisley cantina. They can block blaster bolts they can be thrown and guided using the Force, and they can melt through giant steel blast doors. In the films, lightsabers are practically unstoppable. No matter how powerful the technology, games have been dogged by the same persistent issue: lightsabers are just too strong. Their efforts have been met with mixed success. In that time, game developers have done their best to capture the appeal of Star Wars’ “elegant weapon from a more civilized age,” the most recent example being Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

It’s a pleasingly industrial sound that conveys a sense of danger and power.Īll of this has helped burn the lightsaber into the pop culture consciousness for the better part of 40 years.
#STAR WARS JEDI KNIGHT JEDI ACADEMY LIGHTSABER TIPS MOVIE#
It also has a distinct look about it, with individual colors helping to define the personality of its wielder-who can forget Mace Windu and his purple lightsaber? Igniting a lightsaber produces a distinctive thrum, the product of idling interlock motors in aged movie projectors, as well as interference caused by a television set on a shieldless microphone. So why do people love lightsaber so much? Well, for starters, it’s a laser sword, which is cool in itself.
