Amiga Games Star Wars
The officialy licensed conversion of the world famous arcade game landed on the Commodore Amiga during the summer of 1988. The arcade version of Star Wars had been a phenomenon with it's fast moving vector graphics and sterio sound, not to mention the full cockpit sit down version.
Domark released Star Wars for the Amiga and those clever guys at Vector Grafix (who would also develop The Empire Strikes Back on the the Commodore machine) handled the conversion.
The game was loosly based around the movie, with three main levels to contend with. As the game started up you were treated to a superb rendition of the Star Wars theme tune - the Amiga really was excellent at reproducing arcade quality sterio music.
As in the arcade game, you could choose your level of skill by pointing your X-Wing cross hairs at the Easy, Medium or Hard level Death Stars and pressing the fire button. The game would begin and you were flung straight into action on the first level of the game.
Your X-Wing fighter was fitted with quad firing lasers and defensive shields which could absorb nine hits from the enemy before you were destroyed. As most of you will know, the first stage of Star Wars was basically shooting down hordes of enemy tie fighters (and fireballs they would shoot back at you) as they weaved around the twinkling backdrop of cold, black space. Destroying enough enemy ships and fireballs moved you onto level two.
Stage two had you skimming the surface of the dreaded deathstar in your fighter, shooting gun emplacements and towers whilst avoiding enemy fire and crashing into the surface (or the aforementioned towers). It was possible to pick up a bonus by shooting the tops of the towers - if you picked off enough of them. Weaving your way across the surface shooting down fireballs would lead you to the final, and the most well remembered stage.
The final stage was the trench run. Just like the movie you had to fly your X-Wing down the trench of the Deathstar and make it to the exhaust port.On the way you had to avoid enemy fire, catwalk beams spanning the width of the trench and of course collision with the deck. You could pick up a huge bonus by 'using the force' and not firing a single shot during the trench run until you reached your goal (almost impossible to do on 'hard' skill level). A well placed shot into the exhaust port (just like Luke!) would treat you to a scene of the Deathstar exploding before the game returned to the first level with the difficulty level increased.
When Star Wars was released for the Amiga it was met with only mild enthusiasm. The arcade game was getting on a bit and had been surpassed on a technical level by more modern offerings. Not only that, but other unofficial versions of Star Wars had already been released on 8-bit machines, such as the excellent 3D Starstrike from Realtime Software. Starstrike had been released around four years earlier, and was regarded as an already good (if old) version of Star Wars.
Star Wars was by no means a poor effort, and Domark's release did replicate the arcade game quite nicely (they captured the look of the game very well, with the use of colour and font being very accurate). The famous scrolling Star Wars story was in there too, and the game itself was pretty good to play with smooth moving vector graphics, great music and superb sound effects. Due to the Star Wars name, it did pretty well and plenty of copies were sold.
Here in the land of Amiga Games we reckon that Star Wars is worth a look to see how they converted from arcade to home computer. The game is still quite fun, and does capture the spirit of the arcade original accurately. This is real retro gaming - we used to do cartwheels for graphics like this!
Watch the movie and feel the force before giving it a go - you'll soon be clear to blow it and go home!
We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Star Wars for the Amiga. Alternatively you could try and play it online.
Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys
GENRE: 3D Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: Summer of 1988
RELEASED BY: Domark
DEVELOPER(S): Vector Grafix
PRICE: £19.95 - UK
Red five standing by in Star Wars - Amiga Longplay:
Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games
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