Star Wars: Starfighter isn't a classic, LucasArts

George Lucas is killing another small part of my soul.*

On Monday, LucasArts announced that it would start rereleasing its "classic and beloved franchises" on Steam, Valve's digital download service (the first batch hits Steam on Wednesday, July 8). Rumors circulated in advance of the announcement, and I did my best to rein in my excitement. While I enjoy LucasArts' library of adventure games, I'm a Star Wars nut, and when I read about the possibility of "classic" games coming to Steam, I started thinking about how nice it would be to play the X-Wing games without needing to jump through hoops to make them run on current PCs (or, I hope, an update to the visuals). And while Monday's announcement says that more games are coming, I really wish that LucasArts would've thought about what "classic" means when it assembled its first list of games coming to Steam.

Some of the games on LucasArts' list are undeniably classics. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a great adventure game (and would've made a much better fourth installment of the Indiana Jones film franchise than 2008's The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), as is The Dig. These are the kind of games that I want to see LucasArts rerelease. But who in their right mind would view Armed and Dangerous, Lego Indiana Jones, Star Wars: Battlefront 2, Star Wars: Republic Commando, Star Wars: Starfighter, and Thrillville: Off the Rails as "classic" games?**

Take this quote from the press release: "This effort is going to make it possible to introduce a whole new generation of gamers to LucasArts' classic games," said Darrell Rodriguez, president of LucasArts. "It also gives more people a chance to play our games by making them available long after they've disappeared from store shelves."

If so, then why are some of these "classic games" on this list still on store shelves? Lego Indiana Jones came out in 2008. How can that game be a "classic"? It's still on the shelf! Star Wars: Republic Commando is part of the Best of Star Wars PC collection that you'll likely find at your local Best Buy or Target. Copies of Star Wars: Battlefront 2 are plentiful in used game stores and brick-and-mortar websites. The oldest of these games came out in 2005. How can LucasArts justify these games as "classics"?

I wanted to see one of the X-Wing games or Dark Forces on the list. Instead, we get Star Wars: Starfighter, a lousy starfighter sim from 2001. Who wants to fly around in some bright-yellow Naboo banana plane when you can dogfight with X-Wings and TIE fighters? Dark Forces is one of the best first-person shooters of the mid-1990s; if you're going to rerelease some of your classic shooters, why not start with the game that launched the genre at your company? People still take pains to play -- and improve -- these games. LucasArts should've recognized this and included one of them in the first Steam release.

LucasArts will likely put the X-Wing games and Dark Forces (along with others) on Steam at some point, along with other adventure game classics like Maniac Mansion and Grim Fandango. But it seems like if you really want to generate some excitement about opening up back catalog, you might want to include some of your truly "classic" games.

* Star Wars: Episodes I-III

** Yes, I realize that this is an expression of nerd rage and that it sounds like I'm pretty damn ungrateful that LucasArts and Steam now have a partnership in the first place. I'm not; I just wish that they used more genuinely classic games as part of the announcement.

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Juan Letona

July 06, 2009

In an interview with Joystiq, Lucasarts Pres admits that they are working on each IP to be able to work on XP/Vista machines. X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Dark Forces and others will eventually show up on Steam, it would be redundant if the true "classics" are not released.

David Zhuo

well we also are missing classics such as Grim Fandango, Full Throttle and many many more adventure games I remember sinking into as a kid. Hope these find their way to steam soon, because the 3-4 populated servers of BF2 don't really look all that appealing, but getting to play the MI saga again sounds like a slice of heaven. Maybe this announcement was spurred by the invigoration of the MI stories from Tell Tale but for me this is still great news. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long for those "real" classics.

Patrick Bonk

I am waiting patiently for updates to Maniac Mansion and Zak McKraken. Come on LucasArts, that is just wasy money, and we know how much George likes easy money! ;)

Andrew Hiscock

Maybe there's something coming that may warrant a delay in announcing their re-release and timing it as a promotion product tie-in?

We can hope, right?

Ross Adams

Starfighter might not be but Republic Commando is a classic, sorely overlooked/forgotten when people remember good Star Wars games. It was a few years ahead of it time in terms of some of the squad based stuff it was doing. Had a great story and some fun characters. It's up there with some of my favourite games of all time and if this'll make more people give it a try then I'm more than happy.

Jason Wilson

@Ross But is Republic Commando old enough to be a classic? It came out in 2005, after all. I can still boot up my copy in my PC.

Dan "Shoe" Hsu

It's all about making more money somewhere, sometime later.

Carson Randall

Armed and Dangerous was released in 2003, two years before 2005. It is the funniest game I have ever played, and deserves more recognition than this article gives. You should probably research more before posting false information about release dates.

Can't find an edit button, I figured out that he meant the oldest of the PC collection was from 2005. I'm just annoyed at the negativity addressed toward Armed and Dangerous.

Matt Nowacki

July 07, 2009

yeah xwing vs tie fighter was one of my all time favorite games. They need to get with the program here.

@Carson: I'm not down on Armed and Dangerous; I'm down on someone naming a game that came out so recently as a "classic."

@Jason: Modern classic maybe? :P I see your point though perhaps 'classic' isn't the right word, it's certainly a great game worthy of more attention. I thought your point was more that these games were very good but I guess it was more an issue with the use of 'classic' when about half of them are reltively modern.