Star Wars Episode 1: Racer
スター・ウォーズ エピソード 1: レーサー
I have another Dreamcast game for you: Star Wars Episode 1: Racer! The game was published and developed by the now-closed-but-still-alive LucasArts since Disney bought the Star Wars and Indiana Jones IPs in late 2012/early 2013. The game was released in the spring/summer of 1999 for the Windows PCs and the Nintendo 64 first, and in the spring/summer of 2000 for the Dreamcast. The game does not have any Japanese release dates at all. I played that video game on the now-defunct (later revived) Toys “R” Us, but did not own the game until the HD re-release.
The game is based on the podracing sequence in the film Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. The game features all of the racers and the race course on Tatooine from The Phantom Menace. It adds several new courses, on Tatooine and various planets. It has several single-player modes, including a tournament mode. It also features the then-10-year-old (later retired) actor Jake Lloyd and Lewis MacLeod, who portrayed Anakin Skywalker (now Darth Vader) and Sebulba in The Phantom Menace, reprising their film roles in the game.
20 years after the game’s release, it received an HD re-release for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. It was delayed from May 2020 to June 23 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was later released on Xbox One on October 27, 2020. The Switch version supports motion controls, allowing players to use them to operate the individual throttles of the podracer’s twin engines, and the Orbitron font (by Matt McInerney) as the in-game font is used, replacing the Verdana typeface but the Impact typeface remained, as opposed to the original release. Nintendo handled the publishing rights for the Nintendo 64 and GameCube releases, Aspyr for the 2020 ports, and THQ Nordic for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch releases.
Star Wars Episode 1: Racer features a variety of tracks spanning several different planets. It includes all of the racers in the film, plus exclusive competitors. The player character’s podracer is equipped with a boost function that the player can activate. While activated, the podracer’s temperature will rise, and if the player boosts for too long, the engines will explode, destroying the podracer and costing the player several seconds to respawn and continue racing. The podracer will also be destroyed if one or both engines sustain severe damage from colliding into too many walls or obstacles, requiring the player to steer carefully to avoid falling behind. The player can also actively repair the podracer while competing, but doing so slows the podracer until repairs are either complete or stopped.
Three single-player game modes are available. In Tournament mode, the player character competes in a championship. Completing races awards money, with higher-ranked finishes resulting in higher payouts. This can be used to buy parts or repair droids, unlock new tracks, and unlock new racers. Free Race mode allows the player to practice any previously unlocked courses using any unlocked racer. The player character cannot earn money or unlock tracks and racers but can set the difficulty of the opponents. Time Attack pits the player character against the clock, racing along to try to achieve the fastest time on the given course. This mode is absent from the PC version. Instead, the Free Play mode allows the player to set the number of computer opponents to 0.
Multiplayer mode differs between the PC and console versions. The Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast versions feature a two-player split-screen mode, and the Windows and Macintosh versions allow play over a local area network (LAN). This Windows version uses the deprecated IPX protocol to accomplish this, and the Macintosh version uses TCP/IP. The multiplayer mode can support up to eight players.
Unfortunately, the online servers for the Sega Dreamcast Network were permanently shut down in early 2002, so it’s no longer possible to upload your high score to the Sega Dreamcast Network. While the Switch version is available, I would try and revisit the game. And that’s the end of this post! May the force be with you.
Originally written on Medium on May 26, 2023