Author and journalist Alex Kane joins Ryan and John to discuss upcoming Star Wars video games including the Knights of the Old Republic remake, Jedi: Survivor, and the announced but still mysterious Amy Hennig and Ubisoft Star Wars games.
It’s our 200th episode and we celebrated by recording a completely standard episode covering Star Wars comics and games news plus a big casting rumor for the upcoming Ahsoka show on Disney+.
Nintendo World Report’s Neal Ronaghan joins us for part one of our Star Wars on N64 retrospective. We tackle N64 console exclusives Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron as well as the console’s launch and LucasArts’s relationship with Nintendo.
Lucasfilm Games was reborn this week and Ryan and John discuss that news as well as the Indiana Jones and Star Wars games they’ve just revealed. We then spend some time discussing the genres and studios we’d like to see them work with as well as Star Wars games we’d love to see rereleased on modern platforms.
This week’s show is basically just two big segments covering The Mandalorian chapter two and Jedi: Fallen Order. We start the show by discussing favorite moments from The Mandalorian as well as some potential symbolism in the episode and the cruelty of the post-Empire galaxy. The second half of the show features our early experiences playing Jedi: Fallen Order and a discussion of its influences and gameplay systems.
This week’s episode is all about Star Wars video games. We kick off the episode by disucssing the recently announced Jedi Knight and Jedi Academy console ports before devoting the rest of the show to taking a look at the recently released and completely excellent Star Wars Pinball package for Switch. We originally planned on discussing the many Rise of Skywalker toy leaks that have been happening lately, but there was just too much pinball to talk this week so we’re saving that discussion for episode 122.
In continued celebration of The Phantom Menace, this episode features a look back at Star Wars racing games. We spend the bulk of the episode on Episode 1: Racer in its various forms before spending some time with Racer Revenge, Super Bombad Racing, and Resistance Racer.
This week’s episode features an interview with Alex Kane, author of the upcoming book Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Ryan talks to Alex about KOTOR, the book, and Alex’s other writing on games in the show’s first segment. John joins for the second half of the show to talk with Ryan about how much he enjoyed the book (even though he’s never played the game), the impact of KOTOR on Star Wars culture, and the potential influence of the game on rumored upcoming films or other media set in the Old Republic era.
Ryan and John are joined by Jeff “The Metal Mando” Kelts to celebrate all things Shadows of the Empire. Join us for two hours of talk about the Shadows book, comic, game, toys, soundtrack, trading cards, and more!
Check out the first 30 minutes or so of Star Wars on the NES in our second (and last) Blockade Runner Plays video for our Power of the 90s series covering 1990/1991. I play from the start of the game up through the first part of the Death Star, so the video provides a pretty solid look at the first third or so of the game.
I’m also including Nintendo Power’s coverage from its September 1991 issue (Volume 28, the rest of which you can read here on archive.org). It’s a fun look at what games coverage, Star Wars or otherwise, was like in 1991 and it’s also super helpful if you want to play some NES Star Wars yourself!
I just recently learned that there is a totally sweet tv commercial for the game too. Check out a dastardly Darth Vader taking on a super-heroic mom in this fantastic ad for the game:
While you’re at it, why not check out comedian Mario Cantone (for some reason) shilling for the game on some sort of video game-related tv show:
Finally, check out the Moby Games page for NES Star Wars for more info on the games development and release as well as screenshots from this and other versions of the game if you’re interested in the differences between them that I briefly mentioned in the video.
The Blockade Runner 