Honestly I always felt like that first Arcade game was pretty immersive, because the geniuses decided to make it look like the targeting computers from the movies. Now that's working around the limits brilliantly.

Trilogy Arcade is still my favorite Star Wars game. Always love playing when I go to a Barcade. The lightsaber level against Vader is iconic.

My local arcade had the cockpit version of that first game. It felt like magic. Like I was actually Luke Skywalker flying an X-Wing! Looking at the graphics now, it doesn’t look like much, but back then it was amazing. Especially since you didn’t control a joystick, but an X-Wing yoke! When the game is over you hear Obi Wan telling you “May the force be with you, always” in the real voice from the movie. Not that computerised thing you hear in the video. Remember, this was right after Return of the Jedi was released and I had just watched episode 4 and 5 back to back in the cinema. This game was life altering.

The original Star Wars arcade game will always have a special place in my memory due to the sit-down enclosed cabinet it had, with the speakers at the rear of your head, and the awesome control yoke.

The Trilogy Arcade was such a great game. I remember playing it so much when on a cruise ship (being a kid on a cruise ship can kinda suck) and I played it so much I was able to beat the entire thing with one credit!

The GameCube video game. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike had some arcade games included on it

Now this is something I could watch. You are exploring the old star wars games

My local Lazer Tag's arcade had the Podracer machine in operation for YEARS. I remember when my friends had their birthday parties there, we'd all be lining up inbetween matches to do runs on Podracer. Great times.

I remember playing Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, when I was little.

Man, a year ago I got the chance to play the 1983 arcade Star Wars cabinet and I loved it soooo bad that I wanted to take it home with me with a the Star Trek arcade and Major Havok. I got addicted to them. Thanks to cover the games.

Funny enough I have the 1980 star wars arcade game for my GC through the Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3 demo. The full game rogue squadron 3 has the arcade game itself as an unlock if you beat the game but its easier for me to just insert the demo disc and play the original arcade game that way. Lol.

Definitely had the ATARI arcade port on my Commodore 64. It blew me away. Then my dad sat me in his lap while he played X-Wing. Brain exploded. Been playing star wars flight sims ever since.

I really love how these are turning into mini docs

Oh God, this brings me back. I loved playing these. I remember i kept crashing during the Endor speederbike section.

The impact if '83's Star Wars was immense. Huge queues snaked outside of arcades as people lined up to take their turn, clones populated every home computer. It was immense. Would love to have a go on the battle pod.

I remember playing the arcade trilogy back in the day and it used to have a surround sound behind you with a joystick in the middle and when you played that game, you could barely hear anybody or any of the other machines behind you made. It feel so immersive this was before surroundsound really took off. It was really something you had to be there.

Dude, The 98 Star Wars Trilogy arcade game is so fun. They used to have a cabinet at my local Walmart when i was a kid. Spent so many quarters on that thing.

The Star Wars Trilogy arcade cabinet is one of my favourite Arcade games ever. I first saw it when I was at Thorpe Park in '99, and I was amazed at the Battle of Hoth. And yes I suck at the Lightsaber fights too as I couldn't work out how to tilt the lightsaber diagonally with the joystick. I kinda hoped they would do a follow-up based on The Prequel trilogy with the battles of Naboo, Geonosis and Coruscant. And you could have lightsaber duels with Darth Maul and I guess General Grevious.

Oh man… I love the Star Wars Trilogy Arcade game. When I completed it for the first time, I felt so happy. I believe they still have it at the Ice Arena Stadium.

This video is awesome! I miss the longer videos but I still love your content!

The model 3 Star Wars trilogy arcade felt like the ultimate Star Wars experience at the time. The machine I got to play as a kid was a huge cabinet that would close the door and isolate you from the world outside, it literally felt like you got transported into the Star Wars universe

Never got to play these games but it’s cool to see how Star Wars games have evolved from their humble but classic arcade origins

We have VR now, where's the full remaster with cockpit controls?

Your voice would be perfect for a history channel documentary lol

Rolled into bed after a long night shift and this video was waiting…thank you!

Dude, thank you so much for these trips down memory lane. They are the highlight of my week.

There's two more Star Wars arcade-inspired games made by one Bruno R. Marcos named Battle of Yavin and Battle of Endor respectively, the game developer planned to make a Battle of Hoth but never finished it. The games were part of an arcade engine they were making but eventually abandoned. This is a couple of decades old and there's barely any videos on it despite the games being free, pretty moddable and very fun. I hope you'll cover it sometime! I also hope you'll cover the Batman Arkham games. Love your videos, keep it up!

Flandrews videos are always so well researched and fun to watch, cant wait for the next one!

My local amusement park had the 1993 version and I remember just standing there watching other people play for an hour despite the fact that I should have done the rounds at the Rollercoaster. I only saw the X-WIng Scene. Nobody ever got further than that.

Flandrew always put out a video on a Sunday night before we start a new week of horror and I can't thank him enough

My local movie theater used to have the pod racer arcade machine. Never quite got the hang of it could only get maybe a mission and a half through before I’d die / run out of quarters. Then later on my family took a trip up to VT/NH and we stopped at this massive arcade. Little did I know it was funspot, one of the largest museums of classic arcade games. And wouldn’t ya know they had the OG Star Wars vector arcade machine! I sat down and tried to play it but man what a beast. This was a great trip down memory lane, thank you for making this great video!!

I have played almost all of these, there is a local Geeks Mania arcade that has almost all of these arcade machines too, pod racer, 2-3 arcade versions of Star Wars, and the pod lots of kids constantly use because you go inside and the big screen that wraps around you is super cool. There is even a little fan that spins up and blows wind on your face when you are flying really fast, and the surround sound in there is super immersive. Definitely one of my favorites.

I remember playing the racer arcade and the trilogy arcade. The original vector arcade games I believe were also included in one of the rogue squadron games as an Easter egg or an unlockable I don’t recall.

10:29 that's a nice homage of sorts to the _Gambler's Run_ short story from West End Games' Galaxy Guide 5: Return of the Jedi; in which Lando ends up too close for comfort to the _Executor_ and has to stage a hasty retreat by blowing up some of it from within.

Yeah it was a trip playing Star Wars Arcade back in 93. Played it in the Arcade and had it on the 32X. And I played Star Wars Trilogy many times. Good times. Because back then . . . I was young. I'm not anymore. The grim spectre of Death hangs over me 😥 And yet Star Wars doesn't have the good grace to just die

Do Lego Lord of the Rings.

9:27 "it's so dense. every single image has so many things going on"

Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, my first ever introduction to the Star Wars Original Trilogy, and definitely my favorite Arcade game of all time. I really wanna have an arcade cabinet of it in my house.

The original Star Wars sit in cabinet is still the best and still holds up today. I’ve got the Arcade1Up version and it’s still so playable, I love it. Shame they couldn’t have also put the modern Star Wars games into it as well, I know some people can mod them. Nice video. 👍

A new comparison video ❤ Here we go. Please compare all versions of Lego lord of the rings and make when philsiopher's stone ruled the world video.

Oh man, that SW Arcade game that goes first in this list, I vaguely remember playing something like it when I was a kid, but seeing the footage it does differ from what little I remember, and I could never find the game I played all these years later, still to this date (and believe me I tried, and tried A LOT even though I can't even describe it with full detail since I don't remember much anymore). The only thing that I feel (or think) pretty sure about is that it was the same cockpit-view first-person space shooter game played in a huge-axx cabin, with the same vector graphics and this think blew my mind back then, I dunno I was 5 or 6 back then, meaning I played it even before I went to school. But I think the difference was that it was all green, I mean the lines, the graphics - only green color, no other color around, just green all along (well, green lines drawn on the black empty space that is). No red, no blue, pink, or whatever else - just green, I think. And there probably was no cutscene at the end of it, too. And what I also recall is having a boss fight against a huge weird af (geometrically weird) spaceship, which freaked me out so much because it was a really tough one to beat. Yeah, that was mind-blowing, and the fact I still haven't found it yet is a headscratcher, haha.

Great video, this took me back

This was really interesting! Hopefully we see more Star Wars arcade games in the future.

I remember playing the first shooter in our town's arcade, battleing for the highscore on that machine with a friend of mine. At the time, it was an epic game, mostly for it's absolutely smooth operation, compared to the sometimes stuttery performance of other games. Nice trip down memory lane, thanks for the video.

I remember player racer arcade a whole bunch! I loved the unique controls and the speed at which the racers moved. I was so heart broken when it was taken out sometime later, don’t remember how long.

This brings back great memories of saving up quarters to run to the local convenience store to play the game.

I remember the Trilogy Arcade game but I did find the joystick a little junky and didn’t venture too far into the levels. Still was fun!

I liked playing the original arcade titles in Rogue Squadron 3. That was fun.

I've played all of these except for the early 90s arcade. Played plenty of Trilogy in numerous arcade areas, sampled a bit of Racer, but I can quite recall from where. I was especially envious of the arcade Racer because Sebulba was available by default and he had my favorite podracer. I had yet to unlock him in Episode 1 Racer but unlike the console game, he didn't have his little built in flamethrower. Played the old Atari games through Rebel Strike's extra unlockables, though I imagine most have at this point and I've played Battle Pod a few times at Dave & Buster's. The dome version really is the best way to experience it

I was a pretty frequent Chuck E Cheese visitor when I was a kid, and played the 1998 game there loads of times. Definitely one of the most awesome arcade games you could find in the 90s.

Always remember 3PO's "Wonderful. We are now part of the tribe" when you finished the Endor stage on ROTJ. 😂

Excellent overview. Really good work. 👍👌🤙

The Podracer controls were so cool! Such an original concept.

What I realise watching this is that visual aesthetic of the movies is so simple and well designed that it translates really well to videogames, even with very basic visual techniques. Even with a few simple vectors, it's instantly recognisable as Star Wars, which is a credit to the art direction of the movies as much as the game developers.

I vividly remember seeing the Star Wars Trilogy and Star Wars Racer arcade games in my local bowling alley as a kid.

Man, Trilogy Arcade was the only one of these I was familiar with before. Always had a blast playing it at either Chuck E Cheese or the arcades in Cape May during my family's summer vacations. It took me almost 10 years to actually beat the game though, which I did at Dave and Busters back in 2008.

I loved the Trilogy arcade and the Battlepods one. Definitely fun.

Fun Fact the battle pod had an additional Mission on some cabinets with the battle of Takodana from Episode 7. I remember when I played it when I was younger flying over the lake and defending General Organa's transport from Tie's trying to shoot it down.

Loved the racer 1 arcade it always felt cool to drive it!

The original vector cockpit cabinet is one of my favorite games ever. Pretty immersive and some awesome sound (voice synthesis) for such an early game. There’s something about vector graphics that triggers an overwhelming sense of nostalgia in me. I will always love vector games.

That final arcade game looks so good, espcially the thrill bits of flying through the star destroyer as it's getting destroyed

I remember playing that vector graphics Star Wars game on holiday on the IOW. going from ZX Spectrum to that cockpit arcade machine with music blasting & Darth Vader speaking as his Tie Fighter hounded you was mind blowing. still fantastic game I'd love to see one again in an arcade.

I've played so many of these. I remember playing the 83 cabinet in our local mall's food court. Drove my parents nuts wanting to play it. I was about 6 or 7 years old. It was still very new then. Vector graphics were the thing back then and I played so many different ones back in the 80s.

Back in the Late 90s as an Electronic engineer i worked for SEGA Arcade engineer i was blown away with Star Wars arcade game in London and i got to play it for free as i had the keys to enable free play which i did a lot including VR Racing and SEGA Rally which was my favorite arr back in the day

They have a battle pod at the local arcade here, and it's set to free play. I've played all of those levels to death. Love that thing

I have played the cockpit version of the original arcade at a arcade a few hours away from where i live. Loved it. A local arcade has the ROTJ one plus the Trilogy arcade. I play them everytime i go.

This intro music and your voice are somehow so nostalgic...

I saw an english version of the 1993 Star Wars Arcade by random chance in the mid-2000's at a sci-fi restaurant in Fargo-Moorhead called _Space Aliens._ I was confused by two things: 1. It was a co-op game. 2. It was not the _other_ Sega Star Wars arcade game that I was familiar with.

ATARI Star Wars arcade game 1983 is one of the few arcade games that does not let you continue / add new life by adding more coins in. Once your shield was gone - that was it - which meant you had to be as close to playing flawlessly as possible.

Vader's revenge is the best Star Wars content I've seen since the original trilogy. :D

Did not know that the arcade game had remade the same levels so often, but in hindsight I guess it makes sense. They're pretty much the most action-packed sequences from each movie, the ones easiest to convert into an arcade game. And now I know!

My local bowling alley had the 1983 cabinet. It was the first arcade game I can remember playing.

I like the way the wire frames look like the Death Star blueprints and the X-Wing targeting computer from the movies.

I remember the Star wars trilogy arcade cabinet had the Empire vector graphics arcade cabinet next to it. I enjoyed both as a kid, but I was always drawn to the newer one. I never realized how old the cabinet was (this was the between episode 2 and 3 coming out). I don't think I ever got past Darth Vader as a kid, but I remember watching this adult man do it.

I was always under the impression that the battle pod was the same game as the 98 arcade game, now I feel like a FOOL! 😱 I have to play this! That one looked SO COOL!!!

(1:11) The Death Star receding in the distance is a great shot in that first arcade game. It always made me catch my breath back in the day. Still does. 😎🤘☮️

I remember the Atari retro trench run at Star Tours store at Disneyland. It was amazing when I was young I loved it. Looking at it now, especially after just playing with me on the Xbox seconds ago. I remember a gameboy game too for some reason.

Yay new flandrew. I am in a very bad time of life and I love your content. It makes a day a little easier. You and James Rolfe

I remember playing the Trilogy Arcade at Chuck-E-Cheese and Playdium. I was SO HOOKED on the game, I would play it constantly. As a kid, I could never click the firing trigger on the yoke fast enough to kill the Wampas, (which were HP sponges). Anyone else? 😂🎉

I feel special now having played the english version of the 1993 game that you said was rare. It was in a pub in Perth Western Australia of all places. I wouldn't expect to find a rare arcade game there.

The '93 2-player one was amazing: I played that in Woolwich in London while I was at university there !

That first arcade game was such a thrilling experience when I was a kid. ❤

There was an old Star Wars arcade game featured in a criminally overlooked movie: Midnight Madness. A movie from 1980 that kickstarted Michael J. Fox's career, despite very few people knowing its existence.

I remember they had a Star Wars: Arcade cabinet at Thorpe Park. I can't say I played it much as I'm pretty sure it was also ridiculously expensive compared to other games. Like that silly hologram arcade game, Time Traveler, that was also found in Thorpe Park.

This brings memories of playing some of those games in the 80s and 90s

Finished last week restoring Star Wars Trilogy. The projector CRTs were shot so rebuilt an LCD back projector to replace it then rebuilt the joystick system. Playing the game now gives me goose bumps!

That Battle Pod is certainly a promising concept if they want to bring back video arcades. I can envision VR Battle Pods of things like LOTR, D&D, Elder Scrolls, WWI biplanes, WWII fighters and bombers, modern jets, tank combat, auto racing and Marvel/DC as well.

I played Star Wars Trilogy Arcade in one of the arcades at Disney World florida last yr!!! Coming from someone who was born shortly after the OG Clone Wars, meaning i'm the kinda guy who you'd assume would take modern games for granted... i cannot emphasis enough how fun it was!!! I found myself repeatedly playing all 3 lvls over and over again!!! even though its largely based on battles of yavin, hoth and endor, it does what video game adaptions of events in movies should do... it expands the scope of the battles/events (for instance, you still partake in the trench run, but before that you gotta blow up some tie fighters coming from a star destroyer over there- shows the developers didn't restrict themselves to what 'really' happened') And if you've played it then c'mon... how badass is the feeling of getting your own hallway scene in the hoth lvl!!!! I'd say after the first few mins, there's a great balance of challenge / urgency, and simple fun Only small issue are the limitations of the lightsaber missions, but even then the boba fett one was still ok, and the vader one at least adapted Luke vs Vader well

As a kid in the 90’s it was always a great night when my parents let me go into the mall arcade after eating to play the Starwars Trilogy Arcade. I would buy that arcade now for my house if I could.

I remember playing the Empire Strikes Back vector arcade machine back in the 80's ... brings back memories!

I had Trilogy arcade working on my old computer a few years ago and configured a wii remote to work as a light gun type controller. That was the pinnacle of my emulation achievement. 😂

X-Wing on Apple II got me into computers. An extremely lucrative career that continues to this day.

Star Wars Trilogy Arcade is my favorite arcade game of all time! I’ll never forget going to Dave and Busters one day and spent most of my credits to beat the game. I wish it was easily emulated because I would love to play it again but most arcades by me don’t have one any more sadly

What I really liked about the original 1983 Star Wars Arcade Game is that the early levels were easy enough for most beginners to get familiar with the game mechanics and destroy the death star. Now of course, the game got progressively harder and it would become more and more difficult to repeat the same feat. But for 25 cents, you were almost guaranteed to get the full Luke Skywalker experience.

For Battle Pods you forgot that there’s bad endings for when you fail a mission like how failing the Death Star Battle has you seeing Yavin get destroyed

I mastered the 1980s Star Wars Arcade game. I would drive around northern Indiana setting the records on all of the machines. I bought my own cabinet 15 years ago and it still works.

I was able to play the 2015 Bandai SW shooter only once, in a full wrap-around cabinet, at an arcade in Maebashi. That was about 7 years ago and I haven't found it since then. The Gundam game on which it was based has since been replaced by a successor Gundam game that unfortunately does not provide the full capsule experience.

Fantastic! I've played all of these in arcades, and the best is Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, hands down. In a darkened arcade, it completely sucks you in. Also the control stick has a big front trigger that will let you strafe with your opposite hand. The Battle Pod game is tons of fun too and probably a close second!

I loved the 1998 version, the force feedback on the stick was pretty intense (at least for a young kid) and made it difficult without being infuriating. I had a hard time finding them but when I did come across one, that’s where all the quarters went.

I think I should have been given stock options with how much of my moms money I spent on the Star Wars Trilogy Arcade.