Star Wars Episode 1: Racer

I have a quick and dirty review for you today. Well maybe not dirty but definitely a review filled with the sweet feelings of nostalgia. Star Wars Episode 1: Racer was originally a game on the Nintendo 64 and was released around the time The Phantom Menace came out in theaters. Now you are probably wondering with a name like that what could the game possibly be about. Well, it is a JRPG so massive it shook Final Fantasy to its core… No, it’s a race sim. You remember that part in episode 1 when Anakin drives really fast to save the day well, they made that into an entire game. Because of the warm feelings of my childhood that this game gave me I feel inclined to grade the story of this game high. That being said I am going to give this game a 4/10 because there really no story. The first race in the game is the race from the movie and the rest of the like 30 races are just super vanilla and forgettable.

The grind for this Platinum trophy was such a breeze. It was only like 30 trophies in total and almost all of them you get for just getting first place in every race. One specific one that gave me some trouble was the one you get for buying all of the best upgrades in the game. This gave me trouble because it gives you a random bunch of parts to buy after each race and if one of the parts you need is not in that batch you need to wait till after the next race. Also, if you do not have enough money you have to wait till that next batch. It was bull shit, but I wound up getting all of the parts that I needed by the second to last race. This game gets an 8/10 for the grind. I had great time just zoning out and racing.

The game was made for the Nintendo 64 in the 90’s. It was re mastered “kind of” for the PS5 but it is hard to tell. It’s not winning any awards by todays graphical standards. The controls on the other hand were something special. It was so nice to play a racing game where you hit the stick to go left and at once your vehicle goes to the left. Tons of race games or games with driving in them have a sloppy buffer on the drive control. Some of the games are trying too hard and make any sort of driving without crashing a huge issue. Leave it to this gem of a 90’s throwback game to really nail driving controls. 6/10 the racing was a joy, but fuck was this game hard to look at times.

With an overall score of 6/10 this game was ok. It is an easy Platinum that doesn’t make you feel like a scum bag for getting like a clicker sim. The story was weak and the graphics lousy but that’s not the games fault. Made in the 90’s and based of one scene in probably the worst Star Wars movie, it was doomed from the start. I would like to say this game was ambitious, but it was really just another money grab movie tie in game.