Over in the US of A there is a three day Star Wars celebration currently going on. Already we are getting to see the new teaser trailer for Episode 7, a trailer for the new Battlefront video game, and fan pictures of the ships and figures that make up the Fantasy Flight Games offerings that will be joining their official licenced boardgames later this year (hopefully) from their stand. Naturally at these sort of events there are panels, cosplay and more. And yes I wish I was there.
Back in the late seventies we had panini sticker books for football, and from time to time the odd hit movie. It was never like this day and age where there seems to be a sticker book to collect for everything that could even remotely be pimped to the public. We also had bubble gum cards and I remember collecting the cards and stickers for Empire Strikes Back. Well not exactly the cards but definitely the sticker book.
On the video game front the first Star Wars game I played was a Commodore 64 port of the classic Star Wars arcade game in all its wireframe goodness. From there I progressed to the Atari ST port of the Return of the Jedi arcade game. After that in the nineties while working in Byfleet for a credit card company on my first pc, an Amstrad 16Mhz 386sx clam shell laptop I got taken totally away into the Star Wars universe and lived every fans dream of being able to pilot an X-Wing in the groundbreaking game X-Wing. Naturally the follow up X-Wing vs Tie Fighter was more of the same amazing goodness. And then the Star Wars franchise jumped on the Doom band wagon with the amazing Dark Jedi Knight, a rather cool Star Wars FPS.
My only brushes with the Star Wars games during the Sony console dominated late nineties and early noughties was by proxy of my boys when they played them. However I'm getting a chance to play some of those games now thanks to a recent Humble Bundle that gave me a crap load of them for under a tenner. But the Humble Bundle folks also gave me a load of Star Wars comics (including the original Marvel ones) recently as well, also for a criminally low price. TOP TIP keep an eye on the Humble Bundles, sign up for their alerts they have some great value deals on regularly.
In the late nineties I collected the cards that made up the Star Wars collectable card game that was out at the time. Didn't get to play the game sadly. Plus in a box when there were the anniversary celebrations and special editions released I collected the Tazos and little plastic busts that Walkers did as part of the promotions that Lucas film had given them the licence for.
Now days it seems we are spoilt for good quality Star Wars related boardgames. the main plus side is that we don't have to put up with thinly rebranded editions of Risk and Monopoly. But can experience the rich tapestry of the Star Wars universe with X-Wing miniatures, Armada, Imperial Assualt or the Living Card Game to name some of them. FFG have done such a great job bringing the Star Wars universe to the table top, although I think none gamers and gamers will agree not always cheaply.
Having implied that rebranded versions of Monopoly and Risk are just cashing in (well I'm not a Monopoly fan), one cashin that I would love to see is the Star Wars theme being applied to Love Letter. I think it would work very well, and I love Love Letter especially the Batman Love Letter, and a Star Wars themed version would be awesome.
I don't know if the above words make any sense or form some sort of coherent narrative, or even have a point. But I hope you enjoyed them, what are your experiences of Star Wars growing up and of the games (which ever media).
Finally if you haven't seen the movie Fanboys it's worth a watch, it's been out a while.