Top 10 WORST Star Wars Games

This game has a section where you have to protect Jar Jar Binks. Oh you need more reasons? Ok: The “Phantom Menace” SHOULD have made for some great gaming environments, since it featured things like Pod Racing and the Gungan War. That is, if you can actually SEE anything that’s going on, since the game features a frustratingly constricting top-down camera angle. The result left players in a paranoid frenzy, frantically shooting and slashing in hopes of hitting...something! Anything! We know that we’re not supposed to trust our eyes, according to Obi Wan, but this game took the advice a little too literally.

This entry is mostly an example of what could have been. This real-time strategy from the year 2000 actually had a promising story to it. The plot was to follow an Imperial Officer’s defection from the Empire to the Rebel Forces. However, the game’s development took far too long, shifting from 2-D graphics to 3-D early in its design phase. By the time of its release, the game’s specs just couldn’t match up to its competition. The once-ambitious project was panned by critics for its blocky design, laggy controls, balancing issues and an awkward soundtrack that featured techno versions of the original score. No seriously--just listen to it.

In the early 2000s, game studios were breaking their necks to cash in on the Star Wars prequels by pumping out games as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the legendary Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi was no exception, getting his very own game for the first Xbox console. The hasty production showed its face rather quickly, in the form of frustrating controls, uninspired combat movements, and voice acting that is sure give you the giggles. But hey, at least we could actually see what was going on this time. Although Obi Wan doesn’t believe in luck, he sure seemed to run out of it by starring in this title.

Creators of this game swore that it wasn’t just “Twisted Metal” with a Star Wars body kit. Soon after its release gamers discovered that...er, that’s exactly what it was. While a large amount of flack this release got was for its copycat concept, it would have been mildly forgiven if it was actually a good game. The graphics were subpar, the physics were counterintuitive, and buggy enviornments led to players getting trapped mid-level. The worst part was the game’s plot, which tried to justify why a demolition derby would occur in the Star Wars universe. Good luck explaining why Darth Maul and an adult Boba Fett would both exist at the same time.

While we’ve made it clear that Star Wars games were bad in the early 2000s, this game was bad even by early 1980’s standards. Released in the months leading up to the Infamous Video Game Crash of 1983, Jedi Arena embodied many of gaming’s flaws at the time. The game was based on a single scene in A New Hope where Luke practices lightsaber combat, and it shows. The objective is for players to control a stationary Jedi as they use lightsabers to deflect laser blasts towards their opponent. And...that’s kind of it. While it can give a dose of nostalgia to older fans, the honeymoon won’t last long once players get bored again after about 5 minutes.

While most developers knew that 3D on the Game Boy Advance was a gamble, the creators of this game apparently didn’t get the memo. In fact, this seemed like a title that was never meant to be on a handheld altogether. Flight of the Falcon was supposed to be a Star Fox-styled piloting experience that fans could conveniently play on-the-go. However, what they actually got was a blurry, lag-infested disappointment. The difficulty would rocket from Episode I-boring to nearly impossible without warning, and the save checkpoints were spaced so far apart that players would have to go hours at a time to keep their progress. So--basically the opposite of what a portable release is supposed to be.

The turn of the millennium strikes again. In you haven’t been counting, this is the fifth entry that was released early in the 2000s. In many ways, Jedi Power Battles has a lot in common with the movie it’s based on. The concept is interesting, but it quickly becomes a frustrating mess that is in no way memorable. The excitement of taking control of a notable Jedi from the franchise is immediately crushed due to aggravatingly bad controls and subpar graphics. Most players reported not even being able to make past the first level due to the clunky gameplay. Oh yeah--and did we mention it was also released on the GBA? No thank you.

While a Star Wars fighting game sounds like a great idea, fans of the franchise probably should have listened to Admiral Ackbar (“It’s a trap!”). This once-promising project during the Golden Age of fighting games ultimately fell to the dark side. Insanely unbalanced characters, frame detection issues, and subpar graphics not only made this one of the worst Star Wars games, but one of the worst fighting games ever. Even the members of the popular Team Four Star couldn’t help but laugh at how bad the release was. Any game that features Boba Fett using Kung Fu and reduces lightsabers to clubbing devices deserves to land at Number 3 on this list.

YODA: “Judge me by my size, do you?”) Nope, but we’ll definitely judge you by your game. Released as part of LucasArts’ “Desktop Adventure” series, Yoda Stories was marketed to be a Zelda-styled experience in the Star Wars Universe. What audiences actually ended up with was very little Yoda, and even less of a story, or game. The game was a series of randomly generated objectives, with no centralized plot. What’s worse, is that the formula of continuous fetch quests stayed the same regardless of what level the player was on. The repetitive scavenger hunts frustrated buyers and critics alike, leading to Yoda Stories becoming one of the lowest-rated games in the franchise’s history.

Before we reveal our top spot, here are a few honorable, or in this case, dishonorable mentions:

“Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Republic Heroes” (2009)

“Star Wars: Rebel Assault” (1993)

“Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing” (2001)

If you think The Holiday Special was the most cringeworthy thing to come out of Star Wars: … it still is, but this comes really close. Some of this title’s minigames, such as lightsaber combat and force training, were decent ideas that only fell flat due to the Kinect’s more motion capture. However, nothing in the entire galaxy far, far away could justify the Galactic Dance-off. The game mode let players synchronize real-life dance movements with famous character from the series. Nothing embodies Han Solo more than the scruffy-looking nerf herder getting jiggy with it while singing that he’s….er, Han Solo. Just like the added “Jedi Rock’s” scene in the Special Edition, this was something that we couldn’t unsee.