Early History
The first video game cartridge bearing the name Star Wars appeared on the RCA Studio II clones Sheen M1200 and Mustang Telespiel Computer in 1978: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/194243-rca-studio-ii-game-manuals/
The first official licensed video game bearing the name Star Wars appeared on Kenners table-top Star Wars Electronic Battle Command game in 1979: http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Kenner/SWBattleCommand.htm
The Atari 2600, beginning with The Empire Strikes Back (1982) in which the player piloted a snowspeeder during the Battle of Hoth, destroying AT-AT walkers. Several other games appeared, such as Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle (1983), where the player controlled the Millennium Falcon in a mission to destroy the second Death Star, and Jedi Arena (1983), the first game to attempt to simulate a lightsaber battle (in this case, clearly inspired by the A New Hope scene, where Luke Skywalker trains with a seeker). In 1983, the Star Wars arcade game was released by Atari based on A New Hope. In this game (featuring color vector graphics and the first ever digitized speech from a film) the player enters the seat of Luke's Red Five X-Wing fighter, battles waves of TIE fighters led by Darth Vader, weaves through towers across the surface of the Death Star, and plummets through the battle station's trench in an attempt to destroy it. The sequel for the game, The Empire Strikes Back, used the same technology to re-create scenes from the second film, including battles with AT-AT walkers and an asteroid field.
Due to the video game crash of 1983, which temporarily killed the home console market, no further games based on the franchise were released until 1987 when UK software publisher Domark released several 8-bit versions of the Star Wars vector arcade game, followed by similar conversions in 1988 of The Empire Strikes Back machine. In 1987, Namco developed a Star Wars game for the Famicom for the Japanese market exclusively, based on A New Hope, but with several liberties taken with the movie's storyline.
In 1991, the platformer Star Wars was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System, Game Boy and Game Gear, and one year later, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back covered the plotline of the fifth episode of the saga. Also in 1992, Super Star Wars was released for the SNES, followed by the remaining games in the trilogy: Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1993) and Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1994), the latter also receiving conversions for the Game Boy and Game Gear in 1995.
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