MattKeil said:
Haha, what? Yeah, Shadows of the Empire, Masters of Teras Kasi, Yoda Stories, Star Wars Chess, Star Wars: Rebellion, Rebel Assault, SW Trilogy Arcade, they really pushed forward and represent the pinnacles of their respective genres. The SNES games were playable but more in a "better than I expected from a licensed game" way.
well, Rebel Assualt
was one of the best it's class. granted it's a shit class, but that doesn't mean it wasn't one of the best ones!
perhaps i went too far in saying it used to be some kind of quality guarantee, but since KOTOR I can't remember the last game that really felt like something special in it's genre. Battlefront was a good Battlefield clone. Empire at War was a good by the numbers RTS.
the entire X-Wing series was groundbreaking. Dark Forces, and Jedi Knight were too. the Super games were really good action platform games even looking past the license.
it's maybe not as hard a line as i suggested, but the quality of the major releases has dropped, even if i forgot about a lot of shitty secondary titles they put out back in the nineties
i don't hate the prequels by the way. it was a common complaint around the early 2000s that Lucasarts were making too many Star Wars games and the quality was suffering. they got things back on track for a bit circa 2003, but only for a bit, and when you compare the number of 'amongst the best in class' titles from the two decades i think the 90s easily hands the 00s their ass.
and that's even if we limit it to Star Wars games.
another point, Lucasarts themselves developed the best Star Wars games of the 90s. other devs developed the best Star Wars games of the 00s.