star games movie review

The 25 Best ‘Star Wars’ Games Ever Made

By Christopher Cruz

Christopher Cruz

Across pop culture, few franchises lend themselves to video games as well as Star Wars . It’s got it all: galaxy-wide conflicts between clones and robots, Top Gun -style aerial combat among the stars, bounty hunters, smugglers, and mercenaries all armed to teeth just looking for trouble. And then there’s some superpowered space wizards with laser swords or something.

Rife with potential, there’s been no shortage of Star Wars games. The franchise was born right at the time when video games were finding their footing amid the arcades’ heyday and the dawn of the home console.

Since the first game, 1982’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600, the franchise has been a constant source of inspiration for developers. From platformers to flight sims, RPGs and real-time strategy, and way too many digital pinball games, Star Wars has seen and been it all. But it’s had its ups and downs.

Having been with gaming through all its growing pains, Star Wars is among the most adapted franchises in the industry’s history, and itself is a staple for players in the way series like Pac-Man and Mario are. But not all Star Wars games are equal; some aren’t worth mentioning at all. Yet at its best , Star Wars empowers players to live out all their greatest fantasies of power, intrigue, and most of all, wonder.

With Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws releasing this week, we’re looking back at the games that brought the feeling of George Lucas’ world to life in the palm of players’ hands. From early pixelated retellings of the original movie to game’s so immersive you can feel a bantha’s breath, here are the greatest Star Wars games of all time.

‘Star Wars: Hunters’

Developed by Farmville creator Zynga, 2024’s Star Wars: Hunters is a free-to-play competitive hero shooter that’s easy to pick up and a breezy way to get a family-friendly shooter fix. Ostensibly a simplified Overwatch clone with a Star Wars coat of a paint, it deviates from the more complex multiplayer experiences that the franchise has become known for, while remaining a solidly addictive competitive 4v4 squad arena game. Great for kids cutting their teeth in online gaming, it’s a no-frills, streamlined character mash-up that proves there’s fun to be had across all genres in Star Wars gaming, even when it’s low-hanging fruit.

‘Star Wars: Bounty Hunter’

While a generation of players longed for a game starring Episode V ‘s badass Boba Fett, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter offers the next best thing with an action-adventure based on his dad, Jango. A prequel to Episode II – Attack of the Clones , it depicts the backstory of the former Mandalorian warrior on a mission to hunt down a Dark Jedi that spirals into a larger conspiracy. As part of the expanded universe, the story is now non-canon, but as a bounty hunter power fantasy, the game works fine (albeit with some jankiness to the dated controls). But with a jet pack, flamethrower, and blaster ready, what more do you need?

‘Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace’

Much like the film that inspired it , 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace video game adaptation can be a slog. A near 1:1 recreation of the movie’s plot, the game plays out like a choppy, blocky action platformer take on the disappointing prequel. But by giving players control of the characters — including Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon Jinn, Queen Amidala, and Captain Panaka — it at least delivers a greater sense of agency than expected from a story about trade embargoes. Overall, it’s a standard PlayStation 1 era action game elevated by its cheesiness and woefully funny voice acting.

‘Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire’

One of the first Star Wars games to break away from a simple retelling of the original trilogy, Shadows of the Empire stood apart as a piece of a larger multimedia project to fill in the narrative gap between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi . As mercenary Dash Rendar, players are able to blast their way through the game’s plot alongside franchise staples Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, and Chewbacca in a swashbuckling adventure that colors in the margins of the OT and recontextualizes the aftermath of pivotal moments like the Battle of Hoth. During the heyday of now non-canon Expanded Universe, fans were hungry for new characters like Dash in ways many now reject in the modern era – unless your name is Din Djarin .

‘Star Wars: Rebellion’

Breaking the mold of all-out action, 1998’s Rebellion opted for a more methodical approach to Star Wars gaming. As a real-time strategy game, players take on the role of an officer in either the Rebel Alliance or the Empire to manage the large-scale conquest of different systems throughout the galaxy. Of course, that comes with the all the thankless work of maintenance, diplomacy, and resource building that often gets left aside in the wake of lightsaber dueling and X-Wing aerial theatrics. It isn’t perfect by any means, but it helped set the pace for later games in the genre by improving on the more cerebral aspect of Star Wars simulation.

‘Star Wars’

Despite its vintage, 1983’s arcade classic wasn’t the first Star Wars game, coming a year after the Parker Brothers’ Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1982) for the Atari 2600. But it was the first good one and stands as the progenitor for what video games based on the franchise could be. Like many popular coin-op cabinets of the time it’s an on-the-rails shooter, based on the Death Star trench run of the original 1977 film. With its vibrantly colorful vector graphics that recreate wireframe facsimiles of X-Wings and TIE Fighters, Star Wars ’ arcade introduction showed fans of Lucas’ space fantasy a neon vision of its future through gaming.

‘Star Wars: Squadrons’

If 1983’s Star Wars introduced what high octane dogfighting in space could look like, 2020’s Star Wars: Squadrons shows how far it’s come. Set after the events of Return of the Jedi , the game’s singe-player narrative bounces between perspectives on both sides of the battle, taking on split roles between the New Republic and the remnants of the Galactic Empire. But it’s the game’s multiplayer mode where it truly shines, as a full-on starfighter sim played across all axes from within the cockpit. The most cutting edge take on Star Wars space combat to date, its level of immersion is unmatched, especially with the game fully playable in VR.

‘Star Wars Racer Revenge’

The follow-up to 1999’s Episode I: Racer , 2002’s Racer Revenge brought the original’s white knuckle hover speeding to the PlayStation 2. Yet, despite having substantially more advanced hardware and a stellar foundation to build off, the sequel does little to advance beyond its predecessor, although remains of the most unique entries in the pantheon of Star Wars games. With a heavy focus on vehicle-to-vehicle combat over expert-level handling and mechanics, the game feels at least partially inspired by the likes of Twisted Metal or Crash Team Racing over the pristine balance of the original.

‘Star Wars: The Force Unleashed’

Another product of the now-defunct Expanded Universe, The Force Unleashed was released in a post- God of War era where more mature tones and brutal action reigned supreme, and it shows. The game centers around the secret apprentice of Darth Vader, Galen Marek — referred to a Starkiller — who serves as the Sith lord’s right hand in a quest to eliminate surviving Jedi before inadvertently getting tangled up in a conspiracy to overthrow the Emperor himself. The story may be a mess, but the crunchy combat and litany of Force abilities in players’ hands make for one of the strongest power fantasies in the series. Its sequel, 2010’s The Force Unleashed II ratcheted everything up to 11 in the worst possible way before the sub-franchise was put to bed for good.

‘Star Wars Jedi Starfighter’

While there’s several great starship-based games in the franchise, few have focused solely on the unique ways in which the Jedi themselves engaged in aerial and space warfare. While its predecessor, Star Wars: Starfighter, let players take control of any number of ships from the prequel era, Jedi Starfighter gave them the reins to Force-powered ships not generally seen in vehicle-based Star Wars action games. The addition of Force abilities to the starfighter formula bridges the gap between traditional Jedi-based gameplay and the bliss of zero gravity dogfighting that still remains rare to see across other games of its ilk throughout the years.

‘Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles’

For all the types of video games made from the Star Wars license, there’s been surprisingly few that scratch the specific itch of a good old-fashioned beat ‘em up. It’s really a shame because 2000’s Jedi Power Battles showed the potential of sticking to the fundamentals of kickass arcade-style combat. Once again following the plot of Episode I , the game skips through the boring parts (the story) and cuts to the chase with a cooperative blitz through multiple levels in the vein of brawler cult classics like 1997’s Fighting Force . A perfect overnight binge with buddies, gaming has yet to see anything like Jedi Power Battles from the franchise since.

‘Vader Immortal’

As one of the flagship titles to usher in the modern era of virtual reality, the Vader Immortal series had a lot to live up to. Literally putting a lightsaber in players’ hands should be a no-brainer; enough non-licensed games do that enough already. But there was always a chance to whiff it with a shallow carnival ride on an expensive headset. Thankfully, the Vader Immortal series stuck the landing, with three episodes released throughout 2019 that made the novelty of VR worth it, even just for a bit. There’s nothing quite as harrowing as its climactic moments, staring down Darth Vader himself across the uncanny valley as the hair stands up on your neck in anticipation of the full body workout of the duel to come.

‘Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’

There was a period after Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012 where Star Wars games really just sucked . With a multiplayer-heavy reboots of the Battlefront series releasing in 2015 and 2017 to a critical and fan mauling, there seemed to be little hope for the return of strong single-player narrative games in the franchise. In 2019, Fallen Order changed that. The game introduced a new Padawan, Cal Kestis, who’s on the run following the execution of Order 66 that eliminated most of the Jedi. With puzzle-like pseudo open-world environments and complex “ Soulslike ” gameplay, Fallen Order helped usher in a brighter future for quality Star Wars games at a time when many were worried that the best years were behind them.

‘Star Wars: Episode I: Racer’

Among the litany of issues with Lucas’ initial outing into the Star Wars prequels, there’s one aspect most fans can agree on: podracers rock . The breakneck speed and deadly cat-and-mouse mind games of a Star Wars version of Formula One perfectly translate to gaming in 1999’s Episode I: Racer . A standout on the Nintendo 64, it’s remembered fondly by players of the era as one of the most exhilarating games there is, standing alongside Nintendo’s own sci-fi F-Zero as one of the console’s best racers. With deep customization options and a slew of different vehicles and jockeys to choose from, it offers a surprisingly complex system to create the perfect speed machine to beat its toughest courses.

‘Star Wars: Empire at War’

Following in the footsteps of previous real-time strategy games like Rebellion , Empi r e at War allows players to engage in large-scale combat on both planetary surfaces and in space. With multiple modes, including a main campaign and a more sandbox-like Galactic Conquest, fans can stage epic battles between three factions including the Rebel Alliance, the Empire, and rogue pirates — although only the first two are playable. With a brand-new engine making the game more visually and mechanically complex than its predecessor, Empire at War delivers the kind of peak strategy gameplay Star Wars deserves, and has inspired a dedicated modding community that’s still actively playing their own versions of the game today.

‘Star Wars: TIE Fighter’

One of the first Star Wars flight simulators to fully nail the in-cockpit perspective, 1993’s Star Wars: X-Wing was revolutionary for its time. Its sequel, 1994’s TIE Fighter , took it to the next level, as fans got to play as an Imperial pilot tasked with crushing Rebel forces, pirates, and even turncoats from the Empire. Each mission offers a wealth of primary and secondary objectives to complete. Building on the foundation of X-Wing , TIE Fighter introduces the ability to target individual components of large ships and stations in addition to more advanced 3D targeting displays. While later title like Squadrons have modernized this type of game, TIE Fighter set the standard for its time.

‘Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga’

No Star Wars games list is complete without a Lego entry. Since 2005, the Lego-fication of Star Wars has made for its own ongoing saga as the family-friendly send-up of the franchise continues to see updates based on both the individual trilogies and original stories. 2022’s The Skywalker Saga is seemingly the end-all, be-all of the series, with a sprawling narrative the retells the story of all nine main episodes, through The Rise of Skywalker . As silly, satirical takes on the plot of the films, the Lego Star Wars games make for great entry points for younger fans who want to engage in the space fantasy epic with a little more slapstick comedy. A love letter to Lucas’ creation, Lego Star Wars is packed with references and easter eggs and makes for a laid-back multiplayer experience that’s perfect for couch co-op.

‘Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords’

Like real-time strategy and beat ‘em ups, RPGs are another genre that have seen surprisingly little of Star Wars ’ love over the years. From Obsidian (of Fallout: New Vegas fame), Knights of the Old Republic II shows how much potential there is for choice-driven gameplay in a galaxy far, far away. Like its predecessor, the game is set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy at a time when the Jedi are at their strongest, having nearly eradicated the Sith. With the ability to create a custom character to build out, and a heavy emphasis on freedom to play out combat and dialogue interactions in a variety of ways, it’s beloved by many for its morally gray take on Star Wars . Unfortunately, the game does little to evolve beyond the first game, playing near identically, and ultimately launched feeling somewhat unfinished in comparison.

‘Super Star Wars’

Tucked away amid all the 3D action epics and starfighter sims in Star Wars ’ gaming history is a trio of brutally difficult side-scrolling platformers that are quintessentially Nineties. The first, 1992’s Super Star Wars , is one of the best movie-to-game tie-ins of an age where the adaptations were at their best. (Remember Disney’s Super Nintendo classics like 1993’s Aladdin and 1994’s The Lion King ?) Following the plot of the original film portrayed in 16-bit pixelated bliss, players control a core cast of Luke, Han, and Chewy in sequences from the movie reworked to focus on shooting and jumping. Later stages, like the notorious landspeeder level and the Death Star trench-run, infuse faux-3D visuals and parallax effects that the SNES hardware made famous. None of the games in the Super Star Wars trilogy are easy, but if you’re up for a grueling challenge, they’re a exceptional retro experiences that hold up until this day.

‘Star Wars: Battlefront II’

Not to be confused with 2017’s Battlefront II , a game that looked great but mostly disappointed fans, the true Star Wars Battlefront II was released in 2005 and is widely considered one of best — if not the best — multiplayer experiences in the Star Wars universe. A third-person shooter released shorty after Halo exploded online gaming for console players, Battlefront II offered large-scale ground warfare with modes like conquest and capture the flag in addition to ship-to-ship bouts in space. For those playing solo, the game has a more robust story mode than the original, making it a complete package whose nostalgic hooks in gamers did no favors to the reboot a decade later.

‘Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’

2019’s Fallen Order was a great game, but many at the time felt that it was mostly a great foundation for an even better sequel. That’s exactly what 2023’s Survivor ended up being. Taking the Soulslike gameplay of the first game and streamlining its combat with more fluid movement and less emphasis on slow, defensive measures, the sequel improved the moment-to-moment action and doled out powerful abilities at a more rapid pace. With improved visuals and a steadier build, Survivor continued the upward trend of Star Wars games in the 2020s and portrayed a thrilling, cinematic story that rivals what’s being produced theatrically or on Disney+, all the while delivering a tightly designed, challenging action game that makes for a more approachable take on games like Dark Souls .

‘Star Wars Outlaws’

While many games manage to replicate the iconography of Star Wars — the ships, lightsabers, and droids — few manage to fully immerse players in its vibe . What if, instead of just racing through Star Wars -coded environments, you could spend time soaking it in? That’s the promise of Outlaws , the most recent game in the Star Wars lineage. Setting aside the Jedi and rebels, it focuses instead on a small-time thief named Kay Vess, and the cascading mess she creates as she makes her mark on the criminal underworld. The first truly open-world Star Wars game, Outlaws lets players pick up gigs and primary quests across numerous planets and figure out on their own the best way to play in the sandbox. The gameplay is on the simpler side of action, but by focusing on the lesser seen sides of Star Wars with a whimsically adventurous tone, it embodies the spirit of the original films better than most games ever have.

‘Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast’

Why force players to choose between a first-person shooter and a third-person lightsaber game when you can have both? That’s the promise of Jedi Outcast . The third entry in the Jedi Knight series after the Wolfenstein -inspired Dark Forces duology, the game stars Kyle Katarn, an ex-Jedi turned mercenary whose proficiency with all forms of weaponry, which means blasters and blades alike at his disposal. The balance between FPS gunplay and lightsaber dueling makes Outcast feel like a blend of the best Star Wars games; the ability to swap perspectives at the touch of a button, and the option to choose both Light and Dark side powers, expands on Kyle’s repertoire from the previous games to mold the ultimate Force-powered bad ass.

‘Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader’

Among an armada of ace starfighter games, only one is supreme: Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader . Developed as a launch title for Nintendo’s GameCube in 2001, Rogue Leader astonished players with a massive technological leap forward. Frankly, it was all downhill from there. No future release on the GameCube packed the same awe factor as the game’s opening level, which kickstarted the experience with a furiously chaotic take on the classic Death Star trench run. With razor-sharp controls and high-pressure dogfighting scenarios, Rogue Leader felt like Nintendo’s true successor to its own space sim Starfox , but better. And looking back now, it could genuinely go toe-to-toe with any modern flight combat game today — Star Wars or otherwise.

‘Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic’

Of everything that makes Star Wars great, its deepest strength may be its sense of scope. At its core, it’s about big things coming from small places. It all begins with happenstance, a turn of fate, before snowballing into grandiosity. Bioware’s 2003 RPG Knights of the Old Republic takes that concept and runs with it. Built off the bones of Wizards of the Coasts’ d20 game system (a.k.a. a Dungeons & Dragons ruleset), KOTOR presents players with world of possibilities. Set 4,000 years before the Star Wars everyone knows; it’s not bound by the continuity that most games contort themselves into. The game opens right in the action, with an amnesiac player character waking up aboard a ship besieged by fire. With a daring escape, the story begins to uncover the mysteries of the protagonist’s past with many choices to be made along the way. It’s not the first game of its kind, but it was the first time a Star Wars video game put players in a position that reflects the journey of a true Star Wars lead, unsure and unknowing, with so much to learn about the world around them.

The best measure of a perfect Star Wars game isn’t just how much it looks like the films, but how closely it feels like them. KOTOR threads the needle of recreating many of the franchise’s oldest themes while consistently creating something new, something the player wants it to be. In the time since, more complex RPGs have been made, but few pack the punch of making Star Wars an open book expression. The original game may feel dated, but with a highly anticipated remake on the way, a new generation of players can experience the wonder for the very first time.

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Star Games is a 1997 Direct to Video film and the final movie directed by Greydon Clark, the man behind Joysticks and Final Justice . Starring Daran Norris , Tony Curtis and Greydon Clark's own sons, Trevor and Travis. After getting lost in the woods during a family camping trip, the diabetic and video game-addicted Brian (Trevor) meets Kirk (Travis): a boy who just so happens to be an alien prince on the run from the sinister Galactic Conquerer Lugos. Friendship blossoms, adventures ensue and, and... Let's just cut to the chase: it's a bad movie.

This movie contains examples of:

• Aliens Are Bastards : Lugos, seeing how he's the only one that's clearly an alien.
• Arc Symbol : Triangles and pyramids are liberally scattered throughout the film. And it's never explained why.
• Bears Are Bad News : Brian, Kirk and eventually the villains are threatened by wild bears in the forest.
• Big Bad : Lugos, who is bent on galactic domination.
• Casual Interstellar Travel : All Kirk has to do is hop in his mother's spaceship and tell Happy to set a course for Earth. So yes, very casual.
• Creepy Child : Kirk - albeit an unintentional example.
• Digital Avatar : Happy the Clown, who inhabits the computer onboard Kirk's spaceship. He also takes the form of a lawyer, a soldier and Travis Bickle.
• Easily Thwarted Alien Invasion : Lugos and his robot soldiers are outmatched and outwitted by two children. It makes you wonder how he's even a credible threat to the universe.
• Energy Weapon : Used regularly by both the good and bad guys. And they always look like translucent plastic tubes or coathangers for some reason.
• Feudal Future : Implied to be the case for the rest of the galaxy.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With : Happy freaks Brian out when the two first meet. Happy then decides to shift into a lawyer, but changes back when that proves to be even creepier (somehow).
• The Good King : Kirk's grandfather, Findel.
• Human Aliens : The only alien ever seen is Lugos; everyone else is human.
• Humans Are White : Good luck finding a single minority in the entire film.
• Insistent Terminology : Kirk insists on calling planets by their "correct" name. For example, Mars' real name is supposedly "Furdik."
• In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves : Earth is regarded by Kirk's kingdom as a violent, ugly place.
• Military Salute : Lugos' robotic henchmen have a very unfortunate looking one.
• Medical Monarch : Kirk is able to heal Brian's wounded hand instantly.
• Non-Ironic Clown : Happy is an attempted example, but at least he's got a fairly amicable personality.
• A Planet Named Zok : In spades: Alriscon, Furdik, Zandez, Nurwan, Skutenesh, etc.
• Sapient Ship : Kirk's spaceship, thanks to Happy.
• Space Battle : In the opening scenes. Though it looks more like a poorly-rendered LSD trip.
• Space Romans : Kirk's homeworld and culture is lifted straight out of medieval Europe.
• Universal Translator : One of the functions that Kirk's watch has.
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Directed by Greydon Clark

A young space prince on the run from an evil space villain, stranded on Earth and waiting for his grandfather the king to rescue him, befriends an Earth child named Brian and together they evade robots, bears, and triangles.

Trevor Clark Travis Clark Darby Hinton Jacqulin Cole Daran Norris Conrad Hadan Brian Fitzpatrick Greydon Clark Tony Curtis

Director Director

Greydon Clark

Producers Producers

Greydon Clark David L. Hewitt Darby Hinton

Writers Writers

Greydon Clark David Reskin

Cinematography Cinematography

Nicholas Josef von Sternberg

Camera Operator Camera Operator

Richard Morales

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Larry Arpin

Composer Composer

Ulrich Sinn

Greydon Clark Productions

Alternative Titles

Star Games, Jocurile stelare

Family Science Fiction Adventure

Releases by Date

03 jun 1998, releases by country.

• Theatrical NR

90 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by madmonsterparty ★★★

Silly, cheesy, but still kind of fun.

On one hand it's a nice adventure movie with likable characters, but if you were to ask me anything about the plot in about a week I probably couldn't come up with a decent outline.

But can it still be viewed as a fun movie? In quite a few ways, I'd still say yes. It still had some fun scenes thrown in and to be honest, some of the silly, cheese factor actually works in the movies favor from time to time. And it does have a nice family type movie feel to it that works to it's advantage.

And that's basically about it. It's a decent adventure movie with two solid main characters and some fun energy from time to time to make it a decent outing.

Review by MushiMinion ★

Press X to BRIAN

A diabetic and Little Lord Fauntleroy wander around the woods for 90-minutes fighting rejected Ray Harryhausen monsters and Doctor Who  aliens. Oh, and they're chased by a freakin' bear.

I thoroughly recommend watching it with Rifftrax.

Review by Ira Brooker ★ 1

An outer space prince escapes a coup attempt and gets stranded in a California forest at precisely the same time that a diabetic Earth kid gets chased into the same woods by a disinterested bear. Can they join forces to prevent an interstellar war and/or dying in a moderately dense thatch of pine trees?

On the one hand, I have to appreciate Greydon Clark having fun with his family by casting his sons in an epic (by the very relative standards of Greydon Clark films) sci-fi adventure replete with computer-generated space effects, budget Harryhausen monster models, and a mildly engaged Tony Curtis. On the other hand, boy, this really sucks.

The Clark boys are nobody's idea of natural actors and…

Review by 💀EmperorCupcake🧁

Gently fell asleep to this amazing little Rifftrax gem after we had to rush one of our cats to the vet (we think he's ok now)! I can watch this one over and over, it's a perfect example of a one star movie making a five star Rifftrax. If I rated just the movie I'd ofc have to give it one star. This has some of the worst acting and dialogue ever, including a line read of the word "yay" from the Director's Son (I mean, obvs) that must be seen to be believed.

But I can't do that, because I love this movie. It brings me so much joy. Tony Curtis is randomly in it, as is the Club…

Review by Curtis ★

Despite being someone who tends to find fault with everything, I'm not really the type to criticize someone's home movies. And that's what StarGames feels like. A cobbled-together, probably fun little family project thrown together over the weekend and undoubtedly written by the young stars. But Greydon Clark chose to release it as a film, so...I guess...criticize away?

You're watching two kids playing in the woods, except most kids could probably put together special effects better than this. It was fun to see Darby Hinton, the original Cody Abilene, in a supporting role. Much less fun to see Tony Curtis phoning in a performance.

I should have gone for the Rifftrax of this, because the straight, unfiltered version is a pretty rough watch. So much awkward dialogue. So much random alien nonsense. And that clown... Don't get me started about that goddamn clown.

Review by mattstechel ★

They should've called this Triangle of Sadness!!!! (The aliens travel in triangles--and everytime a triangle appears it's like tinged with ominous portent.) (Triangle of Suspicion??? Triangle of Doom!!!) Anyways this is absolute pure unpasteurized cheese. (Stinky like unpasteurized cheese too!) Tony Curtis is inexplicably in this as the leader of this alien species trying to prevent his people from getting wiped out. His grandson ends up slipping away in a spaceship and escapes to Earth and crashes in the woods where this other kid named Brian who's addicted to video games is on vacation with his folks. A bear separates Brian from his folks and Brian ends up meeting Verook who looks like the kid's age and has a wristwatch…

Review by Steve Sandberg ½ 3

I learned a lot about Greydon Clark last night, most notably that he has a website at greydonclark.com where you can order a copy of this wonderful movie on DVD. I wasn't aware of this as I made two copies off of a VHS recording of Star Games, itself copied from an official VHS release found in a thrift store somewhere in Minnesota. All I knew was that this movie, and its space bear, needed to be preserved for the future. The future of Star Games.

Review by ChenVideo ★★ 1

Wow que c'était inepte ça.

C'est un peu comme si un collègue de travail plus âgé te montre sur son cell un vidéo qu'il a fait en fin de semaine avec ses enfants, sa femme pis un filtre Star Trek . En théorie, tu peux trouver ça cute qu'ils aient eu du fun à faire ça, mais en pratique, t'as juste hâte que ça finisse. Ben Star Games , c'est un peu ça, mais en version long métrage.

Ça peu ben être le dernier film de Greydon Clark.

Review by N3V3RW00RLD ★★★★

lmfao look at that fat ass pot belly bear, made him drop his game gear

triangles are keys 2 space

I think I love lasers more than everyone else because what the fuck is up with all the low ratings

maybe not better than star wars, but definitely better than dune. Paul Atreides did not have diabetes (FACT)

Greydon Clark rulez, I've seen more of this guys movies than Spielbergs

"he's not stupid, hes a clown"

put a million lights and pew pew noises and beams and model spaceships and planetscape scenery and otherworldy outfits and orbs that shoot lasers and zaps and bloops and bzzzz and I'm the happiest girl in the world

Review by MrGeekBoi ½

This movie is the death of joy and goodness. Somehow manages to be worse than A Christmas Story 2.

Fortunately I saw the Rifftrax version and honestly it has some of their finest riffs.

Random Weirdness Generator V 2.0 (Master List)

Review by sammich ½

Some of the worst child acting I've ever witnessed, and I've seen a lot of bad movies. Really really bad dialogue, too. On the upside: pretty unintentionally funny.

Review by Kilian is Predeceased ½

This movie is such a turd, it’s incredible. I thought  my  family was embarrassing.

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‘wolfs’ review: brad pitt and george clooney reunite for a cunning caper that never takes itself too seriously — sometimes to a fault.

Jon Watts ('Spider-Man: Homecoming') wrote and directed this New York-set action comedy, which will roll out on Apple TV+ after premiering in Venice.

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Can movie stars stay cool forever?

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Either way it’s unfortunate, because Wolfs is a work that deserves big-screen attention — instead of being viewed in bed on a MacBook that’s resting on top of your crotch. Written and directed by Jon Watts , who, after a lengthy stint in the Marvel Universe, returns to the caper mode of his 2015 breakthrough Cop Car , the movie has twists galore and showcases a slick, deadpan style you hardly see in Hollywood anymore. Both fun and thin at the same time, it’s not about much in the end except the idea of reuniting Pitt and Clooney to see if they still have their magic, which they mostly do.

Both play “cleaners” or “fixers” — think Jean Reno in La Femme Nikita or Harvey Keitel, the first and most famous Wolf, in Pulp Fiction — who get hired for a job that winds up stretching out for one long, snowy and action-packed New York night. That job entails helping a district attorney ( Amy Ryan ) get rid of a dead body in her luxury hotel room, but it quickly spirals into much more. The body, in fact, is not dead at all, and belongs to a gabby, nervous wreck of a kid (Austin Abrams), who happens to be carrying four kilos of heroine in his book bag.

Watts teases out the tension and humor between them in every scene, getting plenty of mileage off their slightest gestures or facial expressions, especially during a few sequences where there’s hardly any dialogue at all. Like in Cop Car , or his excellent TV series, The Old Man , the director has a knack for staging visual comedy and action with only a few shots and cuts — the opposite of what most overshot action movies do.

At its best moments, Wolfs takes that style to extreme lengths, in what’s basically a two-hander set on lots of empty Manhattan streets, or inside Clooney’s comfy BMW. A few other characters are brought in, including the aforementioned “kid,” a doctor (Poorna Jagannathan) working out of a restaurant in Chinatown, and an Albanian mob boss (Zlatko Burić) whose daughter’s wedding the two crash in one over-the-top scene.

But like Pitt and Clooney, none of these characters feels like real people. They’re occupants of a movie world closer to the ’90s-era meta-fictions of Tarantino than anything real or contemporary. Which means that whether they live or die, shoot one another or hug it up, finish as besties or arch enemies, doesn’t seem to matter all that much.

As for the question at the top of this review, at one point the kid, who’s as nerdy a New Yorker as they come, tells Pitt and Clooney how cool they are. And it’s true they do some very cool things, like when Clooney bags a body in the hotel room in one quick swoop, brings it casually downstairs on a luggage rack and kicks it into the trunk of his Beemer. Even when, later on, he and Pitt have to simultaneously take out their old man reading glasses, they seem cool as cucumbers.

But does everyone still think that? If you were to ask a bunch of random teenagers or people in their 20s today, it’s possible they don’t even know who the actors are or what films they’ve done. And it’s also quite possible they don’t watch many films at all anymore, if they ever did.

And so if Wolfs is about anything, perhaps it’s about testing whether Hollywood stars exert the same power and fascination they did when movies seemed to matter much more to the general public. The results of that test are yet to be known, and Wolfs leaves us with a final image of Pitt and Clooney suspended together in action, as if to say: If they no longer have us, at least they have each other.

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Controversial Point: George Clooney and Brad Pitt Are Good Together

George Clooney and Brad Pitt made for exuberant entertainment in the 2000s, and then gave us nothing together for the next 16 years. For this, I mostly blame Clooney, who’s spent the better part of that period on the run from his own effortless movie stardom toward a career directing earnest, unexciting films. Clooney is so adept at turning on the charm that he seems lightly embarrassed by the whole deal, as if it’s all too easy, but when you watch something like Wolfs you appreciate how rare his charisma is. Wolfs , which comes from Spider-Man: No Way Home ’s Jon Watts, isn’t exceptional as comedies go — certainly nowhere near as cutting as the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading or as effervescent as the Ocean’s trilogy (may it continue looping on cable forever). But it is an unabashed platform for basking in the rapport of its two leading men, who are in familiar and fine form as a pair of hypercompetent cleaners, and that makes it a consistently enjoyable watch even when the pacing gets a little slack.

The characters that Clooney and Pitt play in Wolfs aren’t named. Clooney’s credited as “Margaret’s Man” and Pitt as “Pam’s Man” in a reference to the women who hire each of them, but neither of them actually belong to anyone. They operate alone, freelance fixers for hire who show up to solve problems for the powerful and connected. On the night in question, that means a District Attorney, Margaret (Amy Ryan), who finds herself in a ruinous situation with the body of a twentysomething in a $10,000 hotel suite, and Pam (Frances McDormand, another Burn After Reading alum, in an off-screen role), who owns that hotel. When the two men find themselves double booked to cover up what Margaret swears was an accidental death, they begrudgingly try to work together. When the body turns out to be accompanied by a backpack full of heroin, and also turns out to belong to a hapless kid (Austin Abrams) who isn’t actually dead after all, the unhappy pair of professionals realize they’re in for a long night in a snowy New York City around the holidays.

The film’s title is a reference to lone wolves, but it also brings to mind Winston Wolfe (Harvey Keitel), the no-nonsense cleaner in Pulp Fiction . Neither of the guys in Wolfs come close to summoning Winston’s tuxedoed zest for life, though. They live for their jobs, taking such professional pride in their work that each resents the other seeing the little tricks of the trade they’ve perfected over the years. There isn’t as much pop culture lore built up about the idea of fixers as there is about, say, assassins, and aside from a mentioned expectation of solitary monasticism, the film doesn’t have quite enough to riff on to sustain itself in its last act, when we’re expected to believe that the merest hint that the two men are acquainted in some way would be cause for one of their former clients to kill them both. But the bickering the pair do at the beginning, when they meet for the first time in that blood-soaked hotel room and soon find themselves arguing over body disposal technique, their division of labor, and who has the best backroom physician — that’s so very good.

Watts made the calling card indies Clown (2014) and Cop Car (2015) before getting scooped up by Marvel to direct Sony’s three Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. That those were some of the most successful blockbusters of the past decade says nothing about Watts’ filmmaking sensibility beyond his ability to shepherd movies through a complicated corporate mindfield. Wolfs doesn’t offer much more on that front, either, aside from the fact that Watts likes a lot of the right stuff, like, as cited in his own director’s statement, David Mamet, and Buster Keaton, who inspired a nice bit of slow-motion slapstick involving an unintended car collision in the middle of a chase. It’s a sign of how franchise-warped Hollywood has gotten that this action comedy starring two of the industry’s biggest stars is framed as a “one for me” project, but it doesn’t actually feel like a release of all the creative impulses Watts had to tamp down over years in the superhero trenches.

It feels adequate, never propulsive or clever enough, but exactly the kind of material that Clooney and Pitt know how to sell with their expert timing, their wordless exchanges of eloquent eye contact as the action heats up, and the expected but inarguable pleasure that comes from their characters starting to like and respect one another over the course of the slushy evening. They’re playing rival coworkers who’ve been secretly dying to talk shop with someone else in their field for years, and they slowly realize that they’ve finally been given that opportunity in between stops involving a Chinatown doctor, Albanian gangsters, and a Croatian mob wedding. Clooney and Pitt played heist besties in the Ocean’s movies, and they slip into some of those rhythms again, Pitt the wise-ass who likes to offer sardonic commentary from the sidelines, Clooney the would-be mastermind trying to game out the bigger picture. It’s good to see them together, especially as recurring bits about reading glasses and sore backs provide the reminder that neither is as spry as they used to be. We shouldn’t have to wait another 16 years.

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‘The Piano Lesson’ Review: A Promising Debut for Malcolm Washington Leans on the Acting Prowess of Its Star-Studded Cast

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“The Piano Lesson” opens in 1911 Mississippi, as Fourth of July fireworks bathe a wordless heist in red and blue flashes. A group of unnamed Black men break into an empty house to steal a piano. Early the next morning, some white men on horses burn a remote cottage down in retribution, but the thieves escape. 

It’s a stark opening, one that indicates this adaptation might not be as beholden to the single-location setting of its source material. Unfortunately, Malcolm’s adaptation is largely faithful to Wilson’s play and is likewise grounded in one location. 

It all kicks off 25 years after that heist when Boy Willie (John David Washington) and his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher) arrive unannounced to Willie’s uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) and his sister Berniece’s (Danielle Deadwyler) Pittsburgh home, a truckful of watermelon in tow. Their arrival comes with a plan, one the loudmouth Boy Willie shares freely with whoever will listen. Cash from selling these watermelons to Northerners along with some money he’s saved up will make up two-thirds the amount needed to buy some property back in Mississippi. It’s this final third that drives “The Piano Lesson:” Boy Willie wants to sell the family heirloom – the beautiful hand-carved piano at the center of the opening heist — which now sits in Berniece and Doaker’s living room in Pittsburgh. Hand carved engravings seen in quick glimpses in the dark in the opening are now visible in great detail — this piano is quite exquisite and a testament to the work of production designer David Bomba.

Malcolm adapted Wilson’s Pulitzer-winning play with Virgil Williams, a veteran TV writer with credits on “24”, “ER” and “Criminal Minds”. Aided by Wilson’s foundational prose, the script trades bravura speeches with smaller moments illustrating how people with deep familial bonds interact. While Deadwyler’s Berniece who can come across as a bit of a killjoy at times, you understand her annoyance at the chaos these unannounced relatives bring into her home. She has a child to take care of, keeps seeing an ominous ghost upstairs, and simply doesn’t have time for the tom foolery these men bring. 

Samuel L. Jackson shines as Doaker, a man content to spend his later days up North, sitting on the porch smoking during the day and drinking whiskey with his brother and nephew at night. Jackson, who can dial it up when called upon, is more subdued here, embodying a man worn out from all he experienced down south, and seeks a quieter existence miles away from all of that. That being said, he can appreciate that his nephew Boy Willie hasn’t lost his spark, his anger, his ambition. As such, his patience for his obnoxious nephew contrasts Berniece who simply doesn’t have it in her to tolerate him.

In contrast, John David Washington’s performance as the brash Boy Willie, reads as the closest to a performer reciting monologues from a play. His lengthy speeches and performative body language arrive out of step with the other performances — which favor a straddling of theatrics and subtlety — and derail the film’s emotional core at key times.

Alexandre Desplat’s score is expectedly lush, if not a little overbearing in spots, often working with the sound design to allude to the film’s supernatural elements ahead of them taking center stage later. The story approaches outright horror territory for the climax. It’s a bold choice, to toe the line of genre, and it ultimately hijacks the narrative and makes the emotional catharsis ring as less resonant. For all of his confidence in directing star actors playing off one another, Malcolm shrinks from the opportunity to tackle an emotional climax in a straightforward, head-on way. Cinematographer Mike Gioulakis’ camerawork marries classic technique with a more contemporary showiness. Like the rest of the movie, it’s polished and sturdy — seeking to ground the performances without being either too boring or attention-grabbing. 

“The Piano Lesson” premiered at the 2024  Telluride Film Festival . Netflix will release it in select theaters on Friday, November 8, followed by its streaming premiere on Friday, November 22.

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire’s film  reviews  and critical thoughts?  Subscribe here  to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best reviews, streaming picks, and offers some new musings, all only available to subscribers.

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‘Wolfs’ Venice Film Festival Review: It’s the George Clooney/Brad Pitt Show … And Little Else

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Pick any scene featuring George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Steven Soderbergh’s Oceans trilogy, and the power of two stars colliding may prove blinding. These two icons since the ‘90s possess such ease with themselves in front of a camera that their comfort naturally transfers to a contemporary. It’s not that Clooney and Pitt can finish each other’s sentences. It’s that one doesn’t even have to finish the other’s thought ; they just know because they’re locked in on the same frequency.

Jon Watts’ Apple TV+ original film Wolfs , the duo’s first reteaming since the beloved heist series, attempts to cash in on their effortless rapport. This action-comedy shamelessly casts their personas and does not even try to hide it. As dueling “cleaners” for high-profile individuals looking to avoid detection of criminal behavior, their characters don’t even have full names .

A District Attorney candidate, Margaret (Amy Ryan), looks to contract Clooney’s services when a young man (Austin Abrams) suffers an accident in her penthouse room. A few minutes after he shows up, Pitt enters to help contain the damage in the hotel for the owner Pam (voice of Frances McDormand). The credits refer to them, respectively, as “Margaret’s Man” and “Pam’s Man.” But names aren’t necessary in this transactional world – both among the characters in the film and the audience watching it. They might as well refer to each other as “George” and “Brad” because those are the associations the film trades on.

The two rivals have a history to which the script vaguely alludes. Watts parses out small morsels about their competition within the industry, which could be either banal banter to fill space or potential spinoff-generating loglines. But he could honestly just cut the banter and lean into their established history: the Oceans series and their associated press tours.

Wolfs has something of a plot, too, as it follows a single night on the job where this team of rivals must be both competitors and collaborators to preserve the reputations of their bosses. The two men dodge bullets and barbs alike in a whirlwind tour through New York’s criminal underbelly as complications arise from their seemingly simple fix. It’s slickly shot by cinematographer Larkin Seiple (best known for his work on Best Picture-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once ) but generically conceived by Watts. Any hopes of him returning to the clever genre play of his delightful directorial debut Cop Car appears squelched by his time directing three Spider-Man films within the Marvel machine.

But, in all honesty, the real sustaining tension proves seeing how long the film can coast on just being “George Clooney and Brad Pitt: The Reunion.” Watts gets far more mileage than expected out of a concept that could just as easily function in the context of a Saturday Night Live sketch (where applause greeting the two stars would take up half the duration of the scene). But he doesn’t understand what Soderbergh did: stardom is but an artificial sweetener. This sugar rush of watching two familiar faces interacting can only sustain a work so long in the absence of style or substance.

Wolfs provides good fun for a while, especially given the dearth of vintage George Clooney leading man roles of late. (Please, someone lure him out of the director’s chair!) Watts knows how to play the hits and lean into their well-established screen figures. Clooney gets to do his debonair, silver-tongued schtick while Pitt rattles off his soft-spoken, sardonic observations with aplomb.

It’s exactly in line with expectations, for better but mostly worse. There are some gags about the two men’s age – pulling out readers, needing to pop an Advil, cracking backs, yawning – yet little in the way of reflecting what all that time watching them means. Unlike Top Gun Maverick , which took Tom Cruise’s advancing age as a subject, Wolfs just wants to make it 2001 again with these two giants. That’s fine when the film can subsist solely by feeding off their energy, although it’s not enough to survive a third act that forces unnecessary crime genre twists and turns.

Sony Pictures will release Wolfs in theaters for a one-week engagement on September 20 before Apple TV+ premieres it for streaming on September 27.

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, The Playlist and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.

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How ‘star wars outlaws’ reviews compare to assassin’s creed, far cry and more.

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Star Wars Outlaws

Star Wars Outlaws is out in early access today if you paid way too much for a special version, with the official launch on Friday. Reviews are in for the game , and as an Ubisoft open world special, you may want to know how it compares to other big games the studio has made.

Here’s the list in ranked order featuring all the AAA open world games I can remember, given their often overstuffed release slate. Score is taken from the platform with the most reviews. I figured I’d go back around a decade or so.

• Far Cry 3 – 88
• Assassin’s Creed Black Flag - 88
• Far Cry 4 – 85
• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – 83
• Assassin’s Creed Origins – 83
• Watch Dogs 2 – 82
• The Division 2 – 82
• Far Cry 5 – 81
• Watch Dogs – 80
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – 80
• The Division – 80
• Star Wars Outlaws – 77
• Assassin’s Creed Mirage – 76
• Far Cry Primal – 76
• Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – 76
• Watch Dogs Legion – 76
• Far Cry 6 – 73
• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – 72
• Assassin’s Creed Rogue – 72
• Ghost Recon: Wildlands – 70

So while yeah, a 77 is a perfectly decent score, that does put it in the bottom half of most major Ubisoft games, and the ones below it aren’t exactly classics of the genre. I also note here that it’s kind of crazy that almost every Ubisoft game is somewhere between a 75 and 85, no real disasters, no ultra critical smashes.

Of course, Star Wars Outlaws does have one major thing going for it over all these others, and it’s in the name. This is the first truly open world Star Wars game when others like the Jedi Fallen Order series are a lot more linear. Granted you are not playing as a Jedi or anything close to a Jedi, but we’ll see if the run and gun, sneak and steal gameplay lands with players. I’m only a few missions in but I’m personally a bit mixed on it so far.

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Star Wars Outlaws also has the benefit of launching in at least a relatively open time period here. Wukong has indeed captured an enormous playerbase, but it’s not that long and many players may be finished with it soon. I think there will be enough players curious about Outlaws to make it a hit, but we’ll have to wait and see for initial numbers to come in. And there are long tail plans for DLC and other additions, as most Ubisoft games have. Again, official launch is this Friday.

Follow me on Twitter , YouTube , and Instagram .

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy .

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Star Wars Outlaws Isn't Perfect, But It's Still Pretty Damn Fun

If you're a fan of the galaxy far, far away, you'll love Ubisoft's open-world game, where you'll cross stormtroopers and Jabba the Hutt alike. For everyone else, it's just a video game.

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When you think of Star Wars , what comes to mind? Is it Jedi, lightsabers, and the Force? These are the building blocks of a Star Wars experience —even if the movies would have you think that if a Skywalker doesn’t appear, then it isn’t canon. But there’s so much more to the galaxy in the era of the Empire! And Star Wars: Outlaws is here to prove it.

Ubisoft’s first crack at the legendary IP is about the seedier side of the galaxy—worlds inhabited by smugglers, bounty hunters, and the Syndicates. As a lifelong Star Wars fan, Outlaws has been a treat. It's an adventure full of classic iconography that has yet to beat me over the head with fan service the way the worst of Star Wars tends t o do . Outlaws doesn't invent anything I’ve never seen in a video game before, but it’s picking and choosing a lot of the right elements of great titles and giving them a loving paint job. It’s a game built with speeder-like efficiency, even if some of the parts are faulty.

In my time with Outlaws , I have climbed, shot, and speeder-chased my way out of dozens of scrapes across five planets. The in-game clock says I’ve fit all that in just under fourteen hours, but that doesn’t count the deaths, failed stealth attempts, or time I’ve spent staring at my quest log and figuring out where to go next. This is a modern Ubisoft game, which means you are never going to run out of stuff to do.

Outlaws is set in the waning years of the Empire, between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi . Our half-defined, half-blank slate protagonist (more on that soon) is Kay Vess. The coolest thing about Kay Vess? She grew up on Canto Bite, the casino planet from The Last Jedi . That was a cool part of the movie we can all agree was begging for someone to flesh out its backstory, right? I’m not being facetious when I say starting the game out on Canto Bite was a pleasant surprise and a fascinating look at a location decades before we see it in the films.

Ubisoft Star Wars Outlaws - Limited Edition (Amazon Exclusive), Xbox Series X

Unfortunately, there isn’t much else to Kay once you leave Canto. She's a down-on-her-luck smuggler who has a cute pet (Jedi have cute droids and smugglers have pets—it’s the Star Wars rule!) and that’s about it. Thankfully Nix, her furry friend, is a joy. It’s not just the cuteness factor—Nix elevates the gameplay. He’s a core part of Outlaws , not an afterthought.

On a moment-to-moment level, Outlaws plays closer to Watch Dogs than any other Ubisoft game. It’s a largely stealth-driven third-person shooter, with plenty of Uncharted -esque climbing and the occasional hacking mini-game or traversal puzzle. In combat, Nix can distract, attack, steal from enemies, and trigger environmental elements. One of my favorite ways to break stealth is to have Nix blow up an explosive barrel amidst a group of pirates or Imperial guards. Over a dozen hours of similar-feeling combat encounters later, these small touches still bring a smile to my face.

On the planet Toshara, Kay gets her first opportunity to roam freely. As the game opens up, you will be able to visit cantinas and play sabaac (a simple, but addictive mini-game) and cozy up to the Pykes, Hutts, and Crimson Dawn Syndicates by taking contracts and completing Syndicate missions. This faction system is the backbone of Outlaws . I can feel the DNA of Fallout: New Vegas and Cyberpunk 2077 in the moments where Outlaws is most invested in this system.

In practice, this means missions will often climax in a choice that will gain you reputation with one group while tanking your cred with another. It makes Outlaws a constant balancing act. In order to max out reputation in all factions, you have to play all sides throughout the course of the thirty-plus hour adventure.

At the point I’m at in the story, I still can’t say I have a great feeling for Outlaws’ main characters. Compared to something like EA’s Jedi: Survivor , narrative is de-emphasized in favor of exploration. That said, the best figures in the game are the various Experts you meet across the galaxy. From the deserts of Tatooine to the icy wastes of Kijimi, finding these legendary outlaws and completing their quests is the only way to unlock new skills. There are no convoluted skill trees or points. Outlaws isn't trying to be an RPG and it shines in embracing that. Outlaws an action game, first and foremost—and this approach has me popping off every time I unlock a new skill.

Often, these skills require you to cash in some of the various materials you’ve collected. Apparently, this is how Outlaws shoe-horned in the gaming world's omnipresent crafting mechanic. Try as I might to hate it for that, it’s actually quite refined and the in-game economy feels balanced (as long as you aren’t doing every single quest).

Roaming the galaxy, each planet is visually distinct and populated with the variety of species you’d expect from the Star Wars underworld. Each world feels different... but they're ultimately the same. Meaning: Each one has the same mini-games, factions, and types of vendors. It’s all there for you, the gamer, to progress in whichever order you see fit.

As for the space combat and exploration? Well, this is no Starfield or No Man’s Sky —which you can forgive, because Outlaws isn't that type of game. Instead, the galactic dogfighting is more of an extension of the already existing areas. Each planet has nearby asteroid fields occupied by space stations, while pirate caches are hidden for you to discover.

Ubisoft Star Wars Outlaws - Limited Edition (Amazon Exclusive), PlayStation 5

It all equals up to… a lot. I found myself wishing the menus were just a bit less clunky to navigate, the map just a bit more legible, and the gameplay just a bit less repetitive.

Still, S tar Wars: Outlaws proves you don’t need Skywalker cameos —or even lightsabers—to make something feel authentically set in the Star Wars universe. This has been the biggest surprise of my time with the title so far. If you're a gamer who has exhausted all other Star Wars media, there's plenty here to do and it all feels very Star Wars . Outlaws is not immune to the problems of open-world game design, but hell, even Elden Ring has padding. If you’re a Star Wars fan who buys the occasional video game, it’s hard to recommend you play anything else that released this year.

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Star Wars Outlaws Is a Stunning Galaxy to Explore — When the Game Lets You

Inverse Score: 7/10

Thousands of credits weighed heavy in my pocket after sneaking into Jabba the Hutt’s territory to steal vital info for another syndicate. I could buy new clothes, weapon parts, anything I wanted. Instead, I spied a street vendor on the corner and decided to get some grub for my fuzzy four-legged companion Nix. The resulting rhythm minigame can only be described as the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

Star Wars Outlaws is a momentous occasion – the first true open-world video game the series has ever seen. That fact alone puts a lot of expectations on Outlaws , and the open-world element is by far the most fascinating aspect of the game. Outlaws breaks from the formulaic tradition of most Ubisoft open-world games , instead squarely putting the focus on exploration and immersion. The game is at its best when these elements come together for unforgettable moments like blazing across grassy hills on your speeder as thugs chase you out of their base, making it through a nail-biting shootout after your infiltration into an Imperial base goes wrong, or saving a suave but inept Crimson Dawn agent who locked himself in a room aboard a space station.

Outlaws’ exploration so often leads to wonder and joy, but it's contrasted by other elements that fall flat — rote and generic quest design, frustrating stealth, and an underbaked crime syndicate system. This is a game that wants you to constantly feel immersed and soak up every second in the Star Wars universe, but it too often breaks that immersion with its own problems. Despite those complaints, Outlaws is one of the most stunning representations of Star Wars we’ve ever seen, at least visually, and a game that I learned to love, warts and all.

Not Enough Scoundrels

Outlaws crafts a convincing universe steeped in the aesthetic and style of Star Wars.

In Star Wars Outlaws, you play as Kay Vess, a young scoundrel living on the casino world of Canto Bight with dreams of hitting a big score and living life on her own terms. Kay’s traumatic past left her with no family and no one to rely on — except for her adorable companion Nix, an alien creature that’s kind of like a cross between a dog and a pangolin.

This dynamic duo is undoubtedly one of the best elements of Outlaws . Kay is a fantastic addition to the already expansive galaxy — a rogueish character with a heart of gold and obvious parallels to Han Solo who still manages to forge her own unique identity by being funny, witty, and a bit naive. Nix is possibly one of the greatest companion characters in the history of video games. He’s cute, charming, and integral to not just the story but Outlaw’s entire approach to gameplay. A few equally memorable colorful characters the duo them along the way, like the bitingly sarcastic battle droid ND-5.

Nix absolutely steals the spotlight in Outlaws , as one of the cutest creatures the franchise has ever seen. He’s right up there with Grogu.

After a job gone wrong, Kay and Nix sign on with a criminal named Jaylen, and are tasked with scouring the galaxy to build a crew and pull off the biggest heist the Outer Rim has ever seen — robbing a Canto Bight billionaire and crime lord named Sliro.

This setup is the perfect segue into an open world Star Wars game, giving Kay free rein on a handful of planets as she tracks down a cornucopia of slimeballs and criminals. This is a grounded story about personal freedom and finding your place, thankfully devoid of any big moral battles between Jedi and Sith. It’s an approach that feels refreshing, filled with the lighthearted sense of adventure at the core of everything Star Wars.

Nothing Like a Good Blaster

The shootouts of Outlaws consistently feel thrilling, with controls that feel tight and satisfying.

In recent years, Ubisoft’s open worlds, like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, have increasingly become “checklists,” giving you an absurd amount of map markers to unveil, quests to tackle, and items to collect. While Star Wars Outlaws still uses that same basic formula, its approach is drastically more exploration-focused. You have general guidance for main quests, but Kay will often have to explore wide areas to find an objective or person, and exploration, in general, can lead to a domino effect of uncovering new things to do. Maybe you lean against the cantina wall and listen in on a conversation, or pick up a datapad while scouring an abandoned outpost. There are so many ways to uncover new quests and details in Outlaws , all of which engross you in the game’s world even further.

To that end, the game’s quest log also separates your objectives into different categories that denote importance: Quests, Intel, Expert Info, and more. Simply wandering around different planets, stumbling upon quests, hunting down treasure, and generally vibing with the world is, by far, my favorite part of Outlaws . Kay can explore both the surface of planets and space around them, which are littered with crafting materials, paint jobs for your vehicles, new clothes, shiny objects Nix loves, and more.

Each of Outlaws’ planets has a completely unique biome, from the frost streets of Kijimi to the arid dunes of Tattooine.

Outlaws absolutely nails the Star Wars aesthetic at every turn, from the grungy junk-ridden streets of Mos Eisley to the swelling orchestral score and sounds of blaster bolts pinging off metal surfaces. The game is at its best when you go at your own pace and soak everything in, and it manages to accentuate this fact with a fascinating ability system.

As Kay explores the four different worlds she can meet “Experts,” all of which have their own dedicated quest. Completing one of these quests will unlock their slot on the ability menu, with each Expert having six skills to unlock. But the fun twist is that these skills are all unlocked through gameplay and meeting specific requirements. For example, to unlock a new ability for Nix, I had to “find six ways to please Nix,” and use him to pickpocket three times. The ability system is smartly designed to help you experiment with different gameplay styles, and it’s a brilliant way of tying Kay’s character development to gameplay mechanics, giving the player more options as she becomes a better scoundrel.

Defying the Odds

The stealth in Outlaws feels far too limited and generic, and it’s constantly thrust in the player’s face.

Outlaws has a lot of systems working in concert. Those are fun when you can do whatever you want, but the game starts to stumble in some of its minute-to-minute missions and mechanics.

In many ways, Outlaws feels like a space-faring, open-world Uncharted. Outside of all that exploration, you’ll be doing a lot of sneaking, shooting, and platforming. The gunplay and jumping around generally feel good, and those tense shootouts can be fantastic moments that feel like a classic Star Wars adventure.

But what came as a surprise is how stealth heavy Outlaws is, with dozens of story missions tasking you with sneaking into different facilities and often giving you a complete fail if an enemy sounds an alarm. The real problem is that, whether you’re generally a fan of stealth or not, Outlaws ’ stealth simply doesn’t feel good. You aren’t given enough options or control, and dull enemy AI constantly makes stealth a case of doing the same thing over and over, whether that’s distracting an enemy with Nix and doing a takedown, waiting for someone’s route to pass by, or hacking to disable a camera. Being able to command Nix to do a variety of actions does add some variety, but some of his more interesting features have to be unlocked through abilities, meaning you won’t have them until very late in the game.

The Syndicate system feels like a great idea that simply needed more time in the oven to turn into something truly special.

The biggest problem is how so many of the main story missions clash against Outlaws’ whole theme of freedom and exploration. Too often you’re stuck on linear paths, have to find singular puzzle solutions, or dealing with that lackluster stealth mechanic. The actual narrative and story playing out is fun, with some real emotional heft and pulpy action, but the gameplay surrounding all that just consistently falls flat.

Coupled with this is the game’s dynamic crime Syndicate system, which is a great idea on paper but just doesn’t pan out. Kay has a “reputation” with the game’s four main syndicates: the Pykes, Crimson Dawn, Hutt Cartel, and Ashiga Clan. Decisions you make in story and side quests can change your reputation, as can actions like stealing from their territory or shooting their members. A bad reputation means a syndicate will actively work against Kay, you won’t be welcome in their territory, and they’ll even send out hit squads if your reputation is bad enough. A good reputation means you can move freely inside their territory, pick up special contacts, access merchants, and more.

Your reputation with Syndicates can also determine how much resistance you run into while exploring space.

This makes sense in theory, but ultimately your reputation with syndicates does almost nothing to alter the story or how you interact with the world, outside of causing some frustration. Story missions will constantly task you with going into a specific syndicate’s territory (massive portions of the map) and can make even reaching the mission marker a hassle. In one case, I was swarmed by Pyke soldiers after setting foot in their territory and had to spend nearly 20 minutes fighting enemies off before I could activate the quest.

That would be fine if it was integrated into the story in any way, but it’s not. I constantly found myself wishing the syndicate system had more depth to it and didn’t feel so much like an afterthought. There’s the foundation of something really special there, it just needs more development.

A Second Chance

Kay has a fascinating relationship with ND-5, essentially turning into a new Han & Chewie duo. It’d be a real shame to not see both again.

The more time I spent with Kay and Nix, exploring the underworld, the more I grew to love Star Wars Outlaws . Ubisoft has created an experience that grows richer and better the more time you put into it, but there’s always the nagging detractor of the game’s problems. The generic stealth missions constantly drag down the pacing, the syndicate system feels lackluster, and there’s a handful of bugs that I ran into along the way.

What’s amazing is that, despite those issues, I still look fondly on almost all of my time with Outlaws . There are frustrations at every step, but Outlaws wildly succeeds with its big memorable moments and sense of place. Not since Knights of the Old Republic has there been a Star Wars game that feels as vibrant and exciting to simply spend time in. Walking around bustling cities and underworld hubs never got old, especially as I could hear rumors popping up left and right, catch some Imperials giving someone a hard time, or watch a courier frantically trying to reach his destination.

Surprisingly, Outlaws reminds me a lot of Jedi: Fallen Order, a foundation that’s undeniably good and introduces a cast of characters that I already love — but one that could be so much more if it’s given a second chance. I desperately hope Outlaws is given that.

Star Wars Outlaws releases on August 30 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Inverse reviewed the game on PC.

INVERSE VIDEO GAME REVIEW ETHOS: Every Inverse video game review answers two questions: Is this game worth your time? Are you getting what you pay for? We have no tolerance for endless fetch quests, clunky mechanics, or bugs that dilute the experience. We care deeply about a game’s design, world-building, character arcs, and storytelling come together. Inverse will never punch down, but we aren’t afraid to punch up. We love magic and science-fiction in equal measure, and as much as we love experiencing rich stories and worlds through games, we won’t ignore the real-world context in which those games are made.

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Movie Review: STAR GAMES

February 25, 2020

necrosarx Movie Reviews Alien Invasion , sci-fi Leave a comment

• Hunted by an alien tyrant intent on inter-planetary domination, the young prince of a far away space kingdom seeks refuge on Earth. There, he meets Brian, a troubled boy who is more in touch with science fiction than reality. The two of them form a fast friendship and fight for the freedom of the galaxy — together.

I have to tell you, it was a real pain in the tuchus trying to find a decent image for the cover for the movie Star Games. So far, I’ve only found this title as one included as part of the streaming on Amazon Prime, and they don’t use the cover art prominently. A Google search revealed that, for whatever reason, this movie doesn’t seem to have had a release, either on VHS or DVD. Or, maybe it has, and someone has taken it upon themselves to wipe out every copy in existence, and erasing any trace of it online. If only they were successful in doing so with Amazon Prime, I would have been spared watching this abomination of a science fiction movie.

Star Games (or Stargames, depending on where you want to search for this online) was written and directed by one Greydon Clark. Normally, I don’t really focus too much on who wrote and/or directed a movie too much; in this case, while researching some of his past work, it looks like he’s rather prolific in the Bad Movie department, stretching all the way back to the early 1970s. As it turns out, it looks like I’ve already seen at least two of his movies before: 1985’s Final Justice, and 1987’s Uninvited. You better believe there will be reviews for this one some time in the near future. But, back to the topic at hand.

It looks like Star Games/Stargames was the last movie that Clark made. Such is the pity, as this is not the movie to go out on top with. There has to be a much better bad movie inside him to retire on.

So, here we have the story of a young alien prince who escapes the violent coup rising up against the king of whatever planet it is he is in charge of (I’ve ceased caring about that kind of details by now, so don’t expect it here) by stealing one of the royal spaceships whose AI default avatar is one of those nightmare inducing clowns. It’s really a rare thing for me to include screen shots from the movies that I review, but this is something you need to see to believe:

“AAAAAAH! KILL IT WITH VIOLENCE!!” – Pennywise

Anyway, the alien kid high-tails it to Earth, pursued by the henchmen of the evil overthrower alien guy, and crash-lands in a forest. Meanwhile, a diabetic video game enthusiast middleschool-aged boy is taken by his parents out to the same set of woods for some outdoorsy family things. Yeah, I point out that the kid’s diabetic, because the movie kinda goes out of its way to establish that he is, in fact, diabetic with an exciting blood glucose check right when we meet his character. Riveting. Once they reach the campsite, the kid heads out for a hike in the woods by himself while his parents set to grillin’, and finds himself accosted by the most disinterested-looking bear I’ve seen on screen since Day Of The Animals. This leads him to stumble upon the hiding place of the alien prince kid, and after spending the night hiding away from both the bear and the alien hunters, they set off to find the human boy’s parents. They bond over video games, the alien hunters chase after them, then the bear shows up again, they find the kid’s family, they get beamed up in the evil alien guy’s ship, the good guys show up, yada-yada-yada, evil defeated, and the earth boy is cured of his ‘betus due to ALIEN MAGIC!

As badly made sci-fi flicks go, Star Games (or Stargames) is a disinterested mess. The effects alone are of the quality of a Sega CD game, which kind of makes sense, as there are a few scenes where Earth boy is playing Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s also playing Doom at one point, but whatever. The effects aren’t up to snuff to 1998 standards, is what I’m saying here. The acting is what you would expect, which is to say early 80s Saturday morning syndicated kids’ show level. As a matter of fact, come to think of it, just swap out the terrible ship AI with a floating robot buddy, and the Earth kid with a lovable doggie, and you’ve basically got the plot for Benji, ZAX & The Alien Prince . The big difference being, I would much rather look up old episodes of that show on YouTube, rather than having to sit through this one again.

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Star Wars Outlaws is out now! Here are what the reviews are saying!

By hope mullinax | aug 30, 2024.

The latest game in a galaxy far, far away is here! Star Wars Outlaws is out today! This marks the first open-world game in the franchise following the adventures of Kay Vess and her creature companion Nix as they traverse the galaxy. The game is playable on PlayStation 5, PC, and the Xbox Series X/S.

Now that Star Wars Outlaws is released, what are the reviews saying about the game? Overall, the reviews have been mostly favorable while noting a few missteps here and there.

IGN' s Tristan Ogilvie said that "Outlaws’ story is a consistently entertaining quest" going through recognizable and new locations noting how this take on the underworld feel fresh. The games sticks the landing with story as Ogilvie shares, "Outlaws builds to an absolute Rebel rouser of a finale, and Kay’s evolution from self-serving scoundrel to compassionate comrade is completed." However, the review gave it a 7 out of 10 as " it’s hindered by simple stealth, repetitive combat, and a few too many bugs at launch."

The Rolling Stone 's Christopher Cruz called Outlaws "One of the best Star Wars games ever made," nothing that the brightest part of the future of the franchise might just be in the video game side of things. Cruz praised the depth of the gameplay and noted that the game won't let you take easy paths. However, that might get frustrating for some players. He noted one instance, saying, "I was tasked with planting evidence on the Pykes, with whom I was friendly. But as soon as I was caught and heavily under fire, I tried to load up a prior save file to undo my transgression. Lo and behold, even with a recent save, I was kicked all the way back to the beginning of the mission, losing over an hour’s progress. There’s no easy way to game the meta without the penalty of time. The creators want you to be true to the roleplay, and deal with the blowout that comes with it."

PC Mag 's Jordan Minor wasn't as warm. While he praised some of the same above elements, Minor didn't connect to any of the characters outside of ND-5, saying, " But the game could use stronger, more colorful characters. The only one who left any impression on me was ND-5, a no-nonsense droid bodyguard who wears a stylish coat. Everyone else just felt like alien background extras. At least Star Wars: Hunters came up with some imaginative concepts for its knockoff characters." He also gave negative marks for the repetitive gameplay, especially with Ubisoft's "familar open-world chore."

If you're more of a casual gamer or even a more casual Star Wars fan, I suggest checking out Alex Damon's review over on Star Wars Explained . He's not the biggest fan of open-world games in general, so his review is tackled more from the point of view of someone who is new to this kind of format. He focuses more on the story, lore, and characters.

Star Wars Outlaws is out now! Are you going to jump on this new adventure?

Next. Humberly González talks Kay Vess and auditioning for Star Wars. Humberly González talks Kay Vess and auditioning for Star Wars. dark

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PS5 Star Wars Outlaws Players are Facing a Game-Breaking Bug

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The much anticipated Star Wars Outlaws has been released early for those who pre-ordered, and while the game has received generally favorable reviews, not everything with the launch is going to plan. Over on PlayStation 5, a new update has rolled out that is trapping aspiring galactic rogues in space, with the only remedy being to delete their saved files.

Star Wars Outlaws is now out in the wild, and while there have been general frustrations at some aspects of the game, the reception has been generally positive. The game is currently available for those who pre-ordered the Gold or Ultimate Edition , which came with three days of early access as opposed to the release date of August 30th offered with the Standard Edition. However, some players are reporting that they're not able to enjoy this early access because they are currently stuck in orbit.

How Does Star Wars Outlaws Fit into the Franchise Timeline & Lore?

Star Wars Outlaws expands on the series' lore in some interesting ways, but how exactly does it fit into the Star Wars timeline and lore?

Players have taken to Reddit to report that they have been left stranded above Toshara, a new planet created for the game and an area players spend a considerable amount of time in, with the prompt to land disappearing. Even fast travelling to the East African Savanna-inspired planet does not solve the problem, as the player ship, The Trailblazer, does not appear in port, blocking further travel.

An email sent to players affected by this issue revealed that patch 1.000.002 was rolled out to avoid a later game-breaking bug. However, that does mean players will have to start their adventure through the outer rim anew, as old save files will be incompatible. The publisher stated, “If you continue on a prior save, you will unfortunately face issues and progression blockers”. Ubisoft urges players to download the new update, make sure they are playing the correct version and start a new save to “fully enjoy” the game. The bug seems to only affect a handful of PS5 players , with no other issues reported on the Xbox Series consoles or PC.

Star Wars Outlaws is Still not a Ubisoft AAAA Game.

REVIEW: Star Wars Outlaws Will Be Flawed Fun For Fans of a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Star Wars Outlaws has some fun but flawed open-world offerings that will be best appreciated by fans who already love the classic franchise.

In the current climate of AAA game releases, Star Wars Outlaws debut has been, by all means, relatively without controversy. Reviews have been generally favorable, placing the game within the good, not great, segment. Those who pre-ordered the game seem to enjoy this new adventure in the Star Wars universe with the minor gripes that keep the game from fully flourishing. Many have praised the artful use of the Snowdrop Engine in bringing to life lush alien environments that are populated and decorated as a Star Wars set should be. However, oversights and baffling choices such as the inability to equip a secondary weapon, lack of auto-saving, and janky stealth have taken players out of this truly detailed and immersive world. During the launch of the underwhelming Skull and Bones , Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot made reference to producing quadruple-A games, one more A than the current standard. While the ambitions are lofty, and Star Wars Outlaws is a great effort, the publisher might still be a ways off in delivering polished and innovative experiences to consumers.

Source: VG24/7

When is Star Wars Outlaws set? Game and movie timeline explained

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With its release date not far now (and some of us already playing through early access ), you're probably wanting to know when Star Wars Outlaws is set.

It's a valid question, because the Star Wars saga spans many generations and eras, each one very different. Is the galaxy kept in order by the peaceful Jedi, or is it in the totalitarian grasp of the Empire?

It's important to know the historical context of anything, and titles released in the Star Wars universe are no different.

So when is Star Wars Outlaws set? And where, exactly, does it slot in with the rest of the game and movie timeline?

When is Star Wars Outlaws set?

Old school Star Wars fans will be glad to know that Outlaws is set within the original trilogy.

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Specifically, Star Wars Outlaws is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi .

We think this is fitting. If we're a scoundrel, we want to co-exist with Solo himself, even if the big man is currently contained in Carbonite in Jabba's Palace.

If you're looking for an exact year, the game takes place in 3 ABY , placing it three years after the battle of Yavin (the Death Star-destroying conflict seen in the film A New Hope). That's the dating system that Star Wars fans are used to using.

Where does Star Wars Outlaws fit in the timeline?

But where specifically does Star Wars Outlaws fit in the vast timeline? There's been so much Star Wars media in the past few years that it's a lot to keep track of. So we'll share a list of the major releases (including the Star Wars: Jedi games), and show you where Outlaws slots in.

• The Acolyte
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
• Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
• The Clone Wars movie and TV series
• Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
• The Bad Batch
• Solo: A Star Wars Story
• Obi-Wan Kenobi
• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
• Star Wars Rebels
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
• Star Wars Outlaws
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
• The Mandalorian seasons 1 and 2
• The Book of Boba Fett
• The Mandalorian season 3
• The Mandalorian and Grogu
• Star Wars Resistance
• Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
• Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
• Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

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Read more on Star Wars Outlaws:

• Star Wars Outlaws lockpicking explained
• Star Wars Outlaws soundtrack
• Star Wars Outlaws planets
• Star Wars Outlaws trophy guide
• Star Wars Outlaws cast - all voice actors
• Star Wars Outlaws chapters
• Star Wars Outlaws review - our final verdict
• Is Star Wars Outlaws multiplayer?

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Star Wars Outlaws review — for fans of the franchise, this is magic

Challenge yourself with today’s puzzles.

The magic of the Jedi is nowhere to be seen in Star Wars Outlaws . Instead, we are surrounded by the scum and villainy that make up the galaxy’s murky underworld. That differs to what we’ve seen in a Star Wars game before but, despite some flaws that might push you to the dark side in frustration, it’s a hoot.

Outlaws is set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi , and you play as the scrappy thief Kay Vess, who ends up in over her head when a heist goes awry. She flees from her home in a stolen spaceship with a ruthless crime lord hot on her heels, landing on the savanna planet of Toshara with her

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