The Top 7... games that don't deserve nostalgia

The entire Super Star Wars trilogy is garbage. It is today, and it was back in the '90s. Just because tech had evolved to a point where we could have legit LucasFilm sound effects and MIDI representations of John Williams' legendary score doesn't mean the rest of the game was as impressive as the SNES architecture. Levels don't make any sense; "send a barrage of enemies flying from all angles while the platform Luke's standing on falls apart" isn't competent level design. Compare any of these platformers to even so-so games of the day and there's a clear difference.

Ooo look, a wampa! Doesn't that look fun, flipping in circles over and over while an uninspired attack pattern plays out? Hell no it doesn't. And despite this boss being stupidly easy, the rest of the game is infuriatingly difficult thanks to the aforementioned cascade of projectiles constantly assailing Luke, Han and Chewbacca. But, even though every aspect of the trilogy seems like it was designed by a friggin' cackling mad scientist, people look back and think "ah, what a great series of games."

Balderdash! Flimshaw! They're junk, and half-decent snow speeder level isn't enough to keep our fuzzy memories intact. We let nifty graphic and sound tricks cover up the fact the games themselves were both boring and amateurish.

Want to soak in some more awfulness? Take a gander at Empire, perhaps the most troublesome, confusing, "what the hell is going on?!?" game in the series.

Brett Elston

A fomer Executive Editor at GamesRadar, Brett also contributed content to many other Future gaming publications including Nintendo Power, PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine. Brett has worked at Capcom in several senior roles, is an experienced podcaster, and now works as a Senior Manager of Content Communications at PlayStation SIE.