This is Star Wars: Episode 1 - Racer, developed and published by LucasArts in May of 1999

for Windows PCs, alongside the Nintendo 64 release,

which is probably the more well-known version of the game.

It also got released for the Macintosh and the Sega Dreamcast the following year, along

with a highly simplified Game Boy Color version, and even a beefy

coin-op arcade machine with proper podracing controls.

But for this video I’m going to be sticking to this PC version since it’s the one I

owned and played back then, and I just like it.

Although I vividly remember the first time I saw the game at all, which was at the local

Best Buy store where they had an N64 demo unit

hooked up to a massive 3x3 display of some

kind hanging from the ceiling.

I was instantly enamored with the game and the moment we upgraded our PC to be able to

play 3D accelerated games, this Windows version with its gorgeous gatefold box was on my short

list of most-wanted titles.

Although I don’t recall if this limited edition box is the one we got back then or

not, but hey, it's the one I have now so let’s take a look.

Turns out there were two covers released, one with Anakin’s podracer and one with

Sebulba, with the latter being much more uncommon

but neither are particularly cheap boxes these days.

Contained within is a colorful smorgasbord of late-90s PC game inserts, including the

limited edition goodies like this aesthetically-appealing podracer schematic and the

less-than-appealing young Anakin Skywalker poster.

Eh, could’ve been worse.

You also get this wonderful Spring ‘99 LucasArts product catalog,

and man I love looking through these.

This was quite a busy time for the company, with prequel trilogy hype reaching a fever

pitch and new games coming out seemingly every other month.

And of course you get the game on a single compact disc in a jewel case, as well as the

full-color owner’s manual, with 37 pages of full-color manual that is yours to own.

And even for 1999 this is a fantastic little booklet, filled with great concept art, useful

illustrations, and copious well-written tidbits detailing each facet of gameplay.

I just love a good bathroom break booklet.

Starting up the game provides you with an assortment of animated LucasArts artistry

in the form of logos and introductory cutscenes, with the main one showing a loose recreation

of Episode 1’s famous podracing scene.

[beep!]

["And they're off!"]

[now *this* is FMV podracing!]

You’re then presented with the main menu screen, John Williams’s classic Duel of

the Fates playing on an endless loop.

[♪♪♪]

At this point you can choose to play multiplayer, a single race, or the tournament mode.

We’ll just be looking at tournament mode in this video because single race simply allows

access to stuff unlocked in tournament mode, and multiplayer requires a direct connection

to other PCs through a local area network.

Sadly you do not get split-screen multiplayer goodness in this version like you did on the

consoles, and that always kind of bummed me out.

What you do get is the ability to create a profile for yourself and then watch a short

in-game cutscene, where you wander into this cantina, shoo away whatever randomly-chosen

droid or creature happens to be standing in your way, and then selecting a podracer.

Each of them have seven performance statistics inherent to their vehicle, as well as an 8th

statistic that’s a little more vague and that is the size and shape of the podracer itself.

The driver really is of no consequence, but you get to choose from everyone shown

in Episode 1’s podracing scene and plenty more, with over 20 drivers unlockable

by the end of the game.

Finally you can select from and compete in one of three tournaments with up to seven

races each, with the goal being to place fourth or better on each track to reach the final

competition, the Boonta Eve Classic from the movie.

After this you’re presented with a management screen, allowing you to begin the selected

race, inspect your podracer for no reason other than to admire the polygons and GRAFIX,

and perform a number of podracer upgrades and tweaks.

We’ll be back to this in a moment, but for now let’s drop right into the podracing

itself, beginning with another cutscene introducing you to the upcoming planet.

"Welcome podracing fans to Ando Prime!"

"Home of the benevolent Andobi Bendu monks."

"Your host, the wisest of the wise..."

"Ten-Abu Doba!"

[barely-audible announcer introduction]

[podracing sounds commence]

Now this is podracing!

Or, this is "Episode 1 - Racer," to be more precise.

Did anyone actually call it by its proper marketed title back then?

I know my friends and I always just called it "Star Wars Pod Racer," but anyway.

The gameplay is precisely what you’d expect for an experience based on the nearly 20-minute

scene from Episode 1: absurdly fast racing through sci-fi environments with excellent

sound design, interrupted by the occasional piece of grating dialogue.

[somewhat irritating alien exclamations]

And man, this is still a lot of fun.

One of the most important things for a racing game to get right is a sense of speed, and

Episode 1 Racer is one that absolutely nails that.

If the speed of the simulation was too slow, it risks breaking the suspension of disbelief

knowing that these podracers are moving at velocities exceeding 600 miles an hour.

But if the simulation were to move too fast, or even moved at a speed that was accurate

to what it would be in reality, then the game would simply be unplayable.

“You must have jedi reflexes if you race pods” may be true, but expecting every

gamer to possess those would not be very enjoyable.

Thankfully, the combination of the environments, sound effects, graphical effects, and control

scheme make approaching 1000 miles an hour here not only feasible, but desirable.

The controls in particular are something to be commended here, because it gives you just

enough options to be able to fully control your pod

without ever feeling like the room for error disappears.

And seeing as they made this work as well as it does even on a keyboard, that’s impressive.

Now you might want an analogue control method of some kind, whether it be a joystick,

a gamepad, a steering wheel, or even the mouse.

But personally, I’ve always played this version of the game with the keyboard because,

well, I just got used to it back in the day.

But also because I find the precise digital controls spread across the keyboard to be

a good match for this kind of twitchy racing.

And the manner in which LucasArts split up the required inputs by default cleverly avoids

the problem of ghosting when you’re pressing multiple

keys simultaneously on a keyboard without NKRO.

On the right hand side of the keyboard you use the arrow keys to turn left and right

as well as pitch up and down, and on the left hand you have the WASD keys for controlling

thrust, brakes, and the somewhat superfluous rolling left and right.

There are also keys on the left side for performing repairs, changing cameras, taunting,

as well as the all-important slide key.

When this is held down, your podracer goes from rapidly strafing left and right to having

a more nuanced and fine-tuned control scheme that’s better-suited for navigating sharp

corners and narrow passageways.

And finally, there’s the boost mode, enabled by pressing a combination of inputs.

Whenever you’ve maxed out on speed and this indicator turns from green to yellow, you

can pitch down and press Shift to enable the boost, which will take you well beyond your

normal thrust speed at the expense of handling and heat generation.

And that’s where this indicator on the bottom-left of the screen comes into play, showing your

engine status alongside an audio cue letting you know you’re about to overheat.

If you push too far then an engine will catch fire and will need repairing on the fly, and

if you keep pushing you’ll explode, so balancing thrust with boost is key.

Before long though, this becomes second nature and you don’t even need to look at any of

the indicators at all, relying completely on the audio cues and timing

to make sure you’re going as fast as possible in your current podracer without combusting.

[BOOM]

Of course, if you do explode then you’re quickly reset with fresh engines, but obviously

that’s not ideal since you lose valuable time.

And parts do wear out the more you screw up as well, so you will also

have to perform repairs once you complete the race.

This is not something that you do manually, it just gets fixed up over time by your pit droids,

so buying up as many of those as you can, as quickly as you can, is very much advised.

And since it takes time to fix a podracer, at this point you just

switch to another one and keep playing.

Because the way things work in tournament mode is that you play more of a manager for

every podracer, rather than a single racer themselves.

Once you’ve chosen a racer, you can then invest your credits into improving their podracer

through parts upgrades, with everyone sharing the same pool of credits, or you can swap

between them at will depending on your repair needs.

You also have the options to simply switch out any damaged parts for others that are

in better shape or have different stats altogether.

Entering Watto’s shop or junkyard will provide dozens of parts options covering all of the

performance categories of your podracer,

and this certainly isn’t the most streamlined process.

There’s a lot of menu interface weirdness that makes it feel clunky with a mouse, and

I wish there was more of an overview of all the available parts at once instead of having

to navigate through each one individually to see what it does.

And I also wish Watto would just shut up already.

"I am-a betting heavily on Sebulba!

He always wins, ehhehehehaah!"

Seriously he never stops, it’s just an endless loop

of the same annoying sound bites over and over...

"Have-a you seen-a my chance cube-a?"

"Have-a you seen-a my chance cube-a?"

"HAVE-A YOU SEEN-A MY

CHANCE CUUUUUUUUUBEEEEEEE-AAAAA?!?!?!?!"

OKAY, how about those visuals though?

Mm, 1999.

I kinda miss this era in PC game graphics.

Although admittedly this particular footage doesn’t look great anymore since I’m running

it at 640x480, which is the resolution I played it on back when it was new.

And the HUD elements look distractingly blurry, a problem that unfortunately exists no matter

what resolution you choose, but oh well it gets the job done.

Heh, anyone else always see this "3" as the Monster Energy logo?

Well now I'm just getting distracted, anyway.

What I’m trying to say here is that, while technically it’s not amazing anymore,

in terms of aesthetics for a decades-old game I still think it looks great all things considered.