5 Star Wars game characters that are awesome enough for the movies
Luke and Leia Skywalker, Han Solo, Lando Calrissian... we know these
characters. We love these characters. They're the beating heart of Star Wars.
But there's a rich, diverse universe outside the movies and a huge cast
of beloved characters that never once materialized on the big screen.
Many of them made their mark on the small screen instead, in video
games. Whether you fought alongside them, mowed them down, or stepped
into their shoes, they left an indelible mark.
Today is May the 4th, and we want to celebrate these unsung heroes, villains and scruffy-looking, nerf-herding scoundrels.
1. Darth Revan, Knights of the Old Republic
Image: Star Wars
It's hard to talk about Darth Revan without getting into significant spoilers from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic,
a BioWare RPG set roughly 5,000 years before the events of the first
movie. Revan's origin as a fallen Jedi Knight who sided with the Sith
Empire and blazed a path of destruction across the galaxy plays out
before the events of KOTOR.
When the story opens, you are a nameless soldier in the Republic
Military, scrambling to escape from a starship that's been attacked and
boarded by Sith forces. Over the course of the game, it comes out that
this nobody soldier is — SPOILER ALERT — actually Revan, mind-wiped by a Jedi Order that philosophically opposes executing him for his crimes.
Revan's path is up to you. Are you a benevolent force for good or a
devious Sith waiting for the right moment to strike? Most characters are
memorable for who they are, but Revan is a favorite because of how you
shape who he — or she! — is once the truth is revealed.
2. HK-47, Knights of the Old Republic
Image: Mashable composite. Star Wars
Is
it cheating to highlight two characters from one game as favorites? It
doesn't really matter when the second character in question is
everybody's favorite meatbag-hating assassin droid, HK-47.
HK is to KOTOR what C-3PO is to the Star Wars films.
Both were built by one-time Jedi who fell to the Dark Side — Threepio
is Anakin Skywalker's creation and HK is Revan's — and both seem to fill
the role of protocol droid. But where Threepio is true to his
programming, HK's appearance is a ruse. He's programmed to kill, and
kill Jedi specifically.
HK joins Revan and his companions when they find him in a small shop
on Tatooine. It's his snarky-yet-emotionless hatred of humanity —
meatbags, as he calls us — that makes him so endearing. HK was such a
fan-favorite when he debuted in KOTOR that he returned as a companion yet again in Knights of the Old Republic II.
3. Maarek Stele, Star Wars: TIE fighter
Image: The Topps Company Inc.
You probably don't recognize the name Maarek Stele, but you might be familiar with the game he stars in: Star Wars: TIE Fighter.
LucasArts' classic space combat sim that put players in the boots of an
Imperial pilot didn't actually feature a named protagonist; Stele's
identity was revealed in supplemental materials.
He's the star of what was arguably the best of the LucasArts space
sim games, fighting for the "good" of the Empire as a TIE Fighter pilot.
Stele's story plays out between the events of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
He takes on Rebels and pirates, helps to quell a civil war, and
eventually derails an attempt to stage a coup against the Emperor
himself.
Stele is very much a product of his time in terms of
characterization. A lot of his personality in the game comes from the
way other characters address him. But he's a key figure in the Star Wars Expanded Universe nonetheless, and it is cool as hell to live out his existence as a hotshot pilot for the Empire.
4. Prince Xizor, Shadows of the Empire
Image: Mashable composite. Sony Entertainment/LucasArt
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire,
released for the Nintendo 64 in 1996, was something of an experiment.
In those early days for the Expanded Universe, Lucasfilm tried something
unexpected. A game's story was tied directly to a book's story, and
both filled in some narrative blanks surrounding the events of Empire Strikes Back.
Dash Rendar, the star of Shadows, turned out to be a
relatively forgettable Han Solo-alike, but the big bad he pursued —
Prince Xizor, of the criminal Black Sun organization — was anything but.
Think of Xizor (pronounced "SHE-zoar") as the Godfather of the Star Wars
universe. Only this Godfather is a silky-smooth Falleen, a reptilian
species that possesses the ability to emit pheromones that make them
irresistible to both sexes.
Xizor's appearances in Shadows of the Empire are infrequent,
but he looms large over everything that unfolds. The prince has the ear
of the Emperor, and his aspirations include unseating Darth Vader and
assuming the mantle of Palpatine's right hand and chief advisor. He's a
badass, simple as that.
5. Kyle Katarn, Star Wars: Dark Forces
Image: Mashable composite. Eric Deschamps
There was a time when Star Wars video games had a bright future as first-person shooters. It all started with Star Wars: Dark Forces in 1995. More than just a Doom clone (there were so many coming out at the time), Dark Forces dove deep into the Star Wars Expanded Universe, introducing a new hero in Kyle Katarn.
A gun-for-hire in the employ of the Rebel Alliance, Katarn is
actually the guy responsible for stealing the Death Star plans, an act
that leads to the planet-busting space station's destruction. He also
helps the Rebels derail the Empire's Dark Trooper program, which would
have introduced a deadly, new breed of Stormtrooper to the battlefield.
In the later Jedi Knight games, Katarn is revealed to be the
son of a Force-sensitive, which allows him to train in the ways of the
Jedi. He's also one of the few Star Wars video games to make significant contributions to the Expanded Universe in other mediums. Kyle Katarn is a fixture of many Star Wars books, and — if you read far enough ahead — a powerful and respected Jedi Master in Luke Skywalker's resurrected Jedi Order.
