We've had quite a response to Tyrell's State of Star Wars Gaming guest editorial, both positive and negative, and it really has shown an interesting division between the gamers that remember the elder Star Wars classics, and those who have found Star Wars after games like TIE Fighter and Dark Forces.

Peter, who remembers the early generation of Star Wars Games writes:

I like your article for highlighting the many accomplishments of Star Wars gaming over the past few years. However, you do a great disservice to LucasArts by not mentioning their great PC titles, many of which did win 'game of the year' awards.

I don't know if you remember PC games like X-wing, and it's many successful sequels, right up to X-wing Alliance, which won awards. As well, the Dark Force franchise has consistently pushed the envelope with great graphics and awards. Star Wars PC games were respected in the gaming community since about 1993, when X-wing first came out.

SecretCowX weighs in by talking about the feature games before the prequels, and makes an interesting comparison with Star Wars and recent popular trends:

While I appreciate the article's optimism regarding the future of star wars games as being increasingly relevant in the market place and of a higher quality, I find a number of causes for concern in the current state of star wars games, largely stemming from the increasingly derivative nature of the newer star wars games.

KotOR was essentially Baldur's Gate in space, and Battlefront clearly apes Battlefield. Though these games may be extremely entertaining experiences for fans, the lack of originality is troubling. So long as star wars gaming amounts to (Currently Popular Game X + Star Wars License) the state of star wars gaming seems stagnant.

It seems a pity to depict the history of star wars gaming, as a steady increase in quality and relevance, from the prequel era games of the late 90's to two recent commercial successes, while discounting some of the truly original and successful titles that had gone before.

From the e-mails we've received, it seems that Star Wars Gaming fans are divided into two camps - those who remember the glory of TIE Fighter and Jedi Knight, and those who found Star Wars with the prequels, and haven't enjoyed the games that the first group grew up with.

As Tyrell says, his editorial was an attempt to portray how Star Wars games are breaking into a Genre of their own, not disservice the Star Wars games of old. In return, if you have a great story or want to remember the Atari and Super Nintendo games of old, by all means, send them in, and we'll post the best ones here!