Star Wars Episode I: Racer

Star Wars Episode I: Racer is a racing video game based on the pod race featured in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The game features a variety of tracks spanning several different planets and includes all and more of the racers featured in the movie, including Teemto Pagalies, Dud Bolt, Mars Guo, Ben Quadinaros and more.

Game modes
The following is a list of different playing modes featured in the game: Can support up to 8 players
 * Tournament: The primary game mode. Race for money to buy parts or pit droids, and unlock new tracks, racers, and upgrades. You can't decide how hard the other racers are going on you.
 * Free Race: Allows you to practice any previously unlocked courses using any unlocked racer. However, you cannot earn money or unlock tracks and racers. You can, however, set the difficulty of your opponents.
 * Time Attack: The same as Free Race, except you race against the clock, constantly trying to improve your time. In the PC version at least this mode is absent, with the free play mode allowing the player to instead set the amount of computer opponents to 0.
 * 2 Player: Race against another real player on any unlocked course. You can adjust the difficulty, number, and speed of the computer opponents.
 * Multiplayer: Race against other players on a local network on any unlocked course. The PC version uses the deprecated IPX protocol in order to accomplish this, while the Macintosh version uses the TCP/IP stack.

The Nintendo 64 version received a special edition Star Wars Episode I Racer hardware bundle with the standard gray/black console and a copy of the game. While the Nintendo 64 cartridge took advantage of Nintendo's Expansion Pak memory unit to add additional textures during in-game play, the N64 cartridge memory limitations resulted in all prerendered cinematics and all but one of the movie soundtrack tunes being removed from the game (Duel of the Fates).

Other versions
The arcade and Game Boy Color releases featured entirely different game play from the others. While using a vastly superior in-game graphics engine, the arcade version included just four tracks (unique from the PC/Mac/Dreamcast/N64 tracks) and used separate control sticks for each pod engine as standard. The arcade version featured a full-sized cockpit for the player to sit in while playing. The Game Boy Color system was technically incapable of rendering the high speed 3D graphics used in the other versions, so the Game Boy Color release was instead based on abbreviated tracks using an overhead 2D view. Many versions of the Gameboy Color version of the game had an additional "Rumble" feature, in which you could put a battery into the game card to activate vibration.

Trivia

 * Lucas Arts wanted to call this game Pod Racer, but an older game already existed with that name.
 * Jake Lloyd, who played Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, also lent his voice talents to this game.

Reception

 * In March 2004, GMR Magazine rated Episode I Racer, the fifth best Star Wars game of all time.