Look, the prequel trilogy is pretty bad, but preteen-me didn't care about that. I was knocking back Pepsi with Boss Nass on the can and terrorizing my younger sister by rolling towards her screaming "I'M A DROIDEKA!" By that point I was already ingesting a steady diet of Star Wars crap - reading Shadows of the Empire comics, collecting pogs with Dark Prince Xizor on them, and wearing the tape out on my Special Edition copies of the original trilogy; I wasn't just swept up in the hype, I had become one with it. It is perhaps for this reason that I still hold The Phantom Menace up as the best in the prequel trilogy. Yeah, it's still bad but I think it's better than what came after. From time you time, you might catch me making the case that it used more practical effects and sets, that Yoda was still a puppet or whatever, but that's a weak argument. No, it's because I was directly in the target demo when it came out, and because seeing a new Star Wars movie wasn't just special in 1999, it was almost unexpected. Of course it was going to imprint something onto me.

Anyway, hearing Greg Proops say "Beeeeeeen Quadinaros!" has a calming effect on me, like the gentle crash of waves easing me into the ocean. Fun fact: you can pay Greg to say that or any podracer's name on Cameo and he'll not only do it, he'll put a little mustard on it for you, because he's just that kind of professional. How do I know this? I've made some financial decisions that are unwise but which I do not regret, thank you for asking.

Naturally, I loved Star Wars: Episode One - Racer when it came out. Played the hell out of it. It only seemed fitting to buy a cart and add it to my Nintendo 64 collection back when I was building that (along with Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron.) Just like the prequel trilogy, I think Episode One - Racer is something I liked way more as a kid and whose faults only became perceptible to me with age.

Controls are tight and I never felt like they were encumbered in any noticeable way by the N64's wacky gamepad, and there's a good variety of racers and parts for your pods to fine tune things to your liking. The presentation is also on point, and it almost goes without saying that the sound design is excellent. All of this is exactly how I remembered, Watto saying "eeeugh, anybody seen-ah my chance cube?" has never sounded better. What I don't remember is these tracks being long as hell. Too long, even! As courses become more narrow and rich with hazards, you'll find yourself in a position where you've blown the hell up one too many times for the race to be salvageable, and the thought of having to make up for the sheer length of time you've spent on a race that's become unwinnable just makes quitting out and retrying that much more aggravating.

I also have to acknowledge the fact that I played this game on a 4k TV using a Retrotink, and although the Retrotink is a far better option than your run-of-the-mill no brand upscalers on Amazon, it still has some issues with brightness and color vibrancy. There are some courses here that are dark, and while they're perfectly readable on a CRT, when you pass them through an upscaler you're just asking to careen into a pillar or wall that you couldn't see coming. So I'm taking that into consideration with my complaints, and even then I don't think the issues I mentioned are so severe that they encroach on the experience in a significant way.

But... maybe I'm making excuses again? Maybe this is just another version of my "Phantom Menace still used a puppet for Yoda. It has Yaddle in it, man. Yaddle." Some sick problem I have where I see a podracer and I take my shirt off, pound my chest, and walk around the room shouting "Yes! YES!" It just does something to me.

Episode One - Racer gets four kisses on the cheek out of five.