a long time ago in a galaxy far far away
The classic Atari vector shooter from 1983 was not the only arcade game ever to bear the Star Wars name. There was another much earlier game with the same name. Made by an unnamed bootleg arcade game distributor in 1979.
these are not the droids you're looking for
Seeking to cash in on the famous name, they labeled one of their games as "Star Wars". Not that it was even their game to begin with. It was a bootleg of the earlier game Galaxy Wars. So if you are bootlegging your program, you might as well rip off a better title while you are at it right?
There will be nothing to stop us this time!
This "new" game was distributed mostly to bars, and smaller arcades (who have always been the largest customers of bootleg games). It seems that several thousand of these games were produced (not a bad run for a bootleg). They are difficult to find today, simply because the game wasn't that good. Most of them were converted into other titles. Plus, bootleg system boards are rarely as high quality as the originals. So a high failure rate was a problem as well.
Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?
The game itself, is just mind numbingly boring. It is slightly similar to Space Invaders (and looks a little too similar), in that you are blasting at aliens, who are aligned in several rows above you. You control a little green missile cart. As soon as you fire, the cart vanishes, and you find yourself controlling the missile. You have to maneuver around several rows of what appear to be asteroids, and finally slam into one of the two rows of flying saucers at the top of the screen. Then your missile cart reappears again.
Let the wookiee win
You can play this game on a variety of emulators, including MAME, HiVE, Laser, and VAntAGE. Under MAME you must have the sound samples for Space Invaders in order to hear sound. (The correct samples have apparently never been dumped, but the Space Invaders ones are very similar, so those are used instead).
That's not a moon, it's a space station!
Actually finding one of these machines to add to your arcade collection is going to be very tough. I haven't even been able to find a picture of one of these, much less an entire machine. But, this bootleg would more than likely be the most interesting machine in your collection if you should happen to come across one somewhere. Pricing is unknown, but this is far from a classic game, so it shouldn't be more than a few hundred dollars for a working example.