Racer Entertainment Village - Murray State University Athletics

The podracing scene in The Phantom Menace is one of my favorite movie sequences ever. It’s just so dang cool: The futuristic racers tear over treacherous Tatooine terrain while various Star Wars aliens bark at each other in incomprehensible sci-fi languages. Eventually a young Anakin Skywalker proves his mettle by clawing his way from the back of the pack to win the race, which left an impression on me when I first saw it at 10 years old. I always wished I could pilot a podracer myself. Over the past several days, I’ve been able to live out that dream thanks to Star Wars: Galactic Racer, which takes everything from that brilliant scene and packs it into a thrilling video game. In Galactic Racer’s campaign, you play as Shade, a cargo pilot who gets a shot at racing in the underground Galactic League circuit to eventually challenge the smarmy champion Kestar Bool. The game is basically a roguelike. You start a run (called a “tour”) by picking between a few different vehicles — though you don’t get to drive a podracer until partway through the campaign — and selecting various perks that can influence your style of play.