Players to Feel the ‘Phantom’ Force

First see the movie. Then buy the game.

Riding the media buzz for “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace,” LucasArts Entertainment, a wholly owned division of George Lucas’ Lucasfilm Ltd., next week will release games based on the film, which opens Wednesday.

In 1995, before the movie script was finished, Lucas and Jack Sorensen, president of LucasArts, began coordinating the games over regular lunch meetings at the filmmaker’s San Rafael, Calif., ranch.

The “Phantom Menace” game tracks the general story line of the film; “Racer” expands a scene in which people and aliens race across a desert at 600 mph in rocket-launcher vehicles.

“The lead programmer, to get a feel for the engines in the pod race, took his dogs Rollerblading on leashes to figure out how to model the physics of the game,” Sorensen said.

LucasArts will release PC versions of both games this week; a Nintendo 64 version of “Racer” and a Sony PlayStation version of “Phantom Menace” will hit store shelves by the end of the month.