Star Wars Force Trainer Brainwave Toy unveiled at the Toy Fair 2009

Most likely the hottest toy trend for Christmas 2009 will be brainwave toys. At the Toy Fair 2009 several of these new toys were already revealed. We already reported about the Mattel Mindflex. Uncle Milton offers with the Star Wars Force Trainer a toy based on the same technological concept.
The Force trainer uses a headset that measures brainwave that get translated into a airstream produced by a fan inside the Force Trainer base.
Gizmodo has been at the Toy Fair 2009 in New York and tested the Force Trainer. You can see a video of the Force Trainer in action on Gizmodo. The Uncle Milton Force Trainer is supposed to sell for around $100 later this year.

The Star Wars franchise is still strong and so it makes sense to still market Star Wars toys even to the younger generation. Uncle Milton Industries will actually unleash a whole line of cool new Star Wars tech toys including Star Wars Optical Command Unit, Star Wars Darth Vader Robotic Arm, Star Wars Jedi Telescope and Star Wars Jedi Projector. More details on the Star Wars site.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed nabs best writing award from WGA

The competition was tough, but in the end, writers Haden Blackman, Cameron Suey, John Staffor and Shawn Pitman took home the second Video Game Writing Award bestowed by the Writers Guild of America.

The writers won the award for their work on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed in a ceremony held over the weekend. They went up against the writing teams working on Fallout 3, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble.

As of now, to be eligible for the WGA award, the game writers must be a member of the WGA’s Videogame Writers Caucus, which some see as a fledgling writers union for game writers. Some of criticized this practice, saying that the award ceremony is a membership drive used to recruit people into the Writers Caucas, and that WGA awards should be given out to writers not in the guild.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Sells 5.7 Million Units

San Francisco, CA – February 12, 2009 – Driven by the popularity of the STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS animated television series, the Force remained strong in 2008 as STAR WARS catapulted to the Number 1 spot of all traditional toy licenses, according to The NPD Group, Inc., Lucasfilm Ltd. announced today. U.S. toy retail sales for the brand in 2008 exceeded $450M. STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS was the single most popular licensed toy property in 2008 according to data released by the NPD Group. It was also, as a result, the top boys’ toy license of the year.

During the 2008 holiday season, U.S. retailers reported the strongest sales for STAR WARS toys and products in the 31 years since the first STAR WARS movie was released theatrically, even as the overall retail economy faced significant challenges. Sales of STAR WARS video games also reached new heights in 2008, driven by the huge success of STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED. Following its release in September, STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASED became the fastest selling STAR WARS video game in history with sales now exceeding 5.7M units worldwide.

In addition, STAR WARS books topped the charts with 14 titles appearing on the New York Times best sellers list, with both STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED novelization, and STAR WARS: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION, reaching the number one spot. The smash-hit, animated STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS will return to Cartoon Network the fall of 2009 for a second season, continuing the adventures of Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, and the heroic Jedi Knights.

The October 3, 2008 premiere of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS scored as the most-watched series debut in Cartoon Network history, according to Nielsen Media Research. Since its premiere, STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (Friday 9 p.m.) has ranked #1 in its time period on all television with boys 2-11, boys 6-11, and tween boys 9-14 through January 2009. It is also a worldwide hit, airing in 166 countries around the globe. Cartoon Network is scheduled to air the final first-season episode of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS at 9 p.m. Friday, March 20.

As the series has continued its popularity, the official STAR WARS website WWW.STARWARS.COM has seen a 30 percent jump in site traffic with millions of fans now viewing free full video episodes of the animated series, playing new STAR WARS games, reading the latest news and online web comic, or just watching some of the hundreds of exclusive STAR WARS fan films and videos on the site. Produced by Lucasfilm Animation, STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS features the voices of Matt Lanter (Heroes) as Anakin Skywalker, Ashley Eckstein (That’s So Raven) as Ahsoka Tano, James Arnold Taylor (Celebrity Deathmatch) as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Tom Kane (Wolverine & the X-Men) as Yoda.

Dave Filoni is the supervising director of the series and Cary Silver is producer. George Lucas serves as executive producer and creator of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS.

Lack of new Star Wars games sends us back to 2008

While looking ahead, the only Star Wars video game on the horizon in the near future is Star Wars: The Old Republic MMPORPG. So looking for a Star Wars fix, we take a second look at 2008’s mediocre Star Wars Force Unleashed.

I remember this time a year ago, I was watching the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and remember thinking “ZOMG! this is going to be a cool game!” and I eagerly anticipated its release. The months went on, new trailers came out and new screenshots were obvious evidence that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was going to be 2008’s game of the year, even while up against Grand Theft Auto, Fallout 3 and other blockbusters for the year.

Then, the demo came out and while it was a beautiful looking game and had some really neat features and eye candy, it was about as much of a letdown as if Lucasarts had cancelled the whole project. To me, the game was dead. I eventually got bored after finishing a handful of other games, but like this reviewer, the whole experience was somewhat uneventful.

Since there’s really nothing Star Wars to look forward to in the near future, we decided to poke around for some Force Unleashed player reviews and here’s what we came up with:

I first played Star Wars: The Force Unleashed as a demo on the Playstation Network Store and I thought it was pretty good. Albeit, the controls were a bit strange & cumbersome but overall not too bad. Plus I figured with a few more months until launch the issues would likely be ironed out. Well, I was wrong. But more on that in a bit.

First I’ll touch on what I actually like about the game. Being a moderate fan of the original Star Wars Trilogy it’s simply fantastic to get a bit more of the story of the events that transpired prior to the setting of Episode 4. To my understanding this is the first ever video game where the story is adopted as part of the official Star Wars Canon.

The game places you as Darth Vader’s apprentice known as by the code name ‘Starkiller’. Initially, you’ll begin by proving yourself capable by hunting down various Jedi throughout the Galaxy. Vader’s intention is to overthrow the Emperor with Starkiller’s help. Or so it seems. The story is definitely a highlight that I won’t spoil here.

Graphically the game is quite visually appealing. Character models are well done and the environments are significantly varied from planet to planet and even on starship’s and eventually the Death Star. By in large some of the best graphics are on Starkiller’s Force powers such as Force Lightning.

The major problem that this game – and to a larger extent Action/Adventure games in general – is the camera and controls. The player is given very little input into the camera itself so you’ll be relying mostly on the game. Too often the camera is at the wrong angle for a particular jump or completely ignoring a group of enemies pouring murderous fire just off screen. It’s extremely frustrating to constantly have to run from a group of unseen enemies because the camera won’t focus accurately. Or miss a jump over and over because of poor camera placement.

Controls are similarly flawed. Even simple Force moves like picking something up and hitting an enemy require the use of multiple buttons. Even when you remember the right sequence the results are often mixed. How many times I tried to hurl an object at an enemy only to watch it go the opposite direction and miss entirely are too numerous to count. Force Unleashed also uses liberal amounts of scripted button sequences particularly for larger enemies and for boss fights. These sequences usually require an insane amount of dexterity or just sheer hit and miss tactics. I found myself often having to repeat a sequence because buttons require almost millisecond timing.

The Force Unleashed also uses a paper thin leveling system that rewards the player abilities in 3 areas – Talents, Powers & Combos. Earn a level or find an upgrade sphere and you can use those to upgrade an ability of choice in each respective area. The main issue I have with the system is that it’s far too simplistic and not varied enough to maintain the game through repeated plays. Even playing the game casually I was able to max out almost all of my abilities.

New Star Wars: The Old Republic vid visits the Jedi ‘hood

Star Wars fans: you Hoth to see this. The latest “Developer Dispatch” out of BioWare Austin — developer of Star Wars: The Old Republic — not only shows off some of the effort going into creating the Jedi-starting world of Tython (ancient home of the first Force users); it actually contains gameplay footage from the LucasArts-published MMO that lasts longer than your ability to stomach a speaking scene between Padme and Anakin Skywalker. Plus, it’s hotter than … let’s see … high noon (noons?) on Tatooine. Hey — what are you doing with those lightsabers? Those could hurt someone ..

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