- Rumor – : Star Wars Battlefront III ‘not currently’ at Pandemic

Despite the rumor to the contrary, it appears that Star Wars: Battlefront III is not in development at Pandemic, the studio responsible for the first two games. Just last week an employee from Rebellion — where Battlefront III development moved after its initial stint at Free Radical — reportedly stated that development had shifted to Pandemic. According to Mathew Everett, community manager at Pandemic, the game “is not currently” with the studio. He added that only LucasArts would know the fate of the title at this point.

Depending on your point of view, this news is either a terrible blow or a tremendous relief (unless you’re just middlin’, of course). Given the popularity of the most recent Star Wars title, The Force Unleashed, we imagine Battlefront III will find a home somewhere. Here’s hoping Jabba is finally playable.

Force Unleashed: Fun but flawed

Definitely a step in the correct direction for LucasArts, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed represents what is both right and wrong with gaming today. It features a relatively unique style of play, as well as a sort of new perspective on the creation of the rebellion in Star Wars.

It fits into a 3rd-person fighting game in the vein of God of War or Devil May Cry, as far as you play one strong, powerful individual against hordes of hapless foes. That, however, is where the comparison ends, because, as awesome as Kratos was, he couldn’t pluck TIE Fighters out of space and drop them on stormtroopers.
You play as Galen Marek, the secret apprentice to Darth Vader code-named ‘Starkiller.’ Vader discovers him, a force-gifted young child, after hunting and killing his Jedi father during a gameplay sequence where you actually play as the Dark Lord, running around Kashyyk and force choking Wookies. After which Starkiller is trained in the dark side of the Force to kill Jedi, and eventually, according to Vader, overthrow the Emporer with him. Naturally, there’s betrayal, brutality, and confusing emotion (much like most other Star Wars offerings) throughout the story.
The story takes getting used to, as odd as that sounds. Most folks come into the game expecting Starkiller to be this incredibly stoic, merciless tough guy like Kratos, but he appears to have motivation and drive beyond selfishness and bloody-minded brutality. This might alienate some folks expecting otherwise, but the character does fit decently after one gets used to it. Occasionally the dialogue gets awkward with the new Star Wars trademark of forced humor, but the instances are pretty rare.

The gameplay works very well and the mechanics are fluid and intuitive. The Force powers you acquire throughout are as entertaining as they are brutal, and there really just isn’t anything like tapping a button to lift a fellow then hurl him into the stratosphere. Of course, some aspects make it really suck. Such as when the character gets knocked over by an opponent. The other people you’re fighting surround you while you loll on the ground counting the stars around your head and pummel you into a gooey paste. This especially happens in boss fights, and you will simply lose before you realize you’ve been knocked over.

A few design choices are not always the greatest, either. It seemed difficult to contemplate a scenario where pulling a Star Destroyer out of atmosphere into a planet would be anything but awesome, but Force Unleashed found a way to muck it up. Instead of just a cutscene, you enter a sort of ‘boss battle.’ Swarms of TIEs come at you, which you have to painstakingly destroy. Then you must use the thumbsticks to properly align the nose of the warship before entering a pull-down sequence. Then it sends another flock of TIEs. While you fight them, its nose tilts to the side again, and you have to re-align it before pulling again. You have to do this around four or five times, and it gets really frustrating.

Overall, however, in spite of bad design choices and other frustrating issues, Force Unleashed fits a niche very similar to Assassin’s Creed: it’s got its flaws and frustrations, but the overall experience is still very fun with plenty of unique things to make it worth a playthrough or two.

Zombieville USA, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed get free, lite versions in the AppStore

Two popular iPhone games, Zombieville USA and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, got the free, lite versions in the AppStore. And while we see this as a good thing — now when every iPhone/iPod Touch user will be able to try these games out before spending some money — I must say I was disappointed with both titles. The problem is that both demo versions are super short. It takes about 5 minutes to complete the Star Wars demo level and even less for the Zombieville USA. However, I must be fair to add that both games seem quite entertaining and that I’ll probably push the button and acquire full versions. Still, even though we’re talking about “lite” versions, I did expect to see something that could be played for at least 15 minutes. This way it’s kinda ridiculous. Sure the idea is to make money and push free version downloaders into buying full-blown apps, but folks – give us just a little bit more (like 2 more levels) and we’ll love you even more. People who don’t want to buy your games, won’t buy them even if you provided 3 free levels, and showing some respect to the regular folks, which I believe are a majority of iPhone users, could be certainly beneficial in the long run.

Here’s a link to the free Zombieville USA version and here’s the link to free Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

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.

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