Sure, LucasArts continues to taunt long time fans by not releasing a new title in the TIE Fighter series, but The Force Unleashed is looking to be a nice peace offering. The physics heavy Jedi-powered action title is shaping up to be one of the major titles of this year, if early looks are any indication. And now, it finally has a release date.
How do you improve upon one of the best adventure film series of all-time? With Legos, of course! That’s just what this May’s Lego Indiana Jones hopes to do. This new game trailer shows plenty of the wit and charm previously expressed in the Lego Star Wars titles. The game’s graphics are quite pleasant and the two natives showcased should perhaps get their own spin off game. The best part? Is that a Crash Bandicoot homage, which itself was an Indiana Jones homage?
Everyone loves LEGOs, and with the swell of LEGO based games in the past few years, and the upcoming Batman and Indiana Jones titles, it seems a ripe time to take advantage of everyone’s favorite colored blocks.
In Electronic Gaming Monthly’s April edition they showed an exclusive first look at an upcoming Halo LEGO game featuring Master Chief blasting at Elite’s as he runs down a very familiar looking corridor. With the success of the recent LEGO Star Wars games it would make sense for them to take advantage of the success of both franchises. However, there is some speculation that this is all just an elaborate April Fool’s Day joke by the staff at EGM.
Sadly, it seems that it is actually a clever prank thought up by Michael Donahoe over at EGM. But for every bit of fiction there is a smidgeon of truth and perhaps Microsoft will run with this unique idea and cash in on the success of this expanding franchise.
A new investor’s report indicates that the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) license has reverted back to Bioware, who is in turn working on a title with the license. That’s great news to Star Wars and RPG fans alike. It’s also great news to everyone who felt the sequel was a rushed cash-in on the original.
So, is this confirmation of the rumored MMO Knights of the Old Republic game? Not quite. The same report indicates that Bioware is working on a separate, untitled MMO. Of course, they could be developing separate single and multiplayer versions of the KOTOR, but that seems unlikely. Instead, it is much more likely that the upcoming KOTOR sequel will feature online play of some sort, just not a persistent universe. (more…)
A recent Christian Science Monitor piece questioned whether the bigger threat posed by video games isn’t to increased levels of violence, but to decreased levels of morality. It’s a valid question, and one that far too often gets ignored in favor of, “The game made me do it!”
The crux of the piece, by Matthew Devereux, is that by not portraying any real consequences within video games, the developers absolve the player of moral choices. For instance, blowing up a building to get to the end of a level is justifiable regardless of how many innocents it would kill in reality. The truth is that few games do present any moral consequences or conflicts, and those that do portray them extremely limitedly.
When searching for moral consequences, I chose three titles that I think at least attempt to do what Devereux calls for. Those titles were Fable, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. We’ll start with Fable, as one of its major selling points was supposed to be its ethics/morals engine. The developer originally bragged how killing someone in one town would affect how people in other towns would react to your character. In other words, your character could earn a reputation. In truth, the game delivers a severely limited version of this. Kill someone and you will be chased by townspeople, but given enough time they will lose interest and you’ll be good as new. While in reality a case might go cold after a while, you’ll still find people investigating thirty year old murder cases. More than that, many criminals who are never convicted become social pariahs all the same. Where’s that level of reality? In the end, all of your moral choices within the game are supposed to affect the outcome of the game, but in truth you are given one last decision to go good or bad, undermining all previous decisions. Fable is perhaps the start of something, but not the goal. (more…)
It’s time for another Soul Calibur sequel, and another surprising reveal of hidden characters that don’t quite belong. Soul Calibur 2’s inclusion of Link from The Legend of Zelda will likely go down as one of the greatest strokes of marketing genius ever. On top of that, it fit beautifully with the game and made somewhat twisted, logical sense. Spawn? Not so much.
Still, despite all of that, hardly anyone was expecting to see Darth Vader and Yoda turn up in Soul Calibur 4. It shouldn’t be too shocking, perhaps, as fighting game cameos seem to be in style as of late. Dead or Alive 4 even gave us a Spartan soldier (Halo) to fight with, though curiously not Master Chief, himself. That being said, was a Star Wars fighter really on anyone’s most wanted list?
We’ve seen a Star Wars fighter before, but those who played it generally prefer to forget it. We’ve also seen just about every other imaginable Star Wars spin-off game. When shall we finally see Yoda’s Rock Band? But does anyone want these games? In the case of Soul Calibur, there are certainly fans of the series who will buy it despite the inclusion of these characters. You can feel safe buying the main package and considering Vader and Yoda as Easter eggs, if nothing more. But will anyone buy simply for these characters? (more…)
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