The International House of Mojo

The latest attempt at a Star Wars RTS game is getting closer to release. Today LucasArts posts the first tasty trailer for Empire at War.

While it's impossible to get a feel for the gameplay from a trailer alone it certainly looks impressive.

This title may be the first fruits of LucasArts' CEO Jim Ward's "less Star Wars games, but of a higher quality" mantra.

The game is being made by Petroglyph, a company made up predominantly of ex-Westwood Studios employees (they of Command & Conquer, etc).

What happens when you drink 17 cups of tea in one go? Most people go on a killing spree and end up getting strangled by a paedophile, but Gabez wrote six Star Wars reviews instead. Six Star Wars reviews for Six Star Wars films. In retrospect and reference to the prequels. You do the math.

Lynn Scully has advised me to release each film review on a daily basis, so check back every day this week to see what I thought of each film. Most Star Wars reviews were written ages ago, but these ones have the advantage of freshness and obscure cultural references. They may also persuade you to have a Star Wars back to back watchathon like I did yesterday. I nearly died.

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Episode IV: A New Hope

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Next week: something not Star Wars related.

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We know a lot of Mojoers are sick of Star Wars games, but just saying that they're bad isn't going to do much. That's why this week's article is all about why a lot of Star Wars games suck, and what can be done about it. Don't forget to drop a comment if agree and want to cuss Star Wars games up, or even if you disagree and think we're being too harsh.

Whatever the case, leave your thoughts and maybe LucasArts will read them and bring back Sam & Max!!!!11

What is going on? Good lord. Okay, this one's kind of hilarious.

The Summer of Mojo continues with our review of Lego Star Wars: the video game!

No doubt most of you are pretty sick of Star Wars games right now, especially ones that look like cheap spin-offs for children. But wait, don?t throw on the sceptical specs just yet; Lego Star Wars is actually worth a second look. More than a second look, in fact - but to find out more you?ll have to read our review. Remember, you do like Star Wars games... you can go about your business... move along now...

You?ve seen the film now play the game - but read our review first!

To kickstart the Summer of Mojo we?ve taken a look at the official Star Wars Episode III game from The Collective. Sure, it looks pretty, but can it live up the hype? Find out be reading the review here, and may the force be with you.

Everyone's favorite Spaff, Spaff, has written a preview of Star Wars: Empire at War for Idle Thumbs. The game actually looks pretty decent, and is the only game I saw at the LEC booth this year.

Coming in under the radar, a new Star Wars videogame / toy hybrid; The Star Wars Saga Edition Lightsaber Battle Game. It's some sort of console thing you plug into your TV and slash your way through Star Wars baddies with a wireless lightsaber.<:MORENEWS:>

Plug the training droid into your TV or VCR and you?re ready to begin.

Innovative wireless technology lets your lightsaber interact with your TV screen. Move it and slah it in different ways to defeat enemies ? and shield yourself. Learn powerful new moves as you prove your worthiness as a Jedi Knight! (etc)

Sounds rather intriguing. Anyone has the pleasure (?) of playing this yet? And can it be long before we see a Monkey Island: MONKEY KOMBAT toy in a similar style?

Oh, yeah, And Battlefront 2 was announced in some magazine. Expect a Lucasarts 'new game announcement' for it at E3.

Source: Hasbro

While LEGO Star Wars: The Game might seems like a joke to most of us, it is actually getting some good reviews. Take this GameSpy review which calls it "One of the best Star Wars games to date" for example. Will LEGO Indiana Jones: The Game follow?

It looks like Episode III might not be the end of the Star Wars franchise after all. According to this SyFy article LucasFilm has more or less confirmed that the rumored television show will happen. How will this impact LucasArts?

"Certainly with LucasArts, we are looking into interactive games; not only the kinds of things that are there now, but as technology progresses we're looking at what direction that can go," Sansweet added. "We're also continuing to see how we can expand Lucas Online in various ways."

Food for thought. In almost unrelated news, you might want to check out this LEGO Star Wars interview too.

If you can handle a 227MB download, and want to see a rather different take on the Star Wars Universe, you could do worse than grabbing a copy of the PC Demo (featuring the whole first level) of the forthcoming Star Wars LEGO platformer.

It's up at Yahoo already and probably at the other usual places in the very near future.

The full game's released on PC, Xbox, PS2 and GBA next month.

Source: Yahoo

A couple of you might care, but Republic Commando, currently LucasArts' only internally-developed title, has been reviewed by Gamespot (8.7) and IGN (8.5). Both reviews are pretty favorable (citing weak multiplayer and a short singleplayer campaign as the big weaknesses), though the IGN reviewer seems to be a little unfair to the game. It seems he would have preferred that LucasArts made the game completely differently, and repeatedly marks Republic Commando down because it's not that other game he wanted in his head.

Gamespot has released the first official trailer for the forthcoming LEGO Star Wars Videogame. The game takes in key events from the entire Star Wars prequel trilogy and has over 30 unlockable characters and a 'drop-in / drop-out anytime' co-op mode.

An official site has also popped up recently, though it's still promising a lot more content to be added.

Source: Gamespot

LucasArts updated the Star Wars Empire at War website to show some screenshots which honestly look quite nice. The game is being developed by Petroglyph, a game studio composed largely of ex-Westwood employees (you know, the creators of the classic Command and Conquer RTS series), which is pretty cool in itself. I'm hesitant to blindly post Star Wars news these days, but this stuff is at least worth taking a look at.

The PC demo for Star Wars Republic Commando - one of the only games LucasArts is still developing internally after mass layoffs during 2004 - is now available for the curious. You can get it from FileFront, FileShack, TorrentSpy, and a billion other places

Jake's opinion after playing the demo and then dying a lot due to sucking at this sort of game: It's really quite nice looking, and pretty fun even (more or less). Check it out if you like FPS games, and 300+ meg downloads.

As we speak the long-awaited 3 level mod demo of the LucasArts FPS classic Dark Forces (using the Jedi Academy engine) is being uploaded ready for public release on lucasfiles.com.

Check out the mod's official website for more information and screenshots.

Edit: The demo is now available for download right here at lucasfiles.com.

Source: Dark Forces Mod

Theforce.net reports confirmation of the long rumoured 'Star Wars live action TV series' (though no official announcements or press releases are yet forthcoming directly from LucasFilm).

Those hoping that the end of Star Wars movies next May would result in a reduction of LucasArts' dependence on games set in that Galaxy Far, Far Away may need to rethink.

Source: theforce.net

The in-development game Star Wars: Battlefront will be available in 48 days. You can follow the countdown till launch on the new official website. 48 days from now is the 21:st of September. Battlefront is for PC, PS2, and Xbox. I must say the box cover art, which is featured on the sitedesign is very slick and classy. The site also features a 9 track soundtrack of 30 seconds each. Though I find the Mixnmojo Games Database much more informative, the official site is worth checking out too. You get a gift if you pre-order the game now at the LucasArts Company Store.

... Unleashed. A couple days ago LucasArts announced that they would, to the surprise of nobody, be making a Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith game. Hopefully this game will be awesome, AKA the opposite of the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace game. Wooee!<:MORENEWS:>

The game sounds like combat based 3rd person action/adventure fare. The usual. The press release says: "Players will control all the Jedi abilities of both Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, including devastating Force powers and advanced lightsaber techniques involving robust combo attacks and defensive maneuvers. As Anakin, players will unleash the power of the dark side in ruthless lightsaber and Force attacks. As Obi-Wan, players will struggle to save the galaxy from darkness by focusing the power of the light side into swift and precise lightsaber attacks and using the Force to control enemy actions."

There's some more in there about how people who worked on the fighting and combat moves in the films will be overseeing the fighting in the game, so that might be cool. If you're interested, take a look at the press release.

Here's hoping they don't screw this up. I want LucasArts to actually get a couple recent successes under their belt, no matter how cheesy and franchisey -- at least then they might consider growing some balls.

Actually, this post isn't about the title of Star Wars Episode III at all; in fact, it might be about something interesting! See, I used an exclamation point. Anyway, teh LucasArts updated its Republic Commando info page with a new, long video walkthrough of a level set on the wookiee planet Kashyyyyy??yyyk.

Though you can't make out too much of the scenery (let's just say it's a bit dark), it's a great look at how the game is played and the clip is surprisingly generous in that respect. Though I'm unsure what to think of the game concept right now (I liked Halo but wasn't crazy about Brute Force), I was impressed by the inside-the-helmet HUD design, as shown in all its shaky glory in this video. Judge for yourself here. Yeah, I know you hate Star Wars games, you told me.