LucasArts Shuts its Doors

When LucasFilm and LucasArts were both sold to Disney last year for over $4 billion, many expected the worst for the video game company LucasArts. With nothing being shown from the highly promising game Star Wars 1313 over the course of a few months, suspicions were amplified.

On Tuesday, this became reality as LucasArts closed and Star Wars 1313 as well as Star Wars: First Assault were announced cancelled.

Life may possibly remain for these games, especially 1313 which showed a lot of promise and raised a lot of hype at last years E3. Disney will look to outsource its games from now on, so hopefully someone will pick up the project. In addition, LucasArts was sitting on many coveted properties, both in and out of the Star Wars universe. Grim Fandango, The Secret of Monkey Island, Star Wars: Jedi Knight, and of course Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic will now be available for purchase theoretically.

Here's to hoping for a rebirth in Star Wars gaming.

In the meantime, here are my top 5 LucasArts published games. Bear in mind that I am a huge Star Wars nerd, and a little too young to have appreciated Grim Fandango or The Secret of Monkey Island. I also never owned a Super NES, so that counts out Super Star Wars and its sequels.

5. X-Wing Alliance- While X-Wing and Tie Fighter were both before my time, I appreciated them and can recognize why they were excellent games. X-Wing Alliance was just current enough when I picked it up for it to feel extremely playable. I loved the feeling of free exploration in space.

4. Star Wars: Bounty Hunter- I'm sure that this is a surprising pick as Bounty Hunter is not regarded as one of the best Star Wars games by basically anyone. However, I love it. It was easy to suffer through a wonky camera for incredibly intriguing back story of a universe that you have adored since a small child. Boba Fett was a bad ass in the original trilogy, and Jango Fett was a bad ass in this game. Also, collecting the extra bounties was a fun mechanic.

3. Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader- The Nintendo GameCube didn't have many classic Star Wars games. Hell, it just didn't have many Star Wars games period. I would regard Rogue Squadron to be the best of them though, with incredibly graphics for it's time, as well as simple and enjoyable flight controls. It is one of the only recent Star Wars games to portray the main plot points of the original trilogy.

2. Star Wars Jedi Knight/Jedi Knight II: Dark Forces- Alright, so maybe I'm cheating putting two games into one slot, but I wanted to include as many different franchises as I could on this list, and I didn't want the original Jedi Knight to get left out. Jedi Knight had a great overall feel to it, and it was easy to feel like the Jedi Kyle Katarn that you were acting as in the game. It's sequel gave you even more control over your lightsaber, and in my opinion is the most fun you can have in a game with a lightsaber to-date. It feels like "an elegant weapon from a more civilized age".

1. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic- Surprise! Said no one. KOTOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars game with reason. The game is one of the best western role playing games period. It includes one of the greatest twists in video games, and it's dynamic story was a precursor to the critical darling Mass Effect.

Honorable Mentions: Star Wars: Battlefront, Battlefront II

Battlefield 4 Trailer

Dice Interactive released a 17 minute trailer last Wednesday detailing a mission from their campaign. The trailer, titled "Fishing in Baku" created a large stur in the gaming community as this marks the longest example of "next-gen" footage released to-date. The trailer can be found here:

Birds

Personally, I found the trailer to be impressive, but only at key moments. The trailer was clearly created to show off different cababilties of the Frostbite 3 engine. Facial animation was a highlight, along with lighting effects. The amount of content that can be displayed on screen was also clearly something that they wanted to show off, highlighted with the flock of birds near the middle of the trailer, and the building crumbling near the end. 

Crumbling Building

Less impressive were the gun motions (bringing the gun up to sights, reloading) which seemed rigid. Even less impressive were the death animations. As games become more and more realistic graphically, items of a game that don't live up to that level of realism really can take you out of the experience. If you look at the enemy animations after they die in the trailer, they look pre-canned. There might possibly be a set difference between the animation of a man being shot in the legs compared to a man shot above the torso, however even if there is, there is clearly only a small number of canned animations for the game to chose from. This is not "next-gen". 

The explosions are gorgeous though.