he Star Wars franchise has seen its fair share of ups and downs in the realm of video games. When the new generation of consoles started to gain momentum, Haden Blackman and his team started talking to George Lucas about what this meant and what they could do. What they came up with is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, thier first internal game for the newest generation of consoles. During our time at GDC 2008, we got to trek over to the prestigious Presidio in San Francisco, where LucasFilm Ltd. is located and check it out along with their other titles--Fracture and LEGO Indiana Jones.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Set between Episode III and Episode IV, The Force Unleashed helps bridge the gap between the two films by telling an all new side of the light and dark story. Anikan Skywalker is now Darth Vader, but he's not the puppet to the Emperor we all remember (yet). Instead, he's plotting his own schemes to take Sidious off his throne by taking on an apprentice--which you will take control of for the game.
The Force Unleashed is an all-out action game that is driven by a few cool technologies like Digital Molecular Matter, or DMM. This makes nearly everything in the world act like its real-life counterpart. Thing like metal or wood react accordingly when powerful forces like a lightsaber or force push are applied to them. Also driving the game is Euphoria from NaturalMotion, a tool that simulates the human body as realistically as possible in realtime. This allows a majority of a characters animations to be decided on the fly depending on what's happening in the game environment. The example we saw showed two stormtroopers getting launched into the air then grabbing onto each other for dear life. The game also features a very robust force power system allowing for everything from classic force pulls to turning an unlucky enemy into a dark force bomb.
We got a chance to check out a few of the game's very different locations. First we saw the apprentice ripping apart a huge Tie Fighter factory. The scale was enormous and a few of the Ties were even subject to a force push or two. Next we saw our saber-wielding friend ripping through a dense plant-life planet called Falucia and going head-to-head with a Rancor. After disposing of the giant beast by jamming a lightsaber into its eye, we jumped forward to another level. The last stop on our mini tour was a junkyard planet known as Raxis Prime, where we hunted down a paranoid Jedi named Kazdan Paratus. This Clone Wars vet had gone off his tonton and rebuilt his own Jedi temple, compete with a Jedi council all out of old junk. The planet was full of fodder for the force powers and a huge check of the debris could be flung at enemies with style to spare.
After our Xbox 360 demo, we got to see a small but of the Wii version. For obvious reasons, the visuals were not on par with the 360/PS3 versions but for a Wii game, it looked pretty impressive. As you may expect, the game uses the Wii remote to control the movements of the lightsaber but not in a one-to-one manner. If it did, the player would need to be a professional fencer to use it. Instead, it detects direction of swing and translates. We also got to see a bit of the multiplayer duel mode exclusive to the Wii. It features nine large arenas and over 20 classic Star Wars characters.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is set for a August release on Xbox 360 and PlayStaton 3 with versions also on PlayStation 2, PSP, Wii and DS, and we hope to get our hands on it soon for a full in-depth preview.
Fracture
After getting a dose of some Star War action, we got another look at Fracture. It's the second solid showing we've had of the Day 1 Studios game, and it looks like it's shaping up quite well. Fracture puts you in the shoes of Jet Brody during a new civil war in America over genetic enhancements. The war started over beliefs of how the human race should move forward. The Atlantic Alliance in the East sees humanity's survival in technological enhancements like cybernetics where as the Republic of Pacifica in the West thinks the future lies in biological enhancements.
Fracture is a shooter with some unique elements to it. One of the biggest features of the game is actually the environment and the studios technology called Terrain Deformation that allows the player to bend it to serve them in battle. In the demo we saw our main hero Jet of the Atlantic Alliance shooting rock walls to crush enemies, raising ground to create cover and even launching giant spikes of Earth to add new supports to a broken bridge. Perhaps the coolest though, was a weapon called the Vortex. This weapons creates a tornado of pure physics and destruction. Anything in the way will get sucked in, spun around and finished off with a huge blast of energy.
Fracture is looking at a July 2008 release date for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
LEGO Indiana Jones
Before leaving the LucasFilm campus, we got a short but sweet demo of LEGO Indiana Jones from Travelers Tales. Coming off the success of the LEGO Star Wars games, the developer is on top of the world with their take on the LEGO franchised universes. Having both LEGO Indy from LucasArts and LEGO Batman from Warner in development shows the company has created a new formula that put some life back into the adventure and platforming genres.
LEGO Indiana Jones spans the first three movies--Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom (LEGO Short Round!) and The Last Crusade. Our demo was of the famous section of the first film Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indy is about to find the infamous idol. LEGO Indy for the most part resembles the LEGO Star Wars games with a few key differences. The biggest is the visuals--the background environments are much less cartoony and have a higher amount of detail. Also added are new roles for secondary characters. Instead of having character classes like Jedi or bounty hunter, each characters in Indy has their own strengths and weaknesses when facing any number of game obstacles. Most obviously however is the switch from a lightsaber to a whip. Indy's iconic weapon/tool of choice will be used in many different ways throughout the game. Players can swing over ledges, take out baddies or even find secrets while wielding it.
We would have loved to see more LEGO Indiana Jones but our time was short. From what we saw, Travelers Tales' hilarious tongue-in-cheek story telling was totally intact. LEGO Indy will ship in June on all seven major platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Wii, PSP, DS and PlayStation 2.