Tag Archives: Star Wars

Listen to the Tosche Station Radio livestream tomorrow, win a copy of ‘Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void’

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intothevoidWhat are you up to tomorrow at 5PM PDT? Nothing? Fantastic! You could win yourself a copy of Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void by Tim Lebbon. What do you have to do? Listen to the livestream and join the chat as we record a new episode of Tosche Station Radio!

While we’re streaming the podcast recording, all you need to do is head over to livestream.com/toschestationradio and comment in the chat. Near the end of the show we’ll throw the names into a hat* and draw one lucky winner. Be sure to stick around until that point!

*Randomizer application

Assorted thoughts on the Lucasfilm/EA exclusive game deal

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EA LogoReaction to yesterday’s news that Lucasfilm will be licensing the Star Wars IP exclusively to publisher Electronic Arts was, to put it mildly, a mixed bag. First off were people happy that there were going to be new Star Wars games at all. Then there was the anti-EA crowd upset that Disney was licensing to the least popular company in the gaming industry. So what is it? Good news for fans, or Disney making a mistake and hurting fans?

Some assorted thoughts…

  • Disney and Lucasfilm were never going to break things up and offer rights individually on a per-game basis. There’s more leverage in locking a company up in on an exclusive multi-year deal. Because of this, only two publishers were realistic options: Electronic Arts and Activision. Given that neither company is particularly well regarded in gaming circles, it’s pretty much a pick-your-poison. For me, Electronic Arts has the better game developers in its portfolio so going with them is far and away the preferable option.
  • While Electronic Arts is hated by gamers (some would say irrationally hated), they’ve got fantastic game developers working under them. From the onset, they’ve announced that Bioware, DICE, and Visceral Games are going to be working on future Star Wars titles. This is good news. These are studios that have produced some fantastic products and are capable of doing great things with the Star Wars IP.
  • Yes, even Bioware is a fantastic studio. Whether or not you liked the ending to Mass Effect 3, they are a developer that has consistently put out above-average games that have featured top-notch writing efforts to create deeply immersive games.  Knights of the Old Republic 3? Maybe that’s finally back on the table now that Lucasarts isn’t pulling the strings. Maybe it means a single-player RPG experience in a completely different era. Either way, it’s exciting and turning Bioware loose on a new Star Wars title is great news.
  • For fans that have long wished for Battlefront III, this news is nothing short of a miracle. DICE is the company that produces the Battlefield titles, multiplayer online shooter titles with a remarkably similar feel to the Battlefront games. Critically lauded multiplayer online shooter titles along with warzone cheats for all first-person shooter games, I might add. You might not get Battlefront III specifically, but I’d say odds are high you’re going to get a game remarkably similar to it.
  • Visceral Games is responsible for the acclaimed Dead Space games, a franchise that’s textbook core market.  They’ve shown they can do atmospheric titles that can push the action angle. Good fit for Star Wars? I think so.
  • Disney and Lucasfilm were never going to leave money from the core gaming market on the table. Claims that they would abandon more grown-up titles to only produce Facebook and iOS titles were simply overreaction to the news that LucasArts was closing down. Maybe it’s time we recognize that Disney isn’t out to make Star Wars fans miserable by cancelling everything we love and acknowledge they just might know what they’re doing?
  • LucasArts was having an increasingly difficult time producing games, so Disney handing the IP off to a company with a stable of high-quality developers was not only a smart business decision, it was a good gesture to fans. At the very least, it’s hard to get much worse than where the IP has been. It’s been a long time since the last critically acclaimed Star Wars title. Giving Electronic Arts a go might be just what the franchise needs to produce something special again.

Boil it down and I just can’t find much to be upset about. There is way more good news than there is bad news involved in this announcement. As of right now, three top-notch studios are going to get to work on the Star Wars IP and I, for one, can’t wait to see what they do with it.

Review: Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void

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intothevoidInto the Void is unlike any Star Wars book you’ve ever read before and that’s not a bad thing.  In fact, it turns out to be a rather good thing.

Set over 25,000 years before the Skywalkers were playing leading roles on the galactic stage, Tim Lebbon adds to this new era in the Star Wars universe with the tale of Lanoree Brock, a Je’daii Ranger.  She has been summoned by the Je’daii Council to embark on a mission to stop one man from trying to open a hypergate and incidentally destroy the entire Tythan star system.  It is a mission of utmost importance.  As if the mission wasn’t pressure enough, the Council reveals that she has been chosen for the job because the man is believed to be Dalien Brock, her brother thought to be dead for years.

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Lucasfilm Licensing selects Electronic Arts for exclusive multi-year game deal

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When LucasArts was closed down, Disney and Lucasfilm said that the Star Wars IP would move towards a licensing model with out-of-house talent handling development duties. Fans were skeptical that anything would come out of this, naturally. Today Lucasfilm put those concerns to bed with the announcement that publisher Electronic Arts has been selected for an exclusive multi-year game deal.

Today it was announced that Lucasfilm Ltd. and Disney Interactive are entering into a multi-year, multi-title exclusive licensing agreement with Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) for the creation of new high quality Star Wars games spanning multiple genres for console, PC, mobile, and tablets.

Industry leaders and creators of best-in-class blockbuster games, the development and publishing teams at EA will collaborate with the creative teams at Lucasfilm to provide audiences with all-new gaming experiences set in the ever-expanding Star Wars galaxy. As part of the agreement, EA studio teams DICE (Battlefield series) and Visceral (Dead Space series) will join BioWare (Mass Effect series, Star Wars: The Old Republic) in the development of new Star Wars games.

“Our number one objective was to find a developer who could consistently deliver our fans great Star Wars games for years to come,” said Kathleen Kennedy, President of Lucasfilm. “When we looked at the talent of the teams that EA was committing to our games and the quality of their vision for Star Wars, the choice was clear.”

While EA studios will develop for the core Star Wars gaming audience, Disney Interactive will focus on delivering new Star Wars games for casual audiences on mobile, social, tablet, and online gaming platforms.

“This agreement demonstrates our commitment to creating quality game experiences that drive the popularity of the Star Wars franchise for years to come,” said John Pleasants, co-president of Disney Interactive. “Collaborating with one of the world’s premier game developers will allow us to bring an amazing portfolio of new Star Wars titles to fans around the world.”

“Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. “Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. The new experiences we create may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories and gameplay.”

More information, including titles in development, will be announced in the coming months. Continue to check StarWars.com for updates on the future of Star Wars gaming.

Take a moment to look at the studios that are going to be involved. DICE, Visceral Studios, and Bioware. These are three big-name players that command a lot of respect in the gaming community and have produced some incredible game portfolios. Lucasarts may be gone, but the Star Wars gaming IP is perhaps in better shape than it has been in years.

Episode VII targets early 2014 filming start

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Collider.com caught up with Bad Robot producer Bryan Burk to discuss some of the production details behind Episode VII. Among the questions: Just when does filming start? Burk says that while things are fluid, they have a window in mind.

“We’re progressing on a schedule to hopefully begin next year, or the beginning of next year, and the location is still kind of floating around in the air all depending on script and a whole bunch of other issues.  As I just said, everything is kind of a free-flowing thing, and when we feel like the story level on this script and everything is really coming together and schedules are all working and pieces line up, we prowl ahead, and Star Wars will be no different.”

That would make sense, especially if summer 2015 is the target to get the new installment into theaters. Whether or not this holds up remains to be seen and like many other aspects of the film, depends on just what the Michael Arndt-written screenplay looks like.

Mark Hamill crashes Return of the Jedi screening, awesomeness ensues

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Amidst all of the Jacen Solo Day celebrations, Mark Hamill dropped by the CapeTown Film Festival’s screening of Return of the Jedi to discuss all things Star Wars. Among Hamil’s answers to questions was a response that gave his insight to CGI versus traditional effects:

“That’s what the challenge is, is to try and meet expectations of what you guys want. I think there’s nothing wrong with CGI, but I think you have to have a balance, because the camera perceives the width and the depth and the weight – even if it’s a miniature model, the camera just realizes that. So when you have too much CGI and the clouds are CGI and the trees are CGI and the buildings are CGI, you’re getting to a point where the figure in the shot is like a hybrid of an animated film and live-action. And I want it to have an organic look so that we don’t get into Roger Rabbit territory.” He then added, with a laugh, “But I don’t imagine that the priority is what I want!”

For a more in-depth recap of the interview and other fun from the event, be sure to head over to Club Jade and read over James’ writeup.

Via Club Jade. Video courtesy of Jason Ward.

EU Retrospective: Dark Nest

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I thought that the book I was most dreading was The Crystal Star.  I was wrong.  It was actually the Dark Nest Trilogy.  At least Waru is so awful and ridiculous that you can laugh at it once you finish that one book and get over the trauma.  On the other hand, I had to deal with the Jedi Bug Sex for three books.  THREE.  I’d like to thank everyone who sympathized with my reading plight on Twitter.  These are some of the only Star Wars books that I haven’t read more than once.  I’m now recalling exactly why and exactly how bad they were that my 15-year-old self made that excellent call.  I’m also going to apologize right now for what will be by far the most negative post I will make for this project.  There was no livestream for these books (because I learned my lesson with Waru) but instead, you do get a lot of ridiculous facial expressions.  Enjoy?

The Joiner King
“Bugs!” Han groaned and shook his head. “Why did it have to be bugs?”
That basically sums up my feelings about this entire trilogy.  I got all of 103 pages into the book and was already cringing and wanting to run away.

I made it another 119 pages before I had to pour myself a very tall and very stiff drink.  Thank goodness for good tequila otherwise this experience could’ve gone very poorly.

These books are bad, guys.  They are really really bad.  As usual, Han seems to be the only one who gets what’s going on and just wants to get the heck out of there.  I wouldn’t even mind much of the book if the characterization train hadn’t gone so far off the rails that it was in a ravine.  The idea of the Myrkr missions still affecting them this severely so they can’t make connections with others is just ridiculous.  Jaina thinking about how that mind meld is what made her drift away from Jag is ridiculous and a disservice to her character.  When she and Jag parted way at the end of The Unifying Force, it was because she wanted to live her life a bit more before settling down not because they couldn’t connect properly or whatever stupid reason the book claimed.

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Abrams expects Williams to score Episode VII

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The folks over at CinemaBlend tracked down a Star Trek Into Darkness press conference video where director J.J. Abrams was (naturally) asked a question about the other Star franchise he’s working on. Specifically, whether or not John Williams would be back to score Episode VII. Skip to 8:14 to get right to the question.

The relevant quote:  “For Star Wars it’s very early days … but I believe that … John Williams will be doing that film, because apparently he was there long before I was.”

Remember, though. This isn’t official confirmation and it won’t be until you hear it from Disney or Lucasfilm.

Via TFN

Awesome Con Costume Round Up

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One of the best things about conventions is undoubtedly the variety of costumes you see throughout the weekend.  Last weekend’s Awesome Con was no different.  Downtown Washington DC was quickly filled with costumers representing a variety of fandoms, undoubtedly leaving many a metro rider very confused as to why these people in catsuits and Jedi robes were sitting beside them.  (Superheroes are people too!)

Even though this was Awesome Con’s first year, the costumers definitely brought their a-game.  It was also wonderful to see how many children (and sometimes even their parents) decided to embrace their (for many) first convention experience and throw themselves into it headfirst and come in costume.  Everywhere I looked, I saw yet another person looking great in costume and definitely looking like they were having the time of their life.  I only wish that this Round Up post could highlight all of them.

As always, we’ll start off with the Star Wars costumes.  There’s nothing better nor more adorable than costuming children check out this tiny Ashoka and Captain Rex, this pair of Jawas, and a tiny Boba Fett with a more experienced Mandalorian warrior alongside.

Clone Wars Jawas Mandalorians

Mandalorian Warriors were the most popular Star Wars costumes spotted that weekend followed closely by Jedi Knights.  There was, however, a Princess Leia too!  (Look out, Leia!  That’s Boba Fett behind you!)

Leia Star Wars
Star Wars 2 Jedi1

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