Films and Gaming: A New "Force" in Next-Gen Gaming

It seems that Star Wars is continuing to be a leading innovator in media, this time merging Hollywood and gaming in an upcoming PS3 game that looks to be totally AWESOME. The storyline follows what is essentially an 'evil' version of Luke Skywalker; a young apprentice of Darth Vader before the bucket head and his Emperor get whooped by the Rebellion. And let me tell you, this guy is totally out of the ballpark juiced on Force steroids. In the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) trailer the main character takes down a whole Star Destroyer with his force power, then he charges up his lightsaber and looks like he's going to dice up the ship for a big Stormtrooper and scrap metal salad. Holy (deleted)!!!
This guy is serious. He's ready to kick the entire Star Wars universe square in the nuts.

The most significant part of the game revolves around five characters: A nameless apprentice, Darth, another semi-evil mentor guy, a sexy blonde femme fatale, and what looks like a more evil version of C3-PO. Sounds weird, but what's great is that all five of these characters are portrayed by real actors filmed in a small studio (see some behind-the-scenes footage here). The production team paired up with George Lucas and, taking a hint from the enormous popularity of storyline based games like Halo, cast real actors to play the parts of the game characters. I'm not sure whether they will incorporate this into the regular game play or just in cinematic cut-scenes, but its a pretty interesting step forward in how games are designed. It also draws the gamer into the storyline a lot more than the standard run around, kill everyone in sight style of game which doesn't develop characters in any way.

No game is complete without the scantily clad cleavage bearing pin-up girl, complete with an impossible outfit.

If they can avoid the usual pitfalls with such games (dragging cinematic scenes, poor game play, or poor use of surrounding environment) then this game should be a hit. So far it looks like you can force lift pretty much everything, and do so with a variety of different force skills. And of course, there's the fan favorite: the Lightsaber, plus what promises to be a myriad of other cool ways to cause mayhem around the galaxy . Star Wars fans, do yourself a favor and keep updated on this one.