Experience the next great chapters of the Star Wars universe

I’ll say one thing for Bioware. They sure aren’t letting any grass grow under their feet in their daily quest to make sure that everyone on the planet is interested in their soon to be released MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Usually we see maybe two or three trailers for a game, but Bioware releases one just about every day or so it seems like. Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that. In fact I applaud their courage as it gives new fodder for their critics to tear apart, and I really enjoy seeing what is possible in the new worlds of the Lucas Empire.

Their latest trailer focuses on the battle techniques and differences between the Sith Inquisitor and the Republic Trooper. These two characters stand in stark contrast to each other as you can see below. To me, the trooper is basically just a foot soldier with a huge gun and some heavy armor. His whole thing is just to go in there and kick butt and chew gum and he’s out of gum. For those...

We found a few new stories today that we thought we’d share with you. Star Wars: The Old Republic’s producers announced their plan for early access to the game for pre-order enthusiasts, Star Wars snowboards, and a little factoid about Carrie Fisher from her new book.

It’s pretty common knowledge that pre-order customers of Star Wars: The Old Republic will get some degree of early access, but up until now they didn’t really have any idea of just how early that would be. Well sources at Bioware are now saying that it could be as early as five days before, but it could also be one day or less even. It all will depend on when you entered in your pre-order code into the website. They didn’t say how the timing would affect that though.

The University of South Florida Polytech has been under fire lately for spending too much and using their money for what two Sunshine State senators call unnecessary expenditures. So when they purchased a seven foot Darth Vader statue, an Imperial Stormtrooper that needs a new hand, Captain Kirk’s chair from Star Trek and an ET replica for $10,000, they were bound to catch even more blaster shots from the legislature.

But as a fan, one has to appreciate the college’s rebuttal to their critics. They say that the items in question are part of a bigger picture in which they are trying to spur inspiration and creativity among students in the same way that Google offices bring forth their imaginative ideas. The search engine giant is famous for having a work place that is filled with everything from toys to bean bag chairs to air hockey. And there is something to be said for that. The creative souls behind some of the biggest sites found out a long time ago...

Now we all know how protective we are about our Star Wars memorabilia. When people come over, we don’t even want them to touch that brand new Darth Vader bust. But when a Thai woman destroyed a 30 year old man’s Luke and Vader collection, he got all Sith Lord on her and choked her, but not using the force, just force.

Now this might be what Jimmy Buffett would call a Jedi Crime of Passion, but it’s actually much more complicated than that. When he was arrested after killing her, he had already had a history of being abused by the woman, even seeking help from a domestic abuse center. And she had vowed to make his life a living hell, threatening to leave him and return to her native country, but apparently did not have time to make good on the latter part of that threat. Instead she used his love for Star Wars against him by destroying the many items he’d collected since he was a kid. Apparently these included mostly Luke and Vader memorabilia.

He got 12...

This week we have EA’s response to worry that their servers for Star Wars: The Old Republic may not hold up, Mac users get Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars and Yoda was arrested for drunk driving in Germany. Wait. What?

As you may have heard, the Battlefield 3 servers, which are also run by publisher EA, had some serious downtime this week, taking offline thousands upon thousands of users on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms. This, of course, caused major outrage and a lot of pie on the face of the software giant, but it also shed doubt on their ability to maintain Star Wars: The Old Republic. EA was quick to point out that there is an entirely different PC only configuration involved in the SW:TOR servers and that the same problems would not be seen there. Of course, with anything of this nature there is bound to be a problem at some point. Even Google isn’t immune. But it’s good that EA is trying to look ahead and see what they’ve done wrong in the...

Going to be a sitcom, there is. Funny, it will be. Sorry, I was suddenly possessed by Yoda. But there is a situation comedy being mapped out by Seth Green with the endorsement of the man himself, George Lucas, or at least his licensing department. And the target date is in the next two years, give or take a year or so. Green wouldn’t be more specific.

If you haven’t heard the name Seth Green, he is quite the accomplished actor doing stints in movies like Scooby Doo and playing Oz in the ever popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, but he’s probably best known these days for two things. One is that he is the voice of Chris Griffin in Fox’s irreverent comedy Family Guy and he is the co-creator of Cartoon Network’s Robot Chicken. Interestingly, both series have done spoofs of the Star Wars saga that were really hilarious.

While Family Guy is more of Seth McFarlane’s thing, although I can’t see Green not having some input there, Robot Chicken is more his...

One of the big draws is obviously going to be the chance to test your skills against others in the ring of battle and The Old Republic will have three facilities in which to get your war credibility in the game against other live players in group and in individual duels.


We’ve already discussed Huttball, the new sport created by the Hutts that is a cross between American Gladiators, Wipe Out and Instant Death. It’s an arena whose object is very simple. Get the ball into the other team’s goal. But to get there is very hazardous with all sorts of things that will kill you like firepits, electric shocks, and of course, the defenders. The main rule is to survive. Violence is not only allowed, but encouraged much to the delight of the audience who doesn’t have to participate.


In the latest trailer...

This week we have new ornaments from Hallmark, Star Wars: The Old Republic release date scorn, someone who doesn’t like the prequels, and David Prowse becomes the bionic man, sort of.

Hallmark, which often gets forgotten in the annals of Star Wars merchandise, had a showing at New York’s Comic-Con this last weekend, showing a preview of their 2012 line of ornaments as well as selling exclusive R2 unit (R2-Q5 and R2-A3) tree hangers at the show. Those went for around $30, but were sold quickly and are now only available on Ebay for around $75-100.
Other offerings mentioned were a TIE interceptor, Han on a Tauntaun, General Grievous, and Darth Maul. These will be available July 2012, while the stormtrooper logo will be in October 2012. They will also continue their tradition of coming out with humor and musical cards based on the series.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will be ineligible to be considered in the Christmas standings by the sales tracking service GtK...

There are four new titles are coming out in 2012 from Dark Horse set in the Star Wars Universe and they all look to be pretty interesting. The announcements were made at the Dark Horse Star Wars panel at this year’s New York Comic-Con.

A lot of talk has been about Boba-Fett coming back from the dead after being swallowed up by the Sarlacc. But Tom Taylor, who is one of the established writers of Star Wars, plans for the bounty hunter to meet his fate a different way. Instead, he is apparently murdered in cold blood, lying in the sand with blaster holes in him. But the question that the book will ask is who would want to avenge his death, as someone steps forward to do so, someone who they weren’t revealing. Could it be his son? Or someone we didn’t even know existed? Guess we’ll find out in Star Wars Blood Wars: Boba-Fett is Dead, coming to comic book stores everywhere in April 2012.

Darth Vader always did seem to be the kind of villain that didn’t play...

As you are aware, George Lucas is at least planning on releasing Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace in 3D, with the promise (or as some people say the threat) of releasing the other ones as well, if this one does okay. Disney’s recent success with Lion King 3D should give them some hope that rereleases with that added dimension can be popular, but perhaps they should have started with Episode four. But I digress. This is not about that. It’s about the poster that was released on the film and the odd omissions.

The new poster obviously is trying not so much to push the film itself, but the idea it’s going to be in 3D. It displays some of the elements that will benefit from the 3D, such as the pod racers which we think will be very cool, but hopefully not sickening to people with motion illness issues. The other prominent element is Darth Maul. This also makes sense. The battle at the end between the Jedi and Sith was one of the defining moments in the...

This week, our news roundup includes a HD with Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars for Xbox, Billy Dee Williams Returning to Network TV, a new Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer that takes on the age old question of Jedi versus Bounty Hunter, Australia and New Zealand get their chance to see the MMO in action, and cool case modding.

In a fit of good sense, Bioware decided that players should be able to have a companion by their side to help them out in their time of need. And today, they gave us a bit more information on how these characters would work and how they evolved. This is their story.

Their first thought was just to let these companions be there to help in the fighting by offloading some of the work from your shoulders onto theirs. Each has his own special talents and abilities that come in handy in various situations. For instance, a Wookie might help fight with his strength. But a lot of people wanted better control over these guys, but others didn’t.
And so they decided to put in a system by which players can select how they will control their companions. It ranges from complete autonomy with no micromanagement whatsoever to pretty good control with several settings that you can make. This is especially true in the fighting.

Companions can be told to use a special...