Well as we mentioned in earlier articles, there were several panels surrounding Star Wars and the revelations were interesting to say the least about the Lucas empire. We’ll touch on a few of them right here.
Of course, the big news for gaming fans was Kinect Star Wars, which was finally given a release timeframe of Christmas 2011 although there was no specific date. They showed off a new portion of the game that included pod racing where gamers could race as any of the characters and over 20 pods on a variety of courses. In this one, you’ll even be able to play the Sebulba trick of actually throwing things at your opponent to wreck their racer. You can do all of this, as well as yielding a light saber, driving a flying car, and more with the Kinect motion tracking system that is only on the Xbox 360. The Star Wars Bundle, announced at the show, will include a R2D2 modded Xbox 360, a C3PO modded controller and a white cased Kinect to match, as well as two games (Kinect Star Wars of course and Kinect Adventures) and a 320GB drive that is already available for pre-order for around $449. This is a good way for the Star Wars fan to get into the console games. It will also play Star Wars: The Old Republic when it’s released.
As to the MMO, which is said to have 19 worlds at the opening, plans are already in place to expand that to over 500 by 2025. Which if you read between the lines means that they actually plan to keep the game going for decades. That’s certainly an optimistic guarantee by Dallas Dickerson, who is the director of production at Bioware. Given the changing nature of gaming and the world in general to make that kind of statement one would think would be a bit presumptuous, but they are quick to point out, Ultima is still going strong and profitable after a decade. And Star Wars does have a lot bigger built in core audience. The game, like the Kinect Star Wars is also targeting Christmas 2011 as a release timeframe, but they say that beta testing may start as early as September. There is still time to sign up on their site to be a beta tester.
Mark Hamill will be joining the cast of Chuck when it comes back to NBC in the fall, but will only be appearing as a guest such as they did with Timothy Dalton last year. He will not be playing a regular cast member, but may appear in more than one episode. According to the show’s producers, he will play a French guy and be the one of several villains, but would not say anymore. He is also voicing the Joker, a role he’s all too familiar with, in Batman: Arkham City, the popular video game sequel.
And that’s about all the news we have for you on the Star Wars Comic-Con front for the moment…