LucasArts has sent us a rather hefty excerpt from The Art and Making of The Force Unleashed book (itself a whopping 224 pages) that came out this week. We're guessing it doesn't end with a note on the dev team being cut.
Click above to peruse the gallery (Protip: Click on the Hi-res button on each gallery page to view a high-resolution version of the image). A demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed drops this Thursday, with the full game arriving mid-September.
Wow, we can't believe we finally got to type that headline. This week, we get to welcome one of the few games that's actually older than Joystiq itself: Too Human, Denis Dyack's epic story of cybernetically enhanced, Norse-inspired technogods.
Elsewhere in the gameosphere, PS3 owners can download the new Ratchet and Clank adventure, and PC players can buy Two Worlds: Epic Edition, the title of which just ripped off our Irony Meter and kicked it down three flights of stairs.
You awaken this morning with a stabbing pain in your side, as you do nearly every morning. The straps on your ceiling-bed, while successful in keeping you tightly bound to your mattress, simply aren't comfortable. You undo the safety clasp and gently crash to the ground, taking special care to not land on the rotating floor-fan, which you paid the steep price of twelve steaks to have repaired just last Frumpday. You pull on your sandpaper pants, flannel overpants, one rollerblade, a cast iron breastplate, then place a sock puppet on each of your hands before checking yourself out in the mirror. You look good.
Gliding into the kitchen, you're pleased to find that the dictionary delivery boy (who usually runs behind on his dictionary route) arrived promptly at red o' clock to supply today's edition of the widely circulated definitorial tome. Your dog, though still incensed about last night's heated argument concerning the rapidly shrinking national bureaucracy, has made a fresh pot of coffee for you. How considerate of him. You pour some into a salad bowl, climb on top of the stove, and slowly empty the steaming brew onto your lap. "Refreshing," you exclaim! You then turn your attention to the dictionary -- skipping past the classified ads, you quickly find that week's Japanese hardware sales figures.
You wish, more than anything, to live in a world parallel to your own -- a world where beds are placed on floors and rotating fans are attached to ceilings. A world where steaks are eaten, not spent. A world where wearing two rollerblades at a time (or none, for that matter) isn't considered an illegal activity. A world where dogs kept their acerbic, self-righteous opinions to themselves. A world where coffee could be enjoyed with one's mouth. A world where the PSP would possess an unflagging sales dominance over all other systems in Japan, while the 360 would possess a contrariwise familiarity with last place.
But such a world, such a strange and marvelous world, could not possibly exist.
The repercussions of a Potter game delay could be bad for Electronic Arts, as both their holiday profits and fiscal 2009 revenue could take a hit without the title -- however, it could mean good news for those waiting on a truly stellar Harry Potter video game. Greenwald claims the title is "pretty much done and ready", meaning a delay would give EA an extra eight months to perfect the movie tie-in. We'll let you know what EA decides to do once they make an official statement.
Looks like Home is finally expanding. A new Home client is being sent to beta testers, new and old. We reminisce about the long history of Sony's oft-delayed online service in our new game page. Then, see all the info on DJ Max -- now coming to the US! Check that out, and all of this week's stories from your friends at PSF.
We can only imagine how dejected you must feel right now, sitting at home with a tummy full of popcorn and a heart brimming with disappointment. Your friends and family inquire about the reason for your sorrows, until they notice the tear-soaked ticket stub for Star Wars: The Clone Wars lying on your dresser. No amount of playing with your highly collectible Mego Han Solo seems to help -- your infatuation with George Lucas' epic space opera is dwindling, flickering like a candle in the unforgiving wind.
Allow us to offer you this minor consolation -- a sextuplet of videos from Lucasarts' upcoming dark side frolic, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, via GameTrailers. The trailer above is one of the best pieces of media we've seen from the title, showing some familiar faces from the series and ... what's this? A romantic sub-plot? After the break, we've got fivevideoswhichapparentlyhighlight one of the first levels from the game. Before pawning your collection of X-wings in protest, we highly suggest checking them out -- they might just rekindle your once unflappable Lucas-love.
Developer Black Box's nitro button must be worn down to a nub. The studio announced today that its upcoming Need for Speed sequel, Undercover, will ship this November, pulling up to the starting line well before the 2009 release previously mentioned by EA CEO John Riccitiello.
In development for every platform under the sun (yes, even mobile phones), Need for Speed Undercover will also sport what Black Box describes as "big-budget live-action sequences" starring Balls of Fury and Mission Impossible III actress, Maggie Q, as a federal agent who recruits drivers to take down a criminal syndicate. While recent Need for Speed racers have all but siphoned our tanks of what enthusiasm we once had for the series, those who care can look forward to race with Ms. Q in North America on November 18 and in Europe on November 21.
After everyone saw gains last month (with one devilish exception), July's NPD figures revealed North American hardware unit sales declined across all companies, but otherwise the list is the same as it was in June. What's starting to unnerve us is Nintendo's data. To be able to say a company went from 666 to 555 (a difference of 111) is a bit creepy, dontcha think?
In terms of software, the Xbox 360 version of NCAA Football 09 barely eked out Wii Fit, while Wii Play w/remote still manages to move up a slot from 5 to 4 this month. Here are this month's NPD hardware sales figures:
This week's PSN update is just overflowing with machismo. We've got Bionic Commando Rearmed grappling against Hitler Master-D and the world warriors battling it out in Street Fighter Alpha. Just a note of warning, SFA does not support online play -- come to think of it, neither does Bionic Commando Rearmed. It's all old-school offline gaming up in this joint. There's plenty of new videos to check out this week and we're looking forward to seeing what this BioShock PS3 theme looks like.
The grimps over at PS3 Fanboy have this week's European update hanging from a thread of silk over in their garden. Check out this week's NA PSN update after the break.
The PSP-3000 series is real, folks. And that's about as far as we get in today's episode. The FCC filing for the "PSP-3001" has been pulled, thumbed and returned. What was found looks disappointingly similar to the current PSP hardware model, though there is that thick wall of confidentiality standing in the way (the one we're just dying to take a sledgehammer to). From what we can see, there appears to be no evidence of the rumored built-in mic or "Home" button redesign, and the metallic ring doesn't look any thinner. You can see for yourself in the alternate views posted after the break.
In order to offset the cost of printingposting an alternative cover for (most versions of) Madden 09, it looks like EA had to raise the price of the new Madden NFL 09 PSP Entertainment Pack to the tune of: $10,000! Graciously, Circuit City has elected to eat a full $9,800 of that cost, leaving pre-orderers with a much more manageable price tag. [Note: Circuit City has since removed the pricing error.]
Retailer bloopers aside, the Madden Entertainment Pack (MSRP $200) includes: a very blue PSP, 1GB Memory Stick, Madden 09 (game), download code for Beats ("game"), and -- what's this? -- a movie ... on UMD (they're collector's items you know).
Huh, looks like EA doesn't have everyone ... covered. Less than a week after Madden 09's cover athlete Brett Favre jumped ship for the Jets (single-handedly thrashing millions in Madden marketing materials) EA has come through with its "plan": you can now download a replacement cover (in handy PDF format) for your copy of Madden NFL 09 featuring Favre donning his new team's colors ...
... that is, if you happened to purchase either the Xbox 360, PS3, PSP, or PS2 release. Those of you that bought the Wii or DS versions, sorry. And for the four of you that bought the Xbox version ... you should know better.
Also released today: a "new online roster download" for Xbox 360, Xbox, PS3, PS2 and Wii which "features Favre as the starting quarterback on the New York Jets." Rocking something a little more portable, are we? EA advises you hit up Franchise Mode, transfer "NFL Great" Favre to the free agent roster pool, and then scoop him up "on any of the 32 NFL teams for the 2008 season."
[Update: If you don't want to blow all of your green ink printing out the new cover, stop by either Sam's Club or Wal-Mart to pick one up in-store. It's unclear if you'll need to purchase the game there as well but our money's on "probably."]
The Rose Bowl was Madden-ified yesterday to make way for the 20th anniversary of Madden games, as well as the new Madden NFL 09 game that went on sale at midnight last night... or 9 PM Pacific if you were lucky enough to be in the stadium in Pasadena. The upper deck was wrapped in gigantic Madden sail cloths promoting the game and featuring poster boy Brett Favre in his Packers gear. The playing turf featured autograph sessions with NFL legends, skill games, free Pepsi schwag (which we forgot to photograph, whoops), a Slurpee booth complete with Hooters-esque booth babes, a mini Wal-Mart store, and a giant gaming tent full of tons of Xbox 360s, and a scant few Wiis, PS3s, and PSPs.
Whether you're a fan of shmups or wish to throw a pile of dictionaries at us for using such an egregious portmanteau, you could learn a thing or two from DS Fanboy's tribute to the shoot-em-up kings at Treasure. From 1993's Gunstar Heroes (released last year as a Virtual Console title) to this year's Bangai-O Spirits, the piece covers all of the developers' projectile-favored games (sorry Dynamite Heddy fanatics). Click here and get edumucated.
You can feel it in the frat house rec rooms. It's positively electric in the dormitories. You can sense the excitement in the living room of that guy you work with at Arby's who probably hasn't turned his 360 on since last time this year: It's Madden 09week. As you can probably guess, it's enough to net him the featured spot.
It's not as though he's completely uncontested, though. PC players get to look forward to Gas Powered Games' Space Siege and DS and Wii's Line Rider sequel looks like fun, though decidedly less free than its Flash counterpart. Check out the full list after the break.
See excerpts from The Art and Making of The Force Unleashed
Joystiq's Instrument Compatibility Matrix, v3.0: The cure to plastic peripheral perturbation
Did Too Human live up to its epic hype? Check out our Metareview
Joystiq hands-on: Burnout Paradise bikes
Joyswag: Persona shirts, signed art books
Listen to the Joystiq podcast (because your ears can't read)
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