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Yahtzee Kicks Star Wars in the Balls

Posted by Bob Mackey

The best thing about being born in the early 80s--aside from all the street cred--is that I completely missed out on the Star Wars phenomenon, which has kep both my childhood and my nostalgia glands safe from a franchise that's been circling the drain for over 20 years. If I had been born a decade earlier, I'd probably go nuts over anything George Lucas farted out of his diseased mind; but, growing up in the decade that I did, I was aware of Spaceballs before I was aware of Star Wars--and to this day, Mel Brooks' parody remains the superior product. Let's not talk about the cartoon.

It appears that The Escapist's Yahtzee may be of the same persuasion, what with this week's Zero Punctuation being a total evisceration of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.  While I'm not quite sure how he feels about Spaceballs, there's one thing we definitely agree on: the new trilogy was crap, and should be regarded as such.  TFU may do a fine job of connecting the old trilogy to the new one, but is this what we really want?  Shouldn't Episodes 1-3 be forgotten by the world until they become nostalgia for the Star Wars fans who were youngins during the late 90s/early 00s?

Don't laugh; in 10 years, countless 30 year-old men will be paying big bucks for double-sided lightsabers on eBay.

I'll admit that I didn't play the version of the game that Yahtzee did (Wii), but he makes a claim in his review that the PS3/360 version seems superior. From the sound of things, it is superior; but in the same way that Episode 2 was better than Episode 1. I downloaded the 360 TFU demo and played it for about 10 minutes before I experienced the ennui that accompanies any Star Wars product; it was competent, but really nothing more than a swimmy physics engine with a Star Wars skin wrapped around it. Half Life 2 ostensibly built an entire game based around a physics engine four years ago, and managed to make it not rely entirely on falling crates and gravity gun hijinks.

What, exactly, do we need to save Star Wars as a gaming franchise?

Related Links:

Screen Test: Star Wars – The Force Unleashed
Star Wars, Lucasarts, Bioware: You’re Doing It Wrong.
Why Wasn’t The Clone Wars A Video Game?


+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT

Comments

Roto13 said:

Great idea, playing the version of the game that only exists as part of a "Let's put it on everything" approach.

That would have been sarcastic if his entire reason to live wasn't to complain.

October 9, 2008 4:24 PM

LBD "Nytetrayn" said:

Hey, cool, I knew Spaceballs before Star Wars, too.  Aside from the obvious stuff, that is.

October 9, 2008 8:07 PM

John H. said:

What it would require to make Star Wars a force in gaming is the same thing that made, for a brief moment, James Bond a force in gaming in the wake of Goldeneye.  A game that's fun for its own sake, coupled with a heavy immersion in the good bits of the Star Wars universe.  THE GAME MUST COME FIRST, but after that, ask fans what they like about Star Wars and include that stuff.  Don't pay attention to the Lucasfilm bible as much as the fans.

October 9, 2008 11:39 PM

Demaar said:

I wouldn't say episode 2 is better than episode 1. At least episode 1 is irritating enough that I didn't fall asleep in the middle of it.

October 10, 2008 4:26 AM

Bob Mackey said:

I was only basing that comparison off of popular opinion.  After seeing Episode One, I sure as hell wasn't going to watch Two.

October 10, 2008 11:02 AM

Demaar said:

Heh, I was just being snarky. I'd actually say they're equally bad, just in different ways.

I haven't watched episode 3 yet. I don't want the image of that whiny git becoming Vader in my head.

October 10, 2008 9:46 PM

About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia's prized possession is a certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

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