Jedis and airplanes.
The Force Unleashed demo is out and I strongly encourage everyone who can to go give it a try. The idea of Darth Vader having a secret apprentice is so cool I can’t believe it hasn’t been done before. The combat is that perfect blend of simple and complex, where it’s easy to run around hitting people with your lightsaber, but if you want to delve into the system more, a few more button presses channels lighting through it, or launches storm troopers into the air.
The environments seem for the most part to be entirely interactable, and while that’s not officially a word from what I can tell, it does mean that it’s possible to bend an overhanging steel bar in such a way that a passing TIE fighter will hit it and explode. I know next to nothing about the story, although from the trailer at the end of the very brief demo, you’ll go to a few different places and wear some different colored robes. All this only makes me want that KoToR MMO even more.
Aside from that, PAX is coming up in just a few days. Here’s hoping I don’t get sick on the plane. I’ve got a rough idea of which panels I want to see, the ones I’m most looking forward to being on Saturday.
Friday:
4:30-5:30 – Keynote
6:30-7:30 – 1Up Yours Live
Saturday
12:00-1:00 – Hal Haplin and Geoff Keighley
1:30-2:30 – Game Criticism and Old Game Journalism
Sunday:
11:30 – 12:30 – The Wil Wheaton Panel!
2:30 – 3:30 – Spore
The hours in between will be spent wandering the show floor, playing tiny pieces of games I’ll have to wait months to play again. The concert on Friday night has a solid lineup as well, including Jonathon Coulton and Freezepop.
I’m looking forward to the whole thing, though it will certainly be surreal to actually meet my fellow CQYers after a year of playing with them, then proceeding to share a hotel room with them, maybe even a bed, depending on how /roll goes. My theories on the anti-spooning pillow will be field tested for the second time, hopefully with similar results to last time, that being that it does, as intended, stop potential spooning.
