8 posts tagged “star wars”
Given my latest craze of collecting Flickr photos on my faves of excellent people in convention costumes I've been striking some very awesome costumes. But I have to confess my latest find has me very impressed. A lady known only as Kelldar has created and worn a most excellent array of Star Wars costumes over the years for various cons and I can't help but be impressed by her general awesomeness.
No matter what you say about the writing and acting you can't take away from the set and world design for those latest batch of Star Wars films. This image of Naboo is doing the rounds on the web. Lovely.
So I've been a bit Star Wars fan again lately and its all down to this game. KOTOR II and its predecessor are Final Fantasy style CRPGs. That is, you play in real time until combat begins and then you can pause the game a number of ways to plan and execute your actions. You can pick up a number of potential party members but only ever have three in your party at any time, so you need to plan you party around the skills and feats of your party members. The game revolves around a central character, in this game a former Jedi who has been exiled by the Jedi Council, and you almost always have this character in your party. The party members you choose will be affected by your decisions and actions in the game, travelling with you toward the light or the dark side of the force.
All pretty standard CRPG stuff. What makes these games stand out is that they are very well written. In fact these games have some of the best extended universe Star Wars stories written. I've read a pretty broad spread of extended universe material, both books and comics, and most of it is pretty average. What makes KOTOR I & II stand out is I think is that they pretty much ignore the movies and delve deep into the deep past of the Republic. The games are set thousands of years before the events of Episode IV (I am ignoring any film made after Episode VI in the hope it will make them go away) and it lets the writers play in Lucas' rich universe without worrying if they are going to upset the canon too much.
Produced by Bioware, the same excellent developers who produced the excellent Baldur's Gate and its sequel they tell a great Star Wars universe story (or two) of redemption and return and try to explore the nature of the Force, the Sith and of course the Jedi. You can choose to walk either path to the light or dark sides of the Force and even though it does not change the path of the game, the outcomes and the interactions with your companions are very, very different, especially in KOTOR II where you can corrupt your companions if you walk the path of the Sith.
These really are excellent games and I highly recommend them to anyone with a love of Star Wars (don't mention Anakin) or who just likes a good CRPG.
Most lightsaber duels done by fans are rubbish - a lot of work goes into them but they are usually poorly choreagraphed and shot, and no amount of SFX can make up for a couple of fat kids living out their Annakin fantasies on each other.
But there are exceptions - like these two:
Two white boys do Lucas endorsed saber fighting but do it well.
Two Chinese boys do meaningful chopsocky lightsaber fighting.
Wookiepedia of course!
I've lusted after Saitek's illuminated gamer's keyboard's for a while. There's something very sexy about the Saitek Eclipse II Illuminated keyboard that just begs you to play games until 3.00 am in the morning. They retail here in Australia for around $70 and I've only found them at Harvey Norman Coorparoo but they must be around somewhere else.
They come in red, blue and purple and I'm torn as to which way to go. Is it like lightsabres where the colour has significance? Is red reserved for cheaters, H4XX0R5 and trolls on Digg as followers of the dark side? Do you have to be a badass Motherfucker like Mace Windu to go the purple? Does blue denote you as a n00b like Luke in Episodes IV & V? Where's my green keyboard?
A Star Wars fan flick.
A clever little remix of Empire Strikes Back footage proving that Vader
a) had a sense of humour
b) is still essentially the same juvenile brat he was in Eps 1-3
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