Star Wars Celebration was held last weekend and the much-anticipated sequel Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is speeding toward us on April 28th. All of this nostalgia and excitement means there’s still fun to be had in a galaxy far far away, and luckily, there’s a 14-game Star Wars bundle on Fanatical to celebrate. It's currently enjoying a deep 80% discount for a limited time.
]]>Oh look, it's Star Wars Day and to celebrate of course an entire galaxy of Star Wars games are on sale. There are discounts to be had on all yer old favorites from back in the day and some of the newer laser sword adventures of the decade as well.
]]>Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is out today, letting you follow in the roguish bootprints of young force punter Cal Kestis, played here by Archie of Archie comics. In celebration of his boyish padawan appearance, and the way he uses a deadly weapon like you’d use a torch app with dodgy permissions to find your keys, let’s make a list. A list of the least qualified Jedi (and Sith) in PC games.
]]>Someone has already bagged the original Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, but KOTOR 2 (as the kids call it, because putting the full name in the title of this post made me realise how absurdly long it is) is honestly pretty great. This is partly because, even though KOTOR 2 wasn't made by BioWare, it has a very similar plot and structure to the first game.
]]>Not only does a great hero need a great villain, villains are usually just so much more fun. Whether it's the tortured lost soul who can only find peace by destroying the universe or the cheery psychopath looking to see the world burn, it's no wonder that many of the greatest films of all time have been defined at least as much by the baddie as any individual scene. Darth Vader, the Terminator, Norman Bates, Dracula... villains get people excited. A great villain lives forever, death be damned.
]]>Feels like it's far too soon to be remaking Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic but a) they've rebooted the Spider-Man movies 48 times in 18 months and b) KOTOR is, in fact, 13 years old oh god I'm so ancient how did this happen help help. So maybe the time isn't too un-wrong for someone to take a crack at making one of the most beloved 3D-accelerated Star Wars games look a whole lot more modern. Waitaminnit: isn't this just like George Lucas and his bloody Special Editions? SHUT IT DOWN SHUT IT DOWN SHUT IT DOWN.
The fans making Apeiron carefully classify it as a mod rather than a standalone project, in the hope that Ian Disney won't force-choke it to death. It's a remake of KOTOR in the Unreal 4 engine, and while it's a million parsecs away from completion, or even from showing how it will function as a game (including an apparent move from third- to first-person blasting), we do get a look at some extremely pretty and really quite Star Warsy environments.
]]>Obsidian's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II doesn't quite reach the level of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines on the Oh Gosh Imagine If It Were Actually Finished-o-meter, but it has folks who go to bat to it. Like Bloodlines, for a decade KOTOR 2 has relied on fans to fix bugs, restore and finish cut content, and improve support for modern systems. Unlike Bloodlines, KOTOR 2 apparently still has some sort of official support.
Yesterday brought a new KOTOR 2 patch on Steam, adding native support for widescreen resolutions and controllers, Steam Workshop for mods, and more.
]]>Here is a question: do you like Star Wars? My mate Ian says it's really good, so I should probably watch it sometime. Then again he also said Mad Men was good and that was just people in old suits frowning at each other. Apparently there are some videogames based on this 'Star Wars' too. Given it's such an obscure movie I guess they're boring art games in which all you can do is like walk and think and rubbish stuff like that? I bet there are no laser guns or evil cyborgs at all, so I won't bother playing them. I mean, listen to the names: 'X-Wing Versus TIE Fighter', 'The Old Republic II'. The first one sounds like it's something to with equations, the second one sounds like it's an Antiques Roadshow spin-off. Honestly, why do they even bother making these not-games for people who don't like fun?
Anyway, like six of these old hipster indie games have just been re-released on 'Good Old Games.' I guess that's an ironic title or something? They are old though - in fact, three of them are so old that they've never been released for download before. I guess the hipsters won't like them now they've gone mainstream.
]]>We now live in a world where The Sims: Star Wars or Need for Speed: Tosche Station could become things. I'm not saying it's likely (though the former would not shock me in the slightest), but Star Wars is under new management, so who knows? For now, all we can say for sure is that BioWare, DICE, and Visceral are actively adding their own chapters to the space opera, but we won't see results from those initial efforts until at least mid-2014 - and much later, in all likelihood. You'll remember, however, that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II developer Obsidian also has a rather ambitious idea floating around, and - last we heard - it was about to lay it before the greatest Sith Lord of them all: Mickey Mouse. So then, what happened there? And where does Obsidian's new Star Wars RPG end up now that EA's pulling the strings? I got in touch with Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart to find out.
]]>Well, it's official: Chris Avellone has joined the Torment: Tides of Numenera team. Kickstarter's overwhelming monetary might has pushed another old band back together again, and now this one's ready to give belabored brain birth to another tale for the ages. And dimensions. And whatever other creative gravy giblets they can fit into their twisted turducken of a setting. But Torment's hardly the only thing on Avellone's increasingly busy mind, as he's also got both Project Eternity and Wasteland 2 to worry about. Oh, and let's not forget that exceedingly tantalizing Star Wars pitch Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart was so thrilled to discuss. It's tough, then, to imagine that Avellone has even a spare second these days, but he somehow managed to shove aside a few for a chat, so we used it as wisely as humanly possible. To discuss kindly stick figure knights and giggle at bad naming jokes, of course. Also, all of the above, Avellone's role on Torment, and what an Alpha Protocol sequel would look like in a post-Walking-Dead world.
]]>Obsidian's a company that's always stricken me as bizarrely restless. Despite its near-legendary Black Isle legacy, the Project Eternity and South Park developer's rarely had an easy time finding a comfortable place in the industry. But then, when you think about it, that's not entirely surprising. Both RPGs and storytelling in games - Obsidian's wheelhouses - have spent countless years in constant flux. And though recent times and a massively successful Kickstarter have given the developer some solid ground to stand on, the eager hands of change are once again threatening to yank the rug out from under it. Uncertainty's permeated the entire industry as of late, but Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart has no intention of blindly following the future. His plan? To redefine the whole RPG genre. During the recent DICE Summit in Las Vegas, he and I chatted about that.
]]>Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II was utterly masterful. Sure, it had more rough edges than a Sarlacc Pit who's also a door-to-door woodchipper salesman, but the underlying tale mixed oppressive darkness, moral grays, and an eye for exactly what makes Star Wars tick to stirring effect. Personally, I think it far outstripped KOTOR 1, but to each their own. Naturally, though, I nearly grinned my face in half when Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart told me his Black-Isle-based collective is lobbying heavily to develop a new Star Wars RPG. "I would say it's within the top three pitches we've ever come up with," he told RPS during a recent interview. But wait, what about the EA-shaped Death Star hovering over The Old Republic? Well, Obsidian's new tale is set in a very, very different time period.
]]>Obsidian's legendary/notorious Star Wars RPG is currently on a daily deal sale 75% at £1.74/$2.49 off until Friday 6pm GMT/Saturday 10am PST, likely the cheapest it'll ever be on Steam. For that reason, today I'll be providing a guide to getting the Steam edition of Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords working well on modern machines.
Widescreen resolutions, extra content, crash-dodging - this will make the infamously unfinished but ambitious and wonderfully-written RPG look and play far better than it did upon release.
]]>Vaguely controversial statement time! I far prefer Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 to KOTOR 1. I mean, BioWare's original Death Star laser blast into a rather bland Star Wars gaming scene is a classic for a reason, but KOTOR 2 - for all its flaws - showed sparkling glints of actual brilliance. Unfortunately, a lot of people skipped it due to BioWare's lack of involvement, bugginess, and an ending that sort of, well, didn't exist. But that was then, and now - as of today - KOTOR 2's finally on Steam. So I'm going to show you how to turn it into the game it should've been all along.
]]>As spotted by a keen-eyed Eurogamer forumite, the KotOR 2 Restored Content Project has gone into open beta. You're just a 15MB download away. Details below.
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