Just about a month ago, LucasArts shut it’s development doors and switched to a licensing model for any and all upcoming Star Wars games. Today, Electronic Arts (EA) partnered with Disney/Lucasfilm to announce a multi-year, multi-title exclusive licensing agreement. Here’s some of the press release, which you can read in it’s entirety on the official site:

“Our number one objective was to find a developer who could consistently deliver our fans great Star Wars games for years to come,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. “When we looked at the talent of the teams that EA was committing to our games and the quality of their vision for Star Wars, the choice was clear.”
Read more

Yesterday, I reported on Zen Studios knocking down Star Wars Pinball‘s pricetag for Star Wars Day, but today comes an even bigger deal: this weekend only, Steam has a sale on all their Star Wars video games for 66% off each (roughly $3.40 a pop), or you can buy the entire collection for 50% (which is $49.99 instead of $99.99). Even if you don’t own a PC/laptop for gaming, might as well pick them up for Toydarian-like cheap prices (and the games will largely run on any PC/laptop released in the past decade anyways).

Stay thrifty my friends and enjoy May the 4th Be With You by playing your favorite games, from the original Knights of the Old Republic, to Republic Commando, and Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast.

Ryan is the video game reporter and game reviewer for Knights’ Archive. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrushYourTeeth.

It seems everyone, including developers Zen Studios, is trying to get in on the coolest holiday you’ll ever celebrate: Star Wars Day! Whether you plan on costuming with your local 501st legion, sitting back and watching all the films, reading tons of EU books, or be stuck working, the Force is always with you (Discuss your Star Wars Day plans on our forum!). In fact, the Force is with you now more so than ever, as you might have been holding out on purchasing Star Wars Pinball. In celebration of May the Fourth Be With You, Zen Studios has Alderaaned prices (too soon?) to 50% across several platforms where Star Wars Pinball is purchasable. This promotional period started April 30th and runs till May 6th and is good on Xbox Live Arcade, Mac, iOS,  Kindle Fire HD, Google Play, and European PSN (May 1st-8th). For those of us with a PSN account in the NA territories, follow @zen_studios on Twitter for trivia and free codes for the game!
Read more

If it weren’t for those blasted Hutts, we all would’ve gotten away with galaxy-wide peace. Thankfully, they’ll be up to their usual nefarious deeds, giving players another reason to continue their saga in The Old Republic MMO with Rise of the Hutt Cartel. The first digital expansion for the game, as previously reported, ups the level cap to 55, includes the all new planet Makeb, plus other content that only playing it will reveal. If you subscribe to TOR, then the new content will only cost you $9.99.  Read more

Your patience for more free Angry Birds levels has paid off: the first 20 of Cloud City arrived to mobile gaming machines on March 28th. While the new levels lack new birds to fling, the “vent” mechanics and unlockable bonus missions make this update well worth taking another dip into Angry Birds Star Wars. The vents push our intrepid birds around, which opens up the possibility of elongated levels, where sometimes zooming all the way out makes everything look minuscule no matter the size of the screen of the device you’re playing on. It really freshens up the gameplay and experimenting with how far it can blast the birds gives you another reason to replay levels instead of just going for three stars. Read more

After 31 years of development, LucasArts was formally closed by Disney on April 3, 2013. The company will be laying off some 150 employees and has reportedly cancelled in-development titles like the highly anticipated 1313 and First Assault. From here on out, developers other than LucasArts will be the ones bringing us more Star Wars gaming experiences. Here’s a blurb from the official press release:

 ”After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift
LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing
the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star
Wars games.  As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the
organization.  We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented
teams who have been developing our new titles.”

Read more

I’ve been overly optimistic about our chances of seeing more Star Wars 1313 at this years E3 gaming convention in June, but there’s been more and more evidence to the contrary. Kotaku, a gaming site known for reputable insider sources more so than not, got some of the inside skinny about the fate of 1313. Their sources point to development on the game being frozen at LucasArts after the Disney deal was struck, but fear not, it’s definitely still coming out. It’s original intended target release was later this year, but with game currently in limbo, it might have to slip into 2014 at the earliest. For the whole story, check out the extensive article at Kotaku. Dave Filoni even mentions working with the 1313 team when developing the underworld shots for levels 1312 and 1315 in the season 5 Ahsoka arc (that just finished with quite the shocker!) so that definitely confirms it exists in some form or another.

At the very least, they could tease/show the actual characters, not the current placeholders seen in the trailer above. I have my bets on Han and Chewie but I know that’s a pipe dream, but it’d be neat, wouldn’t it?

Ryan is the video game reporter and game reviewer for Knights’ Archive. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrushYourTeeth.

SEE ALSO:
Introducing: Star Wars 1313
New Star Wars Game Franchise On The Horizon

After announcing the imminent drop of Star Wars tables for Zen Pinball, developers Zen Studios have not only given us a release date, but also a pricing structure. You’ll likely be without an excuse to not own the Clone Wars, Boba Fett, or Empire Strikes Back tables as they’ll be releasing across a wide swath of gaming devices as DLC for Zen Pinball. There will also be the option, at least for Apple or Google phone owners, to get the tables as a standalone title  (meaning you won’t have to already downloaded Zen Pinball. Currently there’s no pricing details announced for this option). Check out the list below to decide how you’ll purchase them. The rest, well, that’s up to you, your available gaming device, and the cobwebs in your wallet. Read more

Star Wars and fighting games go together as well as pizza topped with shards of broken glass. For example: remember Masters of Teräs Käsi, anyone? So I was sort of relieved to find out the footage above was from a cancelled game by Studio Gigante that never really made it past the pitching stage. John Tusi, who co-founded the now closed Studio Gigante and is currently the president of Robomodo, released the footage on his Twitter account.

Even though the video contains extremely early gameplay, it’s hard to find anything to like in the footage. However, it’s focus on Force moves/hand to hand combat that occurs while saber locked is a neat idea, but what’s seen above doesn’t really inspire any sense of awe or excitement.  And with any game involving lightsaber combat, especially fighting games, it always looks weird for bodily lightsaber hits to do no visible damage (i.e. limb severing, holes due to impalement, etc.).

I’ll admit I’m not a fighting game fan, but I’ll still enjoy them with friends from time to time and I don’t think I would’ve sat down to play this one.

(Story via Polygon)

Ryan is the video game reporter and game reviewer for Knights’ Archive. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrushYourTeeth.

The studio behind Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Obsidian Entertainment, is actively pitching a new RPG to LucasArts. The second KOTOR game finds it’s reviews split with two very distinct reactions: people either loved it or hated it. Opinions in between are rare, but no matter which side you’re on, this news will probably still make you sit up and listen. I’m excited for them to have a second go at the Star Wars universe, as they were definitely on their way to making a worthy follow up to the first KOTOR. But to those who didn’t like the second one, just know they were forced to release it as an unfinished project and the details of how that happened are found in this thorough article via Kotaku. Read more

The arcade experience of pinball, with an actual physical table, is my preference for playing. But when working 40 hours a week, visits to arcades aren’t exactly possible anymore (plus I don’t know of any that still exist), so in steps the virtual tables. However, virtual Star Wars pinball tables have been basically non-existent, so it’s been hard out there for a pinballer who wants to throw down in his favorite universe. Thankfully,  Zen Pinball 2 will add Star Wars themed tables as DLC this month. You can expect to purchase these Star Wars tables across several different platforms, including PS3/PS Vita, Xbox Live Arcade/Windows 8,  Mac Store, Apple App store, and Google Play: basically, you don’t have an excuse not to get them. The developers, Zen Studios, have teamed up with LucasArts to bring 10 tables throughout 2013. The initial run of tables will include Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Boba Fett, and The Clone Wars themes.

Head over to StarWarsPinball.com to check out the tables in full (with a magnifying glass, no less) and several screenshots. I don’t doubt there will be a pack of all the tables released at some point down the line, but I don’t know if I can wait that long as I’m already anxious to throw my Republic credits at them.

Ryan is the video game reporter and game reviewer for Knights’ Archive. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrushYourTeeth.

Unless you’ve been living on Dagobah, then you already know about Angry Birds Star Wars. What you might not know is the last half of the Hoth inspired levels are ready for your FREE downloading pleasure. Things pick up right after the Rebel Birds have escaped Hoth and are now attempting to hide in an asteroid field. Chewbirdcaa gets a power up, giving him the strength to pull the arms off of two gundarks (Don’t forget any upgrade a character receives is now usable in all previous levels, you three star hunting maniacs), while you’ll find yourself using more of the recently added Leia bird. Read more