New Star Wars: The Force Unleashed level released

A new single-player level for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has been released and is available for Xbox 360 owners through Xbox LIVE Marketplace and for PlayStation 3 owners through the PlayStation Network. If you have put Force Unleashed away you’ll want to dig it out, dust it off and get ready fro some fun. The level features The Secret Apprentice in an entirely new mission that continues the story of The Force Unleashed in a new Infinities storyline that takes the Star Wars Saga in an entirely new and unexpected direction.

The mission begins at the end of the story of The Force Unleashed and re-imagines the Star Wars Saga as if the Secret Apprentice had killed Darth Vader and taken his place at the Emperor’s side, becoming the most powerful Sith Lord in the universe. The story picks up as the Emperor sends his new apprentice to the planet Tatooine to dispatch Obi-Wan Kenobi — who has been hiding on the planet ever since the events of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. During their hunt for one of the univere’s most powerful Jedi, players will explore the depths of Jabba the Hutt’s palace and encounter notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett.

More information about the game can be found at the official website, www.theforceunleashed.com.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Sells 5.7 Million Units

If ever there was a time to be impressed with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, it is today. The LucasArts action game has sold 5.7 Million units worldwide on multiple platforms including Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP, N-Gage and various mobile platforms. That’s pretty impressive for a game that was released in September of 2008 and received its fair share of mixed reviews. Of course, we don’t have the exact figure for sales on the PS2, but if I had to guess I’d say it played an important role in the game’s success.

This milestone began with the home versions of the game selling an impressive 1.5 million copies globally in the first five days of its release. The downloadable demo for the game, which was released on Xbox 360 and PS3, also had a decent showing; it was downloaded over one million times in the first eight days of its release.

The Rundown: Feb. 9, 2009

Today on The Rundown Star Wars: The Force Unleashed wins a Writers Guild Award, D.I.C.E. sells out, and Rush invades Rock Band for Wii.

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WGA Videogame Writing Nominees Announced

After people complained about Dead Head Fred winning last year’s award (the reason being that the nominated game in question had to feature writing from a member), it looks like the Writers Guild Association is trying to redeem itself this year. The organization announced this year’s nominees, which includes an excellent indie game from Mouschief. See this year’s nominees after the break.

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More The Force Unleashed DLC

I could make a lame Force joke here, but that shit’s played out, kids and kittens - let’s move on. Some new Star Wars : The Force Unleashed DLC is available now. If you liked this game, and millions of you obviously did if sales are any indication, then you’ll probably want to take a look at what LucasArts has on offer today.

A new level, Secret Apprentice is available now, offering an entirely new mission set in the Jedi Temple on the planet Coruscant. Playing as the snuggly soft Secret Apprentice, players travels to the Jedi Temple to learn more about dear old dad. Bundled with this new level are nine new costumes, which allow users to play through the game disguised as several new characters, including Mace Windu, Darth Maul, Qui-Gon Jinn, Dark Stalker, Lightsaber Training Droid and Combat Training Droid. You’ll also get several sexy new outfits including The Apprentice Cybernetic Reconstruction, The Apprentice’s Temple Exploration Gear and The Apprentice’s Sith Training Gear.

LucasArts has also released a new stand-alone costume pack which includes Apprentice’s Utility Combat Suit, Apprentice – Animated, Spirit Apprentice, Republic Trooper, Luke Skywalker – Tatooine Gear, Ben Kenobi, Plo Koon, Count Dooku, Jango Fett and the wonderfully shiny C-3P0.

Look for all this and previously released The Force Unleashed DLC on Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store.

Dressing Up The Force Unleashed

Haven’t had enough of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed yet? Well LucasArts is offering some new incentives today in the form of some fresh downloadable content. Xbox 360 and PS3 users can jump onto their favorite online services (PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace) to buy a variety of new costumes and skins. The costume pack allows gamers to play through the game disguised as several new characters.

Costumes in the pack include Hooded Combat Gear, General Starkiller, Sith Assassin, Imperial Commando, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, Darth Sion, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and Kit Fisto. Heh, Fisto.. In addition, new themes and picture packs are available for download.

PC Gaming Alliance Boss Irate With LucasArts

In an interview with VideoGamer, PC Gaming Alliance showed other advocacy groups how to alienate potential partners by “calling out” LucasArts for not porting Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Forget the fact that the game got mixed reviews, and that LucasArts could have been finessed into returning to the PC space in once served well; Randy Stude wants to call them out on semantics.

According to that interview, Stude took exception with LucasArts’ technology related excuse for not bringing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed to PC. Stude went on to say that LucasArts doesn’t have a solid internal studio that handles its intellectual property and farms most of its work out anyway. Whether that’s true or not, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to target LucasArts for doing exactly what every other game publisher is doing when it comes to the PC: skipping it.

Instead of wasting his time bitching about the negatives in the industry, perhaps LucasArts’ technology related excuse for not bringing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed to PC. should highlight the success of games like World of Warcraft, Spore, The Sims 2 and Warhammer Online - just to name a few - and encourage more developers to create games that cater to the PC market. To get its groove back, the industry needs less ports and more original content.
At the end of the day, public comments like these are best left as secret, unspoken thoughts. In other words, more diplomacy and less public outrage.

Source: GameDaily