May The Fourth Be With You All – Star Wars Fanfilms May 4, 2015
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Okay, we’re going to step a little bit outside of the Star Wars video game franchise for this one, but I felt like this needed to be discussed. Star Wars has inspired so much creativity in its fans for the past forty years and until Disney obtained the rights to the franchise, George Lucas had mostly allowed his fans to produce all the Star Wars inspired fanfilms they wanted. In fact there was even an epic fanfilm contest on Atomfilms where filmmakers could get their short films featured online.
There were just two rules that George Lucas had for anyone who wanted to make a Star Wars fanfilm, and the fanfilms I’ve posted here follow them. The first is that serious films could not include any of the existing Star Wars characters, filmmakers would need to create their own new characters if they wanted to make something serious. However, if the filmmakers wanted to make a Star Wars parody film, they could use any of the existing Star Wars characters they wanted. Today, I’m going to show some of my favorite parodies.
First up I want to show an animation that many people wish was based on a true story, Jar Jar’s Walking Papers. This short was actually a winner on Atomfilms for the best Star Wars fanfilm (animation). Jar Jar hate trumps all.
Next up didn’t win any awards, but it was a runner-up on the Atomfilms Star Wars fanfilm contest for best Documentary, Wan-Abi: The Making of A Fanfilm. It details the story of some filmmakers in Salt Lake City who want to make the ultimate fanfilm, and features the first appearance I have ever seen of a triple-bladed lightsaber.
This next film details The Battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back in a way that only Ken Burns would deliver.
Next up, an important PSA on how to properly use your lightsaber.
Next up, Four More Years of Vader, where Darth Vader makes an appearance on the No Spin Zone just before The Battle of Endor. The short was directed by Hank Braxton, who you might remember produced the epic Ghostbusters fanfilms Freddy Vs Ghostbusters and Return of the Ghostbusters.
Not enough for you? Okay, here’s Trooper Clerks, an animated parody of the cult classic film Clerks using Star Wars characters.
Hope you enjoyed these short films! I know this is only the tip of the iceburg when it comes to Star Wars fanfilms but sadly after the fall of Atomfilms I’m afraid a lot of my other favorites have been lost to time. If you have your own favorite Star Wars fanfilms that haven’t been posted here, mention them in the comments section.
May The Fourth Be With You All – GameTrailers.com’s Star Wars Game Retrospective May 4, 2015
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I’ve long held high regard for GameTrailers.com’s excellent Retrospectives series. They’re incredibly researched, well scripted, well edited and excellently narrated videos which rival television’s quality. A few years ago, GameTrailers was working on an epic-length ten part video Retrospective on Star Wars video games in honor of the upcoming release of The Force Unleashed. Only the Final Fantasy franchise has seen more episodes produced for their own Retrospective. This was an incredible undertaking which took several months to fully release.
I questioned the chronology of the retrospectives, because for some reason GameTrailers chose to feature games based on the prequel series before games based on the original trilogy, even though the games on the original trilogy were produced years earlier. They also lumped together some games that I didn’t think went well together, but that’s just my opinion. The retrospective is still very well produced and has some great information you may not be aware of!
You can watch the entire Star Wars Retrospective here on GameTrailers.com. It is over three hours in length, so make sure to set some time aside before you start watching it.
May The Fourth Be With You All – Star Wars Games Podcasts May 4, 2015
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Here on GameXcess.net we’ve got an ongoing podcast series where Maniac talks about specific game franchises. It is an unscripted series where our host will usually talk about a franchise’s history, his experience with the games, and where he thinks the future holds.
In the time that we’ve been doing our podcast series, Maniac has recorded three podcasts specifically about Star Wars game franchises. In honor of Star Wars Day, we’re going to be reposting some of these Star Wars game podcasts. So if you’ve heard them before, or are just hearing them for the first time, enjoy and may The Force be with you.
First up is our Podcast on the famous Jedi Knight series.
Next up is our podcast on The Force Unleashed games.
Finally, here’s our podcast on the Knights of the Old Republic franchise.
May The Fourth Be With You All – Announcing Star Wars Day On The Site May 4, 2015
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Today is May the Fourth, otherwise known online as Star Wars Day, a celebration of all Star Wars fandom. Let’s face it, Star Wars fans have had a rough ten years. We had to deal with three horrible prequel films, several awful video games, and tons of studios releasing film trilogies attempting to rival the magic of the Star Wars original movies.
But with a new Star Wars film coming this December, and a whole new Battlefront video game in development, Star Wars fans finally have a lot to be excited about! So, for the rest of today, in honor of Star Wars Day, I’m going to be writing about Star Wars. You might see some Star Wars content I’ve produced come back, you might see some great Star Wars content featured here from across the web, or you might see some new content that you’ve never seen before!
So let’s start with what you all want to see. If you haven’t seen it yet, here is the trailer for the next Star Wars film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Happy Star Wars Day to everyone! Let’s get started, shall we?
Ultima VIII: Pagan Now Free Through Origin On the House April 28, 2015
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The guys at EA have gone from offering one of the greatest games from their classic back catalog…to one of the worst games from their classic back catalog. EA is now offering the Gold Edition of Ultima VIII: Pagan, one of the worst games in the Ultima series, for free on the Origin digital distribution service.
Like with all games offered through Origin On the House, the game can be purchased, downloaded and played completely free of charge. You only need to download the free Origin client and create a free Origin account to take advantage of the promotion, and you can do both of those things right here. Once downloaded, the game will continue to remain on your Origin account, even if you delete it.
If you haven’t played this game and want to know what you’re in for, I recommend Spoony’s Review.
Silent Hills Officially Cancelled April 28, 2015
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Ever since Konami started to distance itself from all references to the name of the Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima, gamers everywhere justifiably became concerned about what Hideo Kojima’s future was with Konami. Not only was his development studio working on the latest Metal Gear game, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, it was also working on a new game in the Silent Hill franchise, Silent Hills, with Hellboy‘s director, Guillermo del Toro.
Silent Hills was announced shortly after the Sony Playstation GamesCom 2015 Press Event. At that event, Sony showed a teaser for a game called P.T., and encouraged all their PS4 owners to download the game for free on the Playstation Store. Hours after the event concluded, players stumbled unto the truth behind P.T., and discovered it was a teaser for Silent Hills, a game which would be developed by Hideo Kojima, Guillermo del Toro, and would star Norman Reedus. The Internet, hungry for a new Silent Hill game, went crazy. This was like a dream project.
However, in the past few weeks, users everywhere has been noticing Konami had been removing Hideo Kojima’s name from their websites, and gamers became concerned that Kojima had left Konami or had been fired. While Konami and Kojima stood firm that there would be no problems with the upcoming release of MGS V: The Phantom Pain, this still begged the question as to what the status was for his other game project, Silent Hills. This past weekend, del Toro was asked about the project and said it had been disbanded. Today, Konami confirmed that statement was true.
The P.T. demo is expected to get pulled from the Playstation Store on the 29th of April. If you have a PS4 and haven’t downloaded it, get it right now before its gone forever.
What does the future hold for Silent Hill? Konami says they still plan to make future games for the franchise. Hopefully this gives them the incentive to reassemble Team Silent.
Batman: Arkham Knight “All Who Follow You” Trailer April 28, 2015
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We are less than two months away from the release of Batman: Arkham Knight, the very first game in the incredible Batman: Arkham series to hit the next generation consoles. Before today, we had a good idea of this game’s cast of villains, but we had no idea the scope of allies that Batman would have with him this time around. Take a look!
Batman: Arkham Knight is coming June 2015 to the PC, Xbox One and Playstation 4.
Gaming History You Should Know – The Nuon April 28, 2015
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Everyone remembers the utter failure of the Atari Jaguar from back in the mid-90s but I bet a lot of you had no idea that the Jaguar actually had a spiritual successor nobody remembers. That’s right, the Jaguar’s developers got back together and created an entirely new gaming system exclusively for licensed DVD Players, the Nuon. What is the Nuon? I’ll let Rerez fill you in on all the details.
What is really disappointing about this is that the idea behind the Nuon could have worked better if only it had been integrated into DVD Player hardware sooner. DVD Players, while expensive at launch, sold like crazy due to the incredible picture quality (for the time) and extra features that they offered consumers. In the year 2000, $350 US for a standalone DVD Player was not considered an unreasonable price, and because DVD was getting a huge positive response from consumers since its launch, people would have happily paid that price if it was for one of the first DVD players. Unfortunately, by the year 2001, 20th Century Fox had already released most of their most popular films (like Fight Club and X-Men) on DVD and it was far too soon for them to consider creating entirely new discs for the Nuon. It makes a little bit of business sense that Fox chose to integrate Nuon features into new DVD releases for films they were planning to release anyway, although it seems fate wasn’t kind to the Nuon for the four films 20th Century Fox had lined up for Nuon exclusive features were huge critical and theatrical flops.
If you ask me what the biggest shame out of the whole Nuon story is, I would say that it would have to be the world’s ignorance to the game Tempest 3000, which would never see a rerelease on a more popular console. To this day, not many people know it even exists, and that’s a shame since it could have been a huge selling point for the Nuon hardware. Given Atari’s recent legal issues with Tempest 2000’s creators I doubt this game will ever get another release. A true shame.
Maniac’s Thoughts on the Alan Wake 2 Prototype April 25, 2015
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Earlier this week, Remedy did an interview with Polygon.com about a technical demo they produced in 2010 for Alan Wake 2. The demo was created to sell the game to possible publishers and while it did not get made it did lead to the development of Quantum Break. The web has been lit up with speculation about this demo ever since, especially by fans of the original Alan Wake game. If you haven’t seen the demo or read the interview yet you can check it out here.
What follows are my thoughts on the demo and why I think Remedy chose to release this information now.
Xenoblade Chronicles X Video Showcase April 24, 2015
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When the Wii U was first showcased, Nintendo had a lot of footage to offer for several of the platform’s upcoming games. Among those titles, a game simply called X got a lot of hype. It was being developed by the studio which had made the Xenoblade franchise, and the visuals looked absolutely stunning for the Wii U. Within a few months, Nintendo confirmed that X would be part of the Xenoblade series when they announced its full title, Xenoblade Chronicles X.
Today, Nintendo gave us a closer look at Xenoblade Chronicles X. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Bill from Nintendo.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is coming exclusively to the Wii U.
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