star-wars-the-force-unleashed posts

This patch for the PC version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Ultimate Sith Edition addresses a number of game performance issues and adds support for different game controllers. There's a North American English patch and an EU patch that covers the UK, French, Italian, German and Spanish releases. A list of changes can be found after the jump.

Download Star Wars: The Force Unleashed v1.1 Patch (403 MB)
Download Star Wars: The Force Unleashed v1.1 EU Patch (403 MB)

Last year, when LucasArts released the console version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the publisher claimed the game couldn't be released on the PC because the system requirements would be too high. That was disproven earlier this summer when LucasArts announced (shocker) a PC port of the game.

Now the PC version's developer, Aspyr Media, has revealed the PC system requirements for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition. As we have reported before, the PC version will have all of the content of the original console game plus some extra missions. You can check out the system specs after the jump:

This week gamers can be a evil Sith apprentice, a ruthless dictator and other roles in two retail releases and three downloadable titles.

Tropico 3: Publisher Kalypso Media revives this sim game franchise that was first started by 2K Games. Developer Haemimont Games created this third title in the series which puts the player in charge of an island nation. Will you be the typical island tyrant or a more benevolent leader? As usual there are pros and cons to both choices.

For the past two days Big Download has been going over the games that are currently scheduled for release in the fall/holiday time period, which is traditionally been the busiest time for the game industry. You can check out Part One and Part Two of our report here.

Today we conclude our series with the third and final part of our preview as we look at games that will be released from mid-November to early December. We also have some games that as of yet do not have a specific release date but are still scheduled to be released sometime this fall. Once again we remind you that release dates can be fluid; we will report on any changes in ship dates as we learn about them.

Click on the image above to continue reading The Big PC Games for Fall 2009 - Part 3

We won't lie to you; July 2009 was a bit on the dull side in terms of news and exciting happenings in the PC game industry. That's to be expected after last month's flood of news thanks in part to E3. However there were still some significant items of note in the past 31 days. A few of them were revealed around the time of the San Diego Comic-Con which is becoming more and more important for the game industry.

As we do just after a month is over, Big Download has picked what we feel are the 10 biggest news items in July 2009. They include the revival of not one but two long dormant game franchises, the announcement of some classic games finally being made available again and word that a long running game series is being put on hold for a while.

Click on the image above to continue reading The Top 10 PC Game News Stories Of July 2009

Some might say this is a little overdue, but The Force Unleashed will be making its way to both the PC and Mac this holiday. However, it will come in the form of "The Ultimate Sith Edition," which includes all the content from the original console game plus three extra bonus missions. In one of the extra missions, the story is re-imagined to see what would happen if Darth Vader's secret apprentice actually turned against him and took his place at the Emperor's side. Another pits the apprentice against Luke Skywalker and other iconic Star Wars characters to see where the story would go if the dark side won. Star Wars fans will be able to unleash their inner dark sides this holiday.

Download HD Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition Trailer (219 MB)

We like PC Gaming Alliance president Randy Stude. We were impressed with his answers in our own interview with him a few months ago. More recently he slammed down Lionhead's Peter Molyneux for saying that the PC game industry is in "tatters". However, in a new chat with Videogamer.com we think that Stude picked the wrong battle to fight. Specifically, he went after LucasArts for not releasing a PC version of their best selling console game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

LucasArts has made the case that The Force Unleashed would only play well on a high end and highly expensive PC and that there's no market for such a product. Stude states, "It's ridiculous to say that there's not enough audience for that game potentially and that it falls into this enthusiast extreme category when ported over to the PC. That's an uneducated response." He added, "LucasArts hasn't made a good PC game in a long time. That's my opinion."

While we think that Stude has the right to his opinion, we also have a right to ours and our opinion is that PC owners should be glad that LucasArts chose not to port The Force Unleashed to the PC. While it's definitely been a sales success for the consoles, the reviews for the game have not been stellar. As far as his thoughts that LucasArts hasn't been involved in a good PC game in a long time, we refer to the high PC reviews of the terrific (and very recent) Lego Star Wars games. Even the PC only RTS game Star Wars Empire at War (released less than two years ago) got higher reviews than The Force Unleashed. Finally, there is that little LucasArts/Bioware project that's supposed to be revealed this coming week. We have a feeling PC gamers might be a little excited by that prospect. Our verdict? We like that Stude is on the offensive in promoting PC gaming but he should have picked this battle a little more carefully.

Earlier this week we reported on the first gaming panel programming that was announced for the first day (Thursday) for the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con on July 25-28. Now the convention's web site has revealed the panel programming for the rest of the show and Friday and Saturday seem to be packed with game and game related events (Sunday seems to be free of gaming related panels).

On Friday convention attendees can go to panels about Midway's fighting game Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe, the upcoming MMOs Stargate Worlds and DC Universe Online, and the upcoming Ghostbusters game (with actors Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson scheduled to attend). There will also be a World of Warcraft panel and the big Star Wars panel will have segments on the upcoming LucasArts Clone Wars and The Force Unleashed game titles. Capcom will hold a panel on how to break into the game industry and there will also be a Penny Arcade panel. There will also be a panel on the upcoming movie adaptation of Prince of Persia (with the game's original creator Jordan Mechner scheduled to attend) and a panel on the upcoming CGI movie Resident Evil: Degeneration.

On Saturday, Comic-Con will hosts a Telltale Games panel where the creators will announce plans for a third episodic game series to join their Sam and Max and Strong Bad series. A Warhammer Online panel will also be held and THQ will host a panel on Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II and Deadly Creatures. Cliff Bleszinski and Peter Molyneux will attend a panel to talk about Gears of War 2 and Fable 2, respectively. EA will host a Dead Space panel and Capcom will also host a Bionic Commando panel at the show.

If you haven't bought your tickets for Comic-Con yet, you are out of luck if you want the four-day pass or one-day passes for Friday and Saturday. Some tickets for Thursday and Sunday are still available for purchase.

Last week Lucasarts admitted that it had laid off a number of its team members but would not admit to specific numbers (although the rumors went as high as 100 members). Now Shacknews is reporting via an unnamed source that Lucasarts plans to not only fire 100 more team members but also halt all internal game development following the completion of their console only game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

If true this would be in direct contradiction to what a Lucasarts PR spokesperson told our sister site Joystiq las Friday. That spokesperson stated, " . . . [sites] are definitely reading too much into the layoffs; [LucasArts] is not halting internal development." A later post stated that Lucasarts was still working on the long awaited Indiana Jones game in-house and that there are, " no plans to outsource its development to an external studio." So either the Lucasarts spokesperson was flat out lying or the unnamed source that Shacknews is using for its story is either lying or mistaken. We should know the full true in a few months when The Force Unleashed is released to stores in mid-September.

Has LucasArts suffered a huge setback in its future plans? That's what Kotaku claims. According to what they are reporting (using several unnamed sources) the publisher laid off as many as 100 people at the end of the day Thursday. As of this posting, LucasArts has yet to confirm the layoffs which are said to include VP of Product Development Peter Hirschmann.

LucasArts recently lost a high profile president in Jim Ward (he was replaced by former Electronic Arts Los Angeles exec Darrell Rodriguez). The company just shipped Lego Indiana Jones and their high profile (and console only) game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is due out in September. Other games that are rumored to be on LucasArts's plate include a new collaboration with developer Bioware, a new Star Wars Battlefront game developed by Free Radical Design and the long awaited Indiana Jones games that was demoed at E3 2006. LucasArts also made the decision to leave the Entertainment Software Association last month although it'sstill scheduled to attend E3 next month.