Are you ready for Vaporator Commando?

Penny Arcade on The Force Unleashed and Star Wars gaming:

I’m sure the Force Unleashed will be fine. The time period around the original trilogy is just getting so crowded. Now Vader has a secret apprentice? I mean, it makes sense canonically to me. The Emperor had Mara Jade out there doing his dirty work. It’s not unreasonable to think Vader had a similar arrangement. Also the very nature of Sith rule makes covering your ass a necessity. The hook for the game is fine and I don’t mind the 3rd person action stuff. There are a few games I’d much rather see them make though. The fact that they have not made a sequel to Republic Commando is fucking criminal. That’s not a joke either. I mean that someone over there should be put in jail for the rest of their life. RepCom was an incredible squad based shooter, and unlike most games in that genre it was packed with awesome characters. This games deserves a next gen sequel. The other game that needs a next gen installment is Tie Fighter. Seriously that game came out in 1994 and it’s one of the best space shooters ever. And for fucks sake stop setting things during the movies. There’s nearly sixty years worth of incredible content (minus the dark nest series) extending out past Return of the Jedi. You don’t have to keep trying to cram stories into the same 20 year period. They’re milking so much content out of that period that eventually we’ll be playing a game as Luke where the goal is to repair vaporators on the south ridge. Hurry up you’ve only got ’till mid day!

I don’t necessarily agree – the fact that games actually count in continuity has always mildly annoyed me – but he has a point. Hell, I’m already a bit sick of The Clone Wars and it hasn’t even started yet.

And dude, Dark Nest might not be the best trilogy ever but at least it didn’t plague us for five years. For that alone, I can’t hate it.

Also, check out the latest comic. Teehee.

Is Vector starting with a whimper or a bang?

Dante Maddox of Crave reviews Knights of the Old Republic #25. Words of wisdom:

At no point have I ever looked at the expanded universe and thought, “What a mess!”

Clearly, a man who has never visited the TFN boards. More power to him: I’m not sure how many EU fans even realize how good we have it, even with the occasional gaffe.

As for Vector… I’ve never picked up KOTOR before, but I was not impressed by the issue. Maybe I’ll warm up to it as the story progresses (it took me about ten issues into Legacy to see it as anything more than fanboy wish-fulfillment) but for now, my verdict: Whimper. That’s not to say it might not pan out in the end, but for now, I remain skeptical.

Is anyone else jumping into KOTOR cold? Or, old-time readers… What do you think?

Force Unleashed toy spoilers!

TFN discovered a Hasbro Evolutions 3-pack that reveals the ‘Secret Apprentice’ (if we don’t get a real name soon I’m just going to settle for Crashdown) in the guises of a Sith Lord and a Jedi. Rebelscum has more pics of what looks to be a large chunk of the TFU line.

Though really, seeing how many secret apprentices Anakin/Vader had, they could probably stand to diversify the field a bit. You know that someone somewhere is chomping at the bit for a Hethrir figure.

Expanded Universe newsbits

The fandom minute

IMAGE: Lightsabers by Finkbuilt