Star Wars 1313 E3 Impressions
Star Wars 1313 Proves That You Don’t Need to Be a Jedi to Be a Badass
At this year’s E3, LucasArts gave us a first look at their gorgeous new game, Star Wars 1313. It was only a short gameplay trailer, but it quickly became one of the most exciting reveals at E3. Star Wars 1313 is a third-person shooter that follows the life of a bounty hunter; instead of the usual Jedi. As this game is technically only in its alpha stage, almost nothing is being said about the story aside from the fact that it takes place in the galactic capital Courescent and takes place between episodes 3 and 4. Coruscant is a world, entirely made up of one huge city. It is a city so large it had to build over itself. The city-planet contains thousands of levels, each with a number; and the lower you go, the more dangerous it gets. This game takes place in the seedy crime filled underworld of level 1313. Since Star Wars 1313 is about bounty hunters, chasing the worst villains and scumbags in the galaxy, LucasArts aims to make it the darkest, grittiest Star Wars game ever. This will be the first mature-rated title in the franchise.
For Star Wars 1313, LucasArts wanted to place emphasis on epic set pieces. They want to bring fast-paced, visually stunning, action. Action that strings seamlessly from cutscene to gameplay, hoping to keep the player guessing which parts they’re actually playing and not just watching. For the first time, LucasArts is collaborating with the company’s other divisions: LucasFilm, Skywalker Sound, and Industrial Light and Magic; to give a more Hollywood cinematic quality to their new video game. The demo showed off highly detailed lighting and destruction effects with fire, lasers, smoke, and plenty of debris flying everywhere. The game also boasts impressive motion and facial performance capture, making characters look very realistic.
The gameplay demo of Star Wars 1313 was presented at E3 on a high end gaming PC containing NVIDIA’s brand new GeForce GTX 680 graphics card, which is the fastest single-core GPU the company has made. Star Wars 1313 was also presented using Unreal Engine 3. Star Wars 1313 was easily one of the best looking games at E3, which gave much speculation that this game would be gearing towards next generation consoles, but from what is known so far, you’d at least have to have a top of the line gaming PC in order to play it.
Star Wars 1313 Demo Walkthrough: “Fresh Air is Overrated”
The E3 demo of Star Wars 1313 begins with two bounty hunters making the descent deep down to Courescent’s level 1313 to claim the reward for the recently captured criminal they have on board. As they plummet further down into the city’s depths you notice there is a ship tailing them containing a group of armed troops and a menacing-looking battle droid who jumps onto the hunters’ ship. Alerted, the two bounty hunters move to the rear hold to check on their live cargo when an explosion suddenly knocks them back across the room.
In a shell shocked daze, the player slowly tries to get on his feet seeing the battle droid walk away with their captive while enemy troopers lay down cover fire. Once the player gets up, he quickly finds cover and starts blasting away at the targets. He dives forward to another cover point, grabbing and pulling the enemy on the opposite side over the cover and breaks his neck all in one swift move. We then see the player use a concussion round that sends a shock wave at an enemy sending him off the side of the ship.
Your more seasoned, and seemingly maniacal, companion pulls a somewhat unorthodox move by dropping a thermal detonator into an escape pod, then jettisons it towards the enemy ship. The explosion punches a hole into the ship which then the two bounty hunters leap towards to reclaim what they’ve rightfully caught. The player doesn’t quite stick the landing and begins slipping down the wing of the ship. He tries climbing up it while parts of it are exploding and flying off and just as he leaps to another part of the ship, the wing falls off and the demo ends.
This teaser of Star Wars 1313 greatly impressed me; through hours of research I know for a fact this is the kind of Star Wars game that myself, and many others, have been waiting for. I mean… Boba Fett only had a few lines and he’s one of the most beloved characters in the franchise. What? You thought I could talk about Star Wars and bounty hunters without mentioning The Fett?? This game will come out someday and it will be grand.
