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Kinect Star Wars title coming 2011

E3 2010: Microsoft announces exclusive partnership with LucasArts to bring untitled Star Wars game to its Xbox 360 motion-sensing system in 2011.

LOS ANGELES--After announcing six launch titles for its newly named Kinect, Microsoft teased an upcoming Star Wars title for its motion-sensing system at today's E3 2010 press conference. The publisher unveiled an exclusive partnership with LucasArts and demoed a brief fight scene from the new game, whose title has yet to be revealed.

The scene revealed gameplay similar to that of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, with a Jedi character shown from a third-person view fighting wave after wave of enemies using a lightsaber and the Force as his main weapons. The scene began with the Jedi entering a semi-destroyed temple courtyard, where he immediately began using his lightsaber to deflect fire from an oncoming wave of battle droids before going on to attack a row of stormtroopers. At this point the gameplay appeared to be on-rails, as another wave of stormtroopers approached from the same direction and the Jedi continued to move forward using a series of powerslides and Force attacks. He used the latter to dislodge a nearby rock and do away with the last wave of stormtroopers before the scene ended with a dropship flying down to reveal Darth Vader, lightsaber at the ready.

Although Microsoft did not show how the new game would be played using Kinect, a live demo of the title during its world-premiere Natal/Kinect renaming event on Sunday night gave us a pretty good idea. With the game on one screen and a Microsoft actor playing it on the other, we were able to see how the title will implement motion-sensing: the actor performed a series of routine moves to control the lightsaber, the Force, and the powerslide moves in the game. The moves range from downward arm swings (for the lightsaber) to a push away from the body (for the Force) to a big step forward (for the powerslide).

Although details are still very sketchy, we look forward to seeing more of the new Star Wars game and how exactly Microsoft plans to implement Kinect throughout the whole game. Stay tuned to our extensive E3 2010 coverage.

Laura Parker
By Laura Parker, Associate Editor

Laura Parker is the Associate Editor of GameSpot Australia. She loves adventure games, sparkly stuff, Trivial Pursuit, cake, Master Chief, earthworms, and rhetorical questions. She once stole a sandwich from Peter Molyneux.

35 comments
Wookiemonster12
Wookiemonster12

@Nibustan then what about the force powers or step forwards or kicks looking badass to me

monkeysmoke
monkeysmoke

This is gonna be sooooo sweet! Fighting waves after waves of boses is gonna be cool since the light saber will be dinamic because of "kinect" that means no pre installed combo i make the combos my self "COOOOOOL! "Kinect Star Wars" welcom to the xbox 360's library.

Nibustan
Nibustan

Rather would want this for Playstation Move, since i got a controller in my hand I can use as the lightsaber.

ysuhaas
ysuhaas

@shani_boy101 remember the first trailer for kinect? they showed someone scanning a skateboard into a tony hawk type game and using it although you probably dont have spare lightsabers at home... and you can still use it w/o scanning it

CarlitosWay
CarlitosWay

@jimbo You completely forgot about LEGO Star Wars. But yes, there is no good content on the Next Gen Consoles. This will hopefulyl be cleaned up A LOT more than it showed in the demo. And people who talk about milking SW are just people who are not fans, and people who realize its been a while since a good SW game.

luniac99
luniac99

Looking forward to this game. Loved the first one, despite its flaws..i got stuck in a wall a couple times LOL. Anyways, hoping they can implement the Kinect in an effective and ACCURATE way. Oh, hope response time is good too.

jimbo913
jimbo913

People saying Lucas Arts is milking the franchise are a bit off base. In the current gen of consoles, there have been only 3 Star Wars releases (1 of them only on Wii). That is all. Force Unleashed, Jedi Duel thingy, and Clone Wars. IMO, there is plenty more room for SW games for the current generation. Where is battlefront, rogue squadron, tie/xwing, dark forces? If anything, SW has been waaaaaay underrepresented this go-round.

brok
brok

DO NOT WANT. TIE Fighter 2 or bust.

GodzillaX8
GodzillaX8

Lucasarts milking Star Wars for all its worth, who would've imagined it?!

shani_boy101
shani_boy101

Wouldn't this make more sense with Playstation Move? I mean cmon it's a lightsaber, you should at least hold something in your hand.

wro00
wro00

Anyone who's seen the actual footage of this will notice that the "actor" is exactly that. He's not playing the game, what you see in this demo is pre-rendered and he just does his best to mimic the character's actions. It's particularly noticable in this vid, where the jedi moves before the actor: http://kotaku.com/5562639/get-a-look-at-kinects-star-wars-game

xchiefmegadethx
xchiefmegadethx

Yes love the ps3 fanboy crap...only ps3 can do 1080p haha LOL! Stop talking so much crap...the fact that Red Dead is 640p for ps3 and Xbox version is 720p.Really says alot for ps3... But life goes on and Ignorance is bliss...

Britzy999
Britzy999

*Geek hat on*- Storm troopers and trade federation in the same scene, really? *Geek hat off*

chibi-acer
chibi-acer

What Amander123 said. Bluray itself doesn't do anything special in terms of HD, it can just hold more data. Which isn't a huge deal for most games unless you're full of pre-rendered cutscenes. Out of the 16 PS3 games I own, only 5 of them even support 1080p.

HollowNinja
HollowNinja

@Amander123 Xbox 360 doesn't support 1080p rendering, period. All 1080 games are upscaled. Some PS3 games (not many) do render in 1080.

zombiechief
zombiechief

i think kinect looks dumb i mean it's just motion control nintendo did it already

HavocV3
HavocV3

Amander123 ____ why bother. they'll never learn. the propaganda has been distributed, and they all bought it.

theindexcard
theindexcard

Xbox 360 may say it presents in 1080p, but it's not true HD. It's upscaled. Just saying and im not anytype of "fanboy" i can't be biased, I actually prefer my 360

Amander123
Amander123

[This message was deleted at the request of a moderator or administrator]

Thunderstorm025
Thunderstorm025

that star wars game looked terrible (which can also be said for the stormtrooper accuracy)

Torque203
Torque203

JEDI MIND TRICKS FOR EVERYONE

afflictatrophy
afflictatrophy

ill just quote vader "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" this gen has sucked for star wars games :(

jumpy46
jumpy46

I'll have to see the reviews for some of these games before I get Kinect. I do want that new 360 though.

nini200
nini200

this game is a joke. the motion is there but it seems on rails. The only time the character dashes forward is when the segment is clear. Kinect is a joke as far as real games except driving games. Any game where you actually have to make your character walk will not work with kinect. kinect is for family and driving games only. Microsofts e3 was like Nintendo's e3 when they showed wii music, total fail.

PixelAddict
PixelAddict

This Star Wars title was the only one that didn't impress me. All the other Kinect stuff (to include the interactivity it brings to the console dashboard as a rule) totally impressed me. Day 1 purchase for me. Totally sold.

slothrox
slothrox

Everyone is so quick to shoot everything down before ever trying it. Stop being so ungrateful and try to appreciate how far technology has advanced up to now. Keep an open mind, otherwise, you will always be disappointed, no matter what the games industry provides you with.

yixingtpot
yixingtpot

they can't even do the phonetics right, Ki-nect, what's a ki nect? shouldn't it have been Kinnect? this thing is poop on a stick, don't want any part of it. The new XBROKE design is garbage repacked. Just buy a PS3 and demand Blu-ray level gaming instead of 3rd party dvd level games.

ken007
ken007

I'm just talking about the cutting part lol

DigitalIncision
DigitalIncision

Dude nobody wants to walk around and dance while playing a Star Wars game.

ken007
ken007

They should look for inspiration from Metal Gear Solid: Rising for how lightsaber battles should look like.... cutting stormtroopers in half and then cutting one of the halves in half! Now that is a Starwars game I want to play.

madd_hatter
madd_hatter

So far from what I've seen in the conference, this game has potential, but that footage alone was not enough to reel me in just yet.

stephenage
stephenage

They should split the rights, Kinect gets the force powers and move gets the sabers.

timmy0001
timmy0001

I love Star Wars and Star Wars games, but this looks kinda lame so far. I hope it gets better.

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