Star Wars 1313: All 3 Extended Gameplay Trailers Back to Back

It has come to our attention that we are beginning to become a depository for other people’s cool. At the risk of becoming an advertising space for a company that frankly doesn’t need it I have to post this however. Lucasarts have released 3 trailers (in the wrong order) featuring gameplay from Star Wars 1313. It’s first mature rated game – I think it’s first mature rated anything – it features a breakout at the titular level 1313. These are the three trailers together – in the right order.

Whether mature content is a move that Lucasarts intend to investigate more is unknown but as much as it pains me to say it, Lucasart’s incredibly well funded design shop have done it again. It looks monumental, with (assuming the extended scene is indicative of general gameplay) beautifully developed sequences and fairly seamless and exciting gameplay. Rumours of Leisure Suit Jabba : Tits on Tatooine or the the new TV series X-Wing, a view of daily life and conflicts in the Senate by Aaron Sorkin are most likely grossly overstated.

Never the less head over to the Star Wars: 1313 site if you’d like to hear some moody music, look at this image and follow it on Facebook.

Lost Jedi Sketch 4: Rial Shif

Rial Shif is an agent of the Jedi. You could walk around the Jedi Temple in Coruscant and ask everyone if they’ve ever heard the name Rial Shif. The answer from almost all of those present would be no and a quizzical look as to where you got that name from.

Rial Shif is as close to a Dark Jedi as you’ve ever met without falling over the precipice of the Dark Side. His teachings were considered far too borderline – edging into powerful and long hidden dark aspects of the force – to be allowed to teach the younglings. However Jedi Master Yoda understands the good in Rial Shif. His trust in Shif means he has found a unique position within the order. He wanders the space lanes, mostly out on the outer rim practicing his own brand of Jedi justice. Always short of brutal, Shif is an exacting and intimidating Jedi. All those that have crossed him have discovered that. To their cost.

Lost Jedi: Rial Shif

A glitch in the force, Rial Shif (Alistair Reith) is a Jedi Knight of the highest capability but troubled with bouts of darkness and anger. His gruff exterior hides an honourable and honest Jedi but his manner found him at odds with many in the Jedi Order. He chose the path of Jedi Ronin, wandering the space lanes and bringing the path of the Jedi to the darkest recesses of the universe. His movements go unreported and undirected, Master Yoda and Windu trusting his innate judgment implicitly. With the onset of Order 66, no evidence of Shif existed in the archives – a secret that Yoda and Windu would take to their respective paths. His mission becomes a new one. The identification and protection of Lost Jedi and the reinstatement of the Jedi Order. Incredibly powerful with enormous psychokinetic powers as well as a cool and efficient capacity for dispatching his enemies, Shif is the closest thing to a Dark Jedi without having tipped irrevocably over the edge.

You may recognise Alistair Reith as the basis for our disreputable, hard boiled partner to Moon in BTB’s flagship title. He just looks right as a hard bitten, gruff warrior on the edge of the cause he’s fighting for. An, quite frankly, he’d agree with us.

Moon

A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away….: BTB enters the Star Wars Universe!!

Welcome to the new Beyond the Bunker Star Wars zone. Every Wednesday there will be something from the enormously expansive Star Wars Universe. Be it from the core films I-III or the classic IV-VI, the expanded universe – Clone Wars, Droids, Ewoks – even the Holiday Special if we can find it. And the funnies too.

Interspersed among the existing material will be my little fanboy creation. The Lost Jedi was a title I developed in a fanboy fever while serving as a Jedi/Rebel Trooper at the Star Wars Exhibition in London. Working with a host of exceptional actors, performers, fight trainers and technicians we performed 8 or more Jedi Schools in the central chamber of County Hall, Westminster, in the heart of London. Still the greatest job I’ve ever done – I spent the day training younglings to fight like a Jedi, die like a Rebel Trooper. In my time there, surrounded by the sights and sounds of Lucas and John Williams it was difficult not to be completely overwhelmed by it all.

In a central chamber lay the shining corvette, spitfiresque frame of a Naboo Fighter. To the side of that Wookee costumes and a speeder like that which was ridden by the Skywalkers on Endor. In a darkened room at the back of the exhibition stood a solitary figure. A 7 foot tall goliath in a glass cage. Darth Vader’s suit loomed in the darkness and captured everyone’s imagination that entered. There was never noise in that room, only an eerie and awed hush as tourists stood and basked in a character that is now utterly synonomous with evil and tragedy. And cool.

Expanding so much further beyond mere cinema, Star Wars is an ideology nowadays. A universe that has influenced popular and scientific culture. Star Wars, perhaps more than any other cultural phenomenon of the late twentieth century has the capacity to move into historical lore and take a place in mythology. At its most challenging and insistent, the material developed by the films (even with the less impressive prequels) the cultural and ideological impact of Star Wars gives us insight into the breeding of myths of Gods and Monsters from ancient times. A modern day Odyssey perhaps, it shows us the way religious texts expand and are embraced, whether originally intended by their creators or not. If anything it shows how once a cultural phenomenon is formed it can be expanded upon and used to generate enormous monies for the creator.

Naboo N1-Fighter, parked in landing bay 1, Westminster, 2007

Offering ideologies, an alternative global religion (?!), expansion in gaming, cinema and digital technologies – both in sound and light (and magic), universal themes and characters and having been embraced by effectively billions globally noone should underestimate the width of influence a Dark Lord of the Sith might have.

Jedis unite. For Star Wars has arrived on Beyond the Bunker. Featuring articles, fan films, reviews and the Lost Jedi fan material we are planning to fill the next six months with insight and delight associated with the Star Wars Universe. I’ve got a bad feeling about this….

Next Week: The Lost Jedi. Part One.