This last weekend was 30th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie. G4 had a fun show, Star Wars at 30, and the History Channel had a great show, Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed, which will air again on June 3rd at 7pm CDT. All of these shows got me excited about Star Wars again, and I thought about a game that used to be outstanding, Star Wars Galaxies. Unfortunately, in December of 2005, Sony implemented a series of “new game enhancements” that totally destroyed the game. I went to the SWG website to see what was new and if anything had changed. I saw that there was a 14-day trial so I downloaded it and figured I’d play my way through the first few starter quests. Alas, the game still sucks. They still use the very awkward over-the-shoulder 3rd person view, combined with a very bad camera, there’s still only a handful of professions that one can select and then there’s no modification of the skill sets, and even after all these years of testing, the collision detection still sucks ass! I was killed by an attack droid firing straight through a solid wall. A helpful suggestion to would-be game developers out there, get the collision detection right! If the solid objects in your game don’t behave as solid objects, you’re never going to get the suspension of belief that you need to pull your players into the world you’ve created.

There is hope for those looking for a truly great Star Wars RPG, The Force Unleashed. Plans for this game were announced last year, and the game is scheduled for release in the Spring of 2008. Of course, this means we can expect it to be on the shelves no earlier than Fall 2008. In the meantime, checkout IGN’s preview.