New Wii lightsaber game this year

By Tom Bramwell Published 19 June, 2008

Along with co-op based DS Star Wars.

LucasArts is working on new DS and Wii titles based on the Star Wars spin-off animated series, The Clone Wars, and one of them is billed as a proper Wii lightsaber game. Both are due out in "Holiday 2008". I'm on holiday tomorrow.

Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels is being developed for Wii by Krome Studios, and will include Wii remote lightsaber controls.

"We've tried to make the lightsaber control as intuitive and fun as possible. It's not a lightsaber simulator, but when you swing your Wii remote left to right; your character does the same," producer Ken Fox told IGN.

While you swing the lightsaber with the Wiimote, you'll move around with the nunchuk and activate Force powers, blocks and dodging with buttons.

Pressed by IGN on whether the Wiimote lightsaber control is your exact motions repeated on-screen, Fox dithered: "I wouldn't describe what we're doing as one-to-one in the way that you might picture, but we really tried to make it feel like you get to swing your lightsaber 'manually'," he explained.

You'll be able to play through duels from the Clone Wars film and TV series and control familiar characters, including General Grievous and the stupid doomed Jedi. We want to be the sexy one with the sponge pipes coming out of her head. We miss her.

As well as combat, gameplay is likely to include environmental interaction, LucasArts has said. So you might chop things in half or burn through doors, presumably.

Meanwhile, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Jedi Alliance for the DS is being developed by LucasFilm's Animation in Singapore, which is where the Clone Wars TV series is being made. In fact, it's their first game.

Project lead Feargus Carroll has said that you will get to pick from six Jedi to play as, with two on each mission, sharing control with the AI. There will be puzzles, stylus controls "from the ground up" and events will inevitably borrow from the TV series.

There's also drop-in co-operative multiplayer via Wi-Fi, suggesting lessons learned from the success of LEGO Star Wars - lessons other than "make more Star Wars games", that is.

According to Venturebeat, we can look out for both of those games at E3 and Comic-Con in July. So we will.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (16) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • LazyDan #1 4 years ago

    IT. WON'T. BE. AS. GOOD. AS. PEOPLE. THINK. IT. WILL. BE. IN. THEIR. HEADS.


    If it is, I will eat my copy of Red Steel.

  • Muddtallica #2 4 years ago

    There really needs to be a full-on, four-remote General Grievous mode, for people with four arms.

  • spekkeh #3 4 years ago

    "Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels"

    Ah, a gimmicky beat em up then? Can't wait for that.

  • Matfink #4 4 years ago

    Die By The Sword, or Bust :p

  • realworld666 Verified Lead Programmer, Fuzzy-Frog Games #5 4 years ago

    Anyone who expects 1-to-1 motion in a lightsaber games ever is kidding themselves. At fast speeds the sensors in the wiimote can not acurately track movement.

  • Razorus #6 4 years ago

    "It's not a lightsaber simulator..." EPIC FAIL right there. Why is it not a simulator? Surely it can't be THAT hard?! What a missed opportunity this will probably turn out to be.

    The best "lightsaber" control I've seen on the Wii so far is the baseball game in Wii Sports. Provided you hold the bat realistically, it moves almost exactly with your movement. Why can't they just copy that and improve on it?

  • BadBoyBonner #7 4 years ago

    Razorus

    Here's a link explaining why it would be all but impossible to do on the Wii

    [link url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyvIlKSA0BA&feature=rel ated
    ]http://ww w.youtube.com/watch?v=KyvIlKSA0...[/link]

    3min 30 secs informs you of positional orientation or lack of.

    4min 25secs give Virtual light saber (with 4 led "sensor bar" as opposed to the normal two)

  • robg #8 4 years ago

    @Razorus - yeah, I agree. Mimics it so closely it's ridiculous.

    But even if it didn't - someone sell me a game that costs a bit more and comes with a lightsabre add-on for the wiimote that has more sensitive motion controls. SOLVE the sensitivity problem, developers, don't whine about it!

  • penhalion #9 4 years ago

    Given Samurai, Red steel and dragon quest swords. I think it's safe to say that this will not end well.

  • CallousB #10 4 years ago

    Same people who are doing Force Unleashed for the Wii then? Bah. Probably just a rehash using the same engine to cash-in on the movie/tv series (and Force unleashed was an afterthought on Wii as it is).

    If they can't replicate the sabre well then they should concentrate on using the pointer for force moves and make the sabre a secondary weapon. It would be great in a Star wars game if you could target, pick up enemies and throw them around as you do with the Blox in "Boom Blox".

  • mrtrevelyan #11 4 years ago

    'No More Heroes' - style sword control (with its stance detection, swing-sensitive attacks and what-not), coupled with some of the major-player force powers operated by the nunchuck (e.g., Force Push - as I believe those who have mastered the technique are prone to call it - operated by literally pushing the nunchuck foward) and an FPS view would be satisfactory.
    Edited by 1 at 19/06/08 @ 14:59

  • malloc #12 4 years ago

    I'm on holiday tomorrow.
    lol, nice one.

  • J.C #13 4 years ago

    "We've tried to make the lightsaber control as intuitive and fun as possible. It's not a lightsaber simulator, but when you swing your Wii remote left to right; your character does the same," producer Ken Fox told IGN.

    So its crap then. why fucking bother, this is not the game wii owners are looking for.

  • Nookyalar #14 4 years ago

    bastards.

  • cyber_nicco #15 4 years ago

    Man, this sounds bad.

  • Connobi #16 4 years ago

    Come on guys, you know why it wouldn't work if they did an "accurate" light saber sim. Take a look at any Wii game where you control a sword in this "true" fashion - its clunky, unresponsive, & basically crap!!

    Like or or lump it, the tech just isn't good enough yet. Its will be one day, but not yet. I for one welcome the decision to make this game they way they are. Approximated moves make it easier to do stuff with the Wii remote, & won't detract from the gameplay. It worked well enough in Zelda. besides, I'd rather have a star wars saber game with approximated controls than not have one at all.

    Besides, I think the reason they won't do an accurate saber sim is they can't get it to work well enough. I'd put money on it was the first thing they tried, & did their best to get it to work, but it just wasn't good enough, hence the direction they've taken.