Hasta La Gadget!

When we learned that Disney was purchasing the Star Wars Empire from George Lucas, it was rather bittersweet. Lucas hasn’t had the best track record with adding new films to the Star Wars franchise. We knew that new films will be coming in the Star Wars universe from Disney, but most fans we feared that Disney would ruin the franchise.

Yesterday we reported that Disney was closing down the LucasArts game development studio. LucasArts and partner developers have delivered some of the coolest video games for Star Wars fans over the years such as Jedi Academy and Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. Those classic video games were worked on with LucasArts and a company called Raven Software.

Raven Software has announced as of today that it is releasing the source code for the vintage third-person Star Wars action games Jedi Academy and Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. Raven says that was saddened to hear about the closing of LucasArts this week and that it had enjoyed working with LucasArts over the years.

Raven for says that as a gift for the loyalty of the fan base for the Jedi games and in memory of LucasArts it is offering up the source code for both games for people to “enjoy and play with.” Both of these games are built on the Quake 3 engine with Jedi Outcast launching in 2002 and Jedi Academy launching in 2003. If you miss those games, you can check out a video showing some of the Jedi Academy multiple player game play below.

[via Eurogamer]

Raven Software releases source code for Jedi Academy and Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Star Wars video game company LucasArts has been closed down and is in the process of being broken apart by Disney. As Disney owns LucasFilm and the rights to all media therein, the video game subsidiary LucasArts is (or was) part of what they purchased. With this breakup of the company, Disney will be moving from an internal development model (with LucasArts) to a licensing model, this allowing companies from across the market their chance at developing video games in the Star Wars universe.

LucasArts created a collection of games over the past couple of decades including such mega-hits as X-Wing vs TIE Fighter and Dark Forces and some relatively lesser-known titles that will effectively fizzle. According to a statement provided by Game Informer, layoffs are imminent, if not already in-effect.

“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.” – Disney

Reports today suggest that every single one of LucasArts remaining 150 employees have been laid off this month. This is the last wave, it would seem, of a series of layoffs that span back several years. According to Ars Technica, LucasArts employees numbered closer to 500 back in the mid-2000s. This also isn’t the beginning of LucasFilm’s LucasArts licensing out the rights to games without in-house development.

• Star Wars: The Old Republic – Bioware
• Star Wars: Battlefront – Pandemic
• Lego Star Wars – Travellers Tales

Though it’s always difficult to report news of layoffs in any of the industries we report on, this information can be seen as a positive force for those interested in the further adventures of the characters inside the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and several other LucasArts title universe. Though we’ve not heard specifically about anything beyond Star Wars titles at the moment, we’re certainly all for developers from all over the wide world of gaming taking their crack at A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away!

LucasArts shut down by Disney is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Chairman of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria, Birol Kilic, thinks the Jabba’s Palace LEGO play set is “culturally insensitive.” Why? He says that it resembles Istanbul’s historic mosque Hagia Sophia. Or any other building with a domed roof, for that matter.

He says that “This does not belong in children’s bedrooms, and the minaret-like tower features machine guns. Children will become insensitive to violence and other cultures.” Maybe he should worry about real world problems instead of worrying about a LEGO set based on a 30-year-old movie.

It all started when his organization was notified of the issue by an outraged Austrian father, whose sister had given the LEGO set to his son last Christmas. The father returned the toy to the store. It could have ended there, but the Turkish Cultural Association petitioned LEGO to drop the play set from its line-up.

Sadly, like so many things these days, political correctness and overzealous idiots are trying to kill the things that we love. Don’t mess with Star Wars. In response to the accusations, LEGO released the following statement:

All LEGO Star Wars™ products are based on the movies of the Star Wars™ saga created by Lucasfilm. Jabba’s Palace appears in Star Wars™ Episode VI and appears in a famous scene on the planet Tatooine. The building is the palace of Jabba – a fictional movie character.

The picture shown above depicts the building from the movie scene. The LEGO designers try to reproduce all buildings, space ships and characters from the movies as close as possible when creating a new LEGO Star Wars™ product.

This is done to allow both young and old Star WarsTM fans to act out the scenes from the movies at home. The LEGO Star Wars™ product Jabba’s palace does not reflect any non-fictional buildings, people, or the mentioned mosque.

The LEGO minifigures shown on the box and found inside the box (Jabba, Salacious Crumb, Bib Fortuna, Gamorreanic Guard, Oola, Han Solo, Princess Leia disguised as Boushh, Chewbacca and B’omarr Monk) are all modeled after fictional characters from the movie.

The LEGO Group regrets that the product has caused the members of the Turkish cultural community to interprete it wrongly, but point out that the design of the product only refers to the fictional content of the Star Wars™ saga.

A few media have reported that the product is being discontinued due to the mentioned criticism. This is, however, not correct.

As a normal process products in the LEGO Star Wars™ assortment usually have a life-cycle of one to three years after which they leave the assortment and may be renewed after some years. The LEGO Star Wars™ product Jabba’s Palace 9516 was planned from the beginning to be in the assortment only until the end of 2013 as new exiting models from the Star Wars universe will follow.

LEGO has no plans to prematurely discontinue the playset, but you can always buy one for your collection, just in case.

[via Nerd Approved]

We’ve seen beautiful and grand LEGO Star Wars chess sets before, but Avi Solomon’s LEGO Star Wars micro chess set is unique in its simplicity and portability. With your help – and LEGO’s benevolence – it could become a real product.

Avi originally made the set as a birthday gift for his son. The board is made of a 16 x 16 baseplate with 1 stud plates on top. The pieces – Rebels and Empires, of course – all come from LEGO’s Battle of Hoth play set. To finish it off, Avi also made a carrying case as well as a couple of covers for the case.

If you liked Avi’s creation, check out more pictures of the set on Flickr and most importantly vote for it on Cuusoo. Who knows, it might become an official LEGO product. But the good thing about Avi’s idea is that unlike the other Cuusoo concepts we’ve seen, it’s relatively easy to replicate it because Avi was kind enough to share his parts list. So even if LEGO doesn’t approve of it you can just go and build one.

[via IT LEGO via Tiefighters]

The most hated Star Wars character ever is coming to a USB port near you. For reals this time.