• Title is Sith Lords
• Totally revamped graphics engine
• Enhanced item upgrading sytem
• You're the last known Jedi from the Jedi Order
• You can influence party member Light/Dark alignment
• Swoop Racing, Pazaak, and the shooter mini-games are back

This fall, LucasArts will bring the explosive action of clone commando missions to life in their upcoming title, Star Wars: Republic Commando. Del Rey Books will also spotlight these hard-hitting soldiers in an original story, Star Wars: Republic Commando: Hard Contact, a new paperback novel written by Karen Traviss.

On a mission to sabotage a nanovirus research facility on a Separatist-held planet, four clone troopers operate under the very noses of their enemies. The commandos are outnumbered and outgunned, deep behind enemy lines with no backup -- and working with strangers instead of trusted teammates. Matters don't improve when Darman, the squad's demolitions expert, gets separated from the others during planetfall. Even Darman's apparent good luck in meeting the Jedi Padawan Etain Tur-Mukan vanishes once Etain admits to her woeful inexperience.

For the separated clone commandos and stranded Jedi, a long, dangerous journey lies ahead, through hostile territory brimming with Trandoshan slavers, Separatists, and suspicious natives. A single misstep could mean discovery ... and death. It's a virtual suicide mission for anyone -- anyone except Republic Commandos.

Bruno R. Marcos has just released his new standalone game, The Battle of Yavin, which uses the Truevision 3D engine. Play as Luke Skywalker in the battle of Yavin. Assault and destroy the empire's Death Star. Fight in space, on the Death Star's surface, make the trench run, and try not to get blasted by Darth Vader's Ship. Six stages of intense action. Did I mention this game is free?

http://www.bruneras.com/

Lassev has completed a tutorial on creating rotating doors in Jedi Academy over at Map-Review.com . The tutorial carefully guides you through the process (which requires a little knowledge of using BehavEd), and includes areaportal support for the doors.

The tutorial is avaliable here:

http://www.map-review.com/index.php?page=tutorial_view&id=25

The tutorial can also be found at Lassev's personal site, which also has details of his upcoming SP project for Jedi Academy:

http://www.student.oulu.fi/~lvaarisk/

Clone wars is now going to be a Multiplayer mod for Jedi Academy. The experience will be built around the idea of playing as characters from the clone wars in the appropriate environments. We are currently in the process of producing about 5 player models and 3 maps, as well as one completed duel map. There will probably be about 20 custom, cel-shaded models included in the mod and as many maps as we can muster up.

The style of play will be that you choose a class (character) and get right into some cool battles from the clone wars. We're playing around with the idea of possible space or underwater maps, but it's by no means sure yet. Expect to see locations such as Yavin 4, Muunilist, Ilum, Rattatak and many more, and all your favourite Star Wars: Clone Wars characters.

We do still need modelers and there are other possible job openings. The more staff we have the better the mod will be and the sooner it'll be finished. There's gonna be some pretty cool features in this mod, we just need all hands on deck to be able to achieve them sooner! So if you'd like to help out, come on over to the forums, go to the applications section and let us know what you can do. We're ALWAYS on the lookout for more staff.

Due to the huge success of Star Wars: KOTOR on the Xbox, rumors have it that Microsoft is very interested in acquiring the Canadian developer to make games exclusively to the Xbox. While BioWare is well known on the Xbox and PS2, they are a prime PC developer. The rumors also state that if this acquisition is to take place, Microsoft will do so at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo [E3 2004] in Los Angeles, California. This would help Microsoft greatly to get more RPGs on their system that people will play. While this will not help Microsoft's current status in the current console race, this will be effective when the next gen of consoles start to come out somewhere between late 2005 and early 2007.