Star Wars The Force Awakens releases this week and like many I have had my tickets pre-ordered for a few months now. Thursday can't come soon enough but to keep us all in the mood until we see it, I'll be posting about Star Wars and Star Wars in gaming all week. So ignight your lightsabers and count those midichloreans because this Falcon has a new hyperdrive!

Jack and Rich reviewed EA's latest Star Wars Battlefront and I have to say that I entirely agree with how they look at the game. It's pretty. Very pretty and the music and sound effects are great. The shooting is also good but at the end of the day it didn't really do much for me. EA put forward a solid effort but after playing a few matches in the beta I wasn't interested it continuing with it. Which is good because my love for Star Wars may have seen me buy it at some point and I would have been seriously bummed for doing that. If team shooters are your thing then this is worth looking into but if they are not then you might just want to try a demo.

"Oh the weather outside is frightful,

but the Inn is so delightful.

With our decks all good to go,

Play Hearthstone! Play Hearthstone! Play Hearthstone!"

It's nice to see Blizzard getting in the holiday spirit with Hearthstone. Then again, it's not too hard getting excited for something that makes more money than Donald Trump. To celebrate Winter Veil Blizzard is replacing the standard Hero greeting with a special Winter Veil line as well as decorating the boards with a nice festive theme. They are teasing more to come, which might take the form of a fun Tavern Brawl or ... possibly ... some free stuff? If Winter Veil Claus brings us all a free pack or two that would really make the holiday bright!

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/19975320

The last part of League of Explorers just unlocked today making the whole adventure and card set available and now wonder what people are thinking of the new League cards? At first I was a bit harsh on the expansion as I felt it came quick on the hells of The Grand Tournament. But it's been a very fun set of boss fights and the new cards are all very interesting. I wonder for you what are the cards you are having the most fun playing with? I'd say the most immediately useful to me are the Jeweled Scarab and Tunnel Trogg. I've built a deck around Reno Jackson and whereas it's awesome to have it come out and take you back to a full 30, sometimes he doesn't always come around when I need him. So far I have access to the first two tiers and will finally unlock the last two when I grind enough quest gold for it. So far i've been entirely free to play, which is fun but I don't have access to everything quite as fast as others that bought the adventure outright.

http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Jeweled_Scarab
http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Tunnel_Trogg
http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Reno_Jackson

Epic just announced that it will be launching a new MOBA in 2016 called Paragon. From the gameplay trailer above it looks like it pulls some elements from Gears of War, Unreal Tournament and their iOS game Infinity Blade. If you are a MOBA fan 2016 will be a good year as 2K's Battleborn is coming out as well as the very popular League of Legends, DoTA 2 and Heroes of the Storm are getting more attention than ever.

Paragon will launch in 2016 to a paid early access and then later with a summer beta on PC and PS4.

You can file this in this "what the..." section but apparently the Super Mario Theme has official Nintendo sanctioned lyrics. See if we take our time machine and go back to 1985 Nintendo fans submitted lyrics for the theme song to a Japaneese radio contest. The winner was selected and the song pressed to a vinyl record that someone later recorded and posted above. Some awesome person at Destruction later translated the song to English and what follows will really give you a deeper understanding of Mario and the entire series.

Oh and the title of the song? Go Go Mario of course!

"Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
Go save Princess Peach! Go!
Today, full of energy, Mario runs
Today, full of energy, jumping!
Today, full of energy, searching for coins
Today, keep going, Mario!

Get a mushroom - it's Super Mario!
Get a flower - it's Fire Mario!

Goomba! Troopa! Buzzy Beetle! Beat them all!
Mario is always full of energy and strong!

[Spoken] The only one who can reverse the spell that has captured the Mushroom People is Princess Peach. But Princess Peach is hidden underground, in a far-off castle. Ah, the days of peace... if we could once more return to those days... to save Princess Peach and bring peace back to the Mushroom Kingdom, that is why Mario is on his journey today.

Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
Go and beat the Koopa tribe, go!
Today, full of energy, Mario runs
Today, full of energy, jumping!
Today, full of energy, searching for coins
Today, keep going, Mario!

Get a star - become invincible!
Quickly, go save Princess Peach!

Lakitu! Blooper! Cheep Cheep! Beat them all!
Mario is always full of energy and strong!

Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
He's made it to the castle and gets fireworks!
Lightly sidestepping the Hammer Bros.
Show the last of your power, Mario!
It's been a long journey but it's nearly at an end
You've done it, you've done it! You've defeated Bowser!

Princess Peach says "Thank you"
Mario's got a great big heart!

Mario's adventure is over for now, but
Mario's dream lives forever..."

http://www.destructoid.com/super-mario-bros-theme-has-lyrics-30498.phtml#skePQ8mQwzRvQ8Rd.99

Day of The Tentacle was one game in a batch of 90's adventure games I have fond memories for. It contained such a unique sense of humor and figuring out each puzzle felt like you were some kind of genius because most of them were so bizarre. On the heels of Grim Fandango Remastered, Double Fine has been spending time polishing up Day of the Tentacle for the same kind of HD treatment and will drop the game on March 2016 on PC, Mac, Vita and PS4.

Oh and Tim Schafer also noted that they will be relaunching Full Throttle Remastered in 2016 as well. So many remastered games, so little time.

"Now, over twenty years later, Day of the Tentacle is back in a remastered edition that features all new hand-drawn, high resolution artwork, with remastered audio, music and sound effects (which the original 90s marketing blurb described as ‘zany!’)

Players are able to switch back and forth between classic and remastered modes, and mix and match audio, graphics and user interface to their heart's desire. We’ve also included a concept art browser, and recorded a commentary track with the game’s original creators Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman, Larry Ahern, Peter Chan, Peter McConnell and Clint Bajakian.

Day of the Tentacle was Tim Schafer’s first game as co-project lead, and a much beloved cult classic! This special edition has been lovingly restored and remade with the care and attention that can only come from involving the game's original creators. It’s coming to Windows, OSX, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita early next year!"

In the wake of this years many gaming disappointments, community fiascos and the ever growing disappearance of the sacred dollar menu at restaurants many wonder about the future of gaming and culture. Will the industry see a new wave of games that captivate us in the same way as the ones that came before? Or are we to be held in a creative limbo where everything created is the exact same as the things that came before? In a world of sequels, reboots and DLC packs some developers are taking the gaming basketball down the court and jumping up for a slam dunk. I was able to experience one such effort in developer Travis Newman's brand new game Animator's Nightmare. After experiencing the game I asked him if I could tap his creative energies and he was gracious enough to let us in on his process and creative vision.

I encourage you to experience the game first hand and you can do so by communing with the link below.

http://nrccstudents.org/newmant/flash/final_newman.html

jdodson: So congratulations on the successful release of Animator’s Nightmare. We all know that lots of game development is crippled by slipped deadlines, bugs and unmet expectations. How were you able to release the game nearly bug-free so quickly?

Travis: Not only did it release on time, but I was able to launch a few days early! The final code wasn’t due to the publisher for another three days. But as for the bug-free quality of the game, I’d have to attribute that to myself. Being the smartest person in the room has it’s advantages.

jdodson: How is it working with Epic Software to license the Unreal Engine for the game? I know they recently switched to a new flat price model that seems to have gained them much attention from Indie Developers.

Travis: Epic are amazing people. Who knew that you could easily wrap a Flash SWF into the Unreal Engine? This is truly next-generation thinking on their parts.

jdodson: Animator's Nightmare starts with a view of someone sleeping and the player can clearly hear crickets in the background. Are we experiencing a creepy telepath watching the player from outside a window and then later uses his mental abilities to invade the Animator's mind?

Travis: You know, I had the idea of all the symbolism in my mind, but I think I’ll let the player decide on this one. I don’t want to tell you how you should feel about something, or what symbolism you should see in the game. If you think you’re playing as the animator, or if you think you’re playing as a telepath, it doesn’t matter to me as long as you love the game.

jdodson: After watching Indie Game the movie I realized a couple things. First off, I am just like them in that I am a guy that loves video games. I am also strange and quirky and can talk for hours about nerd things. Since I shared so much in common with the people in that movie that later went on to become quite rich doing the things they loved I expect to achieve that level of success. Since it will happen for me any moment you must feel similarly being a creative so I wonder what your plans are for spending your first million dollars? I don’t mean to say we will stop at just making a million dollars, I bet we will make like 50 million dollars I just mean what you will do with your first million?

Travis: The first mil goes toward fixing world hunger. That should only take a million to fix, right? Then, you’re right, I’ll make 50 easily. The next 49 is all yachts, planes, and mansions. I’m in talks with ISA to customize a Granturismo already.

jdodson: With the social and cultural impact of Animator's Nightmare being so large have you considered releasing the game as Open Source?

Travis: I had no idea how huge it would be. With the next release, I’m definitely shipping the source. The next release will be transcendent, genre-defining art. I’m just worried about making it too hard for future developers to follow this up.

jdodson: So the first place where the game started becoming truly great for me is the first time I had to jump over the first static alien graphic. Something about pressing any key to jump and seeing the character fly upwards was magical. It’s as if my spirits were lifted with the key press. As you consider game design elements, how do you try to imbibe these emotional elements as a gift to the player through your art?

Travis: Look, I don’t pretend to be a master at evoking emotion. I don’t have to pretend. You’ve seen it. Not many people have been animators before, and I wanted to really make the player feel like they’re the animator, trapped in their animation software, and being attacked by their former creations. It’s terrifying, and if the player isn’t terrified, what’s the point?

jdodson: The moment in Animator's Nightmare where we all approached the dancing baby is iconic. I think it really allowed generations of gaming history to payoff in a way I haven’t experienced before. What aspects of game history influenced you here?

Travis: Ah, yes. The dancing baby. An homage to the dancing baby gif of the 90’s, and a tribute to my friend’s son. But it takes on whole new meaning when the baby is a danger, and must be jumped over. To be honest, game history didn’t influence me in this moment; I’m making *new* history.

jdodson: I’ve played Animator's Nightmare for around 36 hours and I am still not done with it! I appreciate how much time and effort went into creating a game that rivals Skyrim in terms of hours spent. How long did you target the single player campaign to take the average person to beat and what are your thoughts on other games that simply offer a couple hours of gameplay?

Travis: This is the beauty of the game, and not to spoil it for you but… the game never ends. You can only ever escape by being killed by the former animations. It’s a statement on how stress affects us all, and the inevitable end that we all must face.

jdodson: Fallout 4 was panned by many for it’s lack of graphical fidelity. The level of clarity and artistic vision demonstrated in Animator's Nightmare is truly breathtaking and seen more so when you jump over a chicken with a plain paint bucket grey background and a Microsoft Paint styled window in view. I can’t help but this this style is a statement but I wish you could elaborate more here?

Travis: Fallout 4 is terrible. Weird physics glitches, and many textures that just look jagged up close. That grey background you mention: did you see any texture issues? Of course not.

jdodson: Is there anything you want us to say before we wrap things up here?

Travis: Two things: First, why are you even reading this interview when you could be playing my game? Second, in case anyone read this far without realizing, all of this is for fun. I made a game for a class and Jon and I thought a faux interview would be funny. Any HR employee reading this considering whether to hire me, I promise I’m actually a very nice person.

Tim Schafer and Double Fine are at it again with a new Crowdfunding campaign to launch the development of Psychonauts 2. As seen in the video above they are enlisting the help of many people associated with the original game to cook up what looks to be a nice follow up to the original. The video is very fun and features a cameo by Valve overlord Gabe Newell and writer Eric Wolpaw that is work the price of admission alone.

To date Double Fine seems to have navigated a few Crowdfunding snafus with Broken Age and Spacebase DF9. I can't speak to Spacebase but I found Broken Age to be an incredibly fun game even though the funding efforts were a bit shaky at times. To address this they are not only raising money through Crowdfunding but also providing some themselves as well as working with a funding partner. Double Fine is also Crowdfunding this effort through their own crowd funding site called Fig. Fig allows people a choice of backing it traditionally or becoming an investor. The investor payback model is interesting and I suggest you take a look at it. I like the idea of supporting a game such that you could get a bit of the money back but so far, I am not sure what games have made this model work yet. That said it's a cool idea and I am interested to see what comes of it.

Are you excited for Psychonauts 2 and does this seem like something you are interested in backing?

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/psychonauts-2

Mark Hamill is one of the many actors that will appear in Star Citizen, the extremely well funded Kickstarter Space simulation game that has raised an estimated $99 million dollars with pre-launch crowdfunding. Apparently Star Citizen is bringing on some very talented actors such as Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson & John Rhys Davies to help tell the games story. Hamill is no slouch to lending his voice and acting abilities to gaming as my first memory of him outside Star Wars* was Adrian Ripburger in Full Throttle and went on to later star in Wing Commander and the voice of the Joker in the Batman comics as well as video games. In this interview with PC Gamer he talks about Star Citizen, Wing Commander and Star Wars. He also drops some hints at some possible Force Awakens secrets to do with his character but nothing by way of spoilers so his NDA payment is secure.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/squadron42

* I also have an early memory of Hamill post Star Wars in a film called Time Runner. I had a VHS tape of it I borrowed from some friends and watched it as much as I could before I had to return it. If anyone has this on VHS and wants to clear out some space, send it my way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Xzu_Nfysc

EA is giving away the classic BioWare RPG Jade Empire so head over to Origin to redeem it while supplies last! While the digital supplies last. So basically until they run out of keys? Or does it expire? They don't really say so just click that link down there.

https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/free-games/on-the-house

One of the retro karts I picked up as this years Portland Retro Gaming Expo was Kirby's Dreamland on Gameboy. I have fond memories of Kirby on NES and since I wanted to pickup a Gameboy Advance at this years PRGE I decided to also get some classic Gameboy titles such as Metroid Return of Samus and Kirby's Dreamland.

A week ago I snapped Kirby's Dreamland in my Advance and started it up. Immediately I was reminded of how much fun Kirbys Adventure is on the Nintendo as it's nearly perfectly translated here to Gameboy. The play control is great and the platforming is super smooth. Kirby can suck in enemies and air that he can then shoot out as a projectile weapon as well as suck in air to float around the screen. Kirby may very well be one of the most overpowered characters in a platformer from his default set of abilities alone. So overpowered that in my first session I was able to complete the game with only dying two times. I bet with a couple more play sessions I could beat the entire game with only one life as the game doesn't really offer much of challenge. That said the game is fun and well worth the hour or so I spent playing it. The game does contain a cheat code you learn at the end of the game that unlocks a harder mode which I haven't tried but does promise an increase in difficulty. Kirby's Dreamland is a short Gameboy classic that doesn't offer much challenge but lots of fun and engaging platforming.