Nerd Rant: The Super-Awesome Wii Star Wars Video Game That Could Have Been




Since Disney bought Lucasfilm back in 2012, tidbits about unfinished Lucasfilm projects--particularly video games--have been slowly coming to the surface. Earlier this week, a bitter bit of news arrived for those of us who are both Star Wars fans and avid Nintendo Wii owners: Somewhere out there, there's a complete first-person Star Wars video game that allows players to use Wii Motion Plus controls to pilot Star Wars vehicles (such as X-Wings and Speeder bikes) and engage in lightsaber duels, but this game will probably never see the light of day. Oh, the pain, the pain ....

Wii had a good selection of Star Wars games, such as the Force Unleashed titles and the Lego Star Wars series, but a first-person Motion Plus game set in the Star Wars universe would have been the absolute best. Read on for more details about this chapter of Star Wars video gaming that will never be.

I've been reading news about the unreleased Wii Star Wars game on IGN, which broke the story a few days ago. The game was supposed to be called Star Wars Rogue Squadron: Rogue Leaders, and it was being developed for Lucasfilm by a gaming studio named Factor 5.

According to IGN, "Star Wars Rogue Squadron: Rogue Leaders was revealed as one of several cancelled projects by former Factor 5 president Julian Eggebrecht. The Wii game was a compilation that featured modified versions of Star Wars Rogue Squadron: Rogue Leader and Star Wars Rogue Squadron: Rebel Strike, along with additional content. ... Rogue Leaders featured a new graphics engine running at 60 frames-per-second and supported multiple control schemes (including optional support for the Wii Wheel to drive an X-Wing or Speeder bike with the Balance Board pedals used to control speed). Factor 5 also created a lightsaber dueling game using 1:1 control via Nintendo's Wii Motion Plus peripheral."

In IGN's interview with Eggebrecht, he said that the Wii game was largely finished, so finished that footage of the game in action has been found and posted on IGN. Unfortunately, a variety of financial issues kept it from seeing the light of day, and whether Rogue Leaders--or some other Star Wars game like it--will appear on the Wii U remains uncertain.

Financial issues aside, I just don't understand why Rogue Leaders was never released. The outstanding Red Steel 2 game proved that a Motion Plus-enhanced Star Wars game could work, so why Lucasfilm didn't push this ahead at all leaves me baffled. At the very least, they could have released ports of Atari's vector graphic-based Star Wars arcade games from the '80s with a Wiimote control scheme that would match the games' H-shaped yoke controls. They also could have ported Sega's Star Wars Trilogy Arcade game to the Wii, particularly since that game had first-person lightsaber duels that looked similar to Rogue Leaders.


Fighting AT-ATs, vector style: Atari's Empire Strikes Back arcade game.


With any luck, interest in the Star Wars franchise will gain enough momentum through the Rebels TV show and the highly anticipated Episode VII movie that the Wii U will get a Star Wars game that utilizes both the motion controls and the game pad. May the Force be with Wii U!





Comments

  1. BrianOctober 17, 2014 at 7:03 AM

    Dude. Don't even tell me about stuff like this, it's just upsetting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TimOctober 17, 2014 at 4:43 PM

      Sorry about that. My inner, rant-prone voice just couldn't help itself.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Art of Tron: Uprising (Part 1 of 4): Characters

Image
This month marks the one year anniversary of the cancellation of Tron: Uprising , which aired on Disney XD for 19 episodes. Set between the events of Tron and Tron: Legacy , Uprising chronicled the events shortly after Clu’s rise to power within the stand-alone Grid created by Kevin Flynn. Personally, I think that Tron: Uprising got a raw deal from Disney. It’s a fantastic addition to the Tron saga that went on to win both Emmy and Annie Awards , yet Disney clearly had other priorities and was willing to toss Uprising aside without so much as an official cancellation notice. Even to this day, Uprising has yet to be released on DVD or Blu-ray and I’m wondering if it ever will. In honor of this amazing animated series that was cut down in its prime, I have decided to do something that Disney won’t. Since there will never be an official Tron: Uprising art book, I have searched across the Internet to find a selection of art from Uprising that I can share here on my blog with
Read more

FOUND: Mechanical Shark from Universal Jaws Theme Park Ride

Image
When the Universal Studios Theme Park in Florida shut down its Jaws ride back in January 2012, Jaws fans everywhere were devastated. Yet even though this part of the Jaws franchise is no longer operational, some of its sharks are swimming around out there … including places such as Frederick, Maryland. A few days ago, I was contacted by a fellow Jaws fan named John Ryan, asking me if I knew anything specific regarding the sharks from the Universal Jaws ride. He was asking because he thought he found one and is trying to verify its authenticity. We spoke on the phone and exchanged a few emails, and here’s what he told me about his find: “I've been collecting Jaws memorabilia for decades and when I found this incredibly rare gem sitting in a backyard in Frederick, Maryland, I wondered about its connection to the state. The current homeowners said the shark was already there when they purchased the property. They also told me it had been the subject of neighborhood rumor for y
Read more

Machine Robo's Magnificent Robot Combiners

Image
I don't collect Transformers merchandise, but I see articles and advertisements about it when I browse through Japanese robot toy sites. From what I can gather, one of the latest product lines for Transformers is called "Combiner Wars" , a line that consists of five or six transforming robot toys that combine into one bigger robot. Combiner robot toys have been around for a long time, and Transformers had quite a few of them even back in the '80s. Yet of the many combiner robot toys I've seen over the years, the ones that have consistently impressed me were the ones released by Bandai under the Machine Robo line. Whereas other robot toy lines are stuck in the novelty of combining smaller toys into a bigger toy, Machine Robo has used the concept of combination to promote creative play. Read on for a review of how Machine Robo has built upon its combiner toys throughout the years.
Read more