LucasArts and TT Games Bring Back the Award-Winning LEGO®® Star WarsTM Series with LEGO®® Star WarsTM III The Clone WarsTM

LONDON, UK – 8th February, 2010 – LucasArts and TT Games today announced the development of LEGO® Star Wars™ III: The Clone Wars™. The next chapter in the award-winning LEGO® Star Wars videogame franchise, LEGO® Star Wars III: The Clone Wars will combine the best elements of all previous LEGO® games while adding brand new gameplay to make it the most action-packed LEGO® videogame to date. Developed by the same team at Traveller’s Tales that created the critically acclaimed LEGO® Star Wars and LEGO® Indiana Jones™ series, the game will ship on the Wii™, Nintendo DS™, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, and Xbox 360®videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows in the Autumn of 2010.

“LucasArts continues to set the bar for next-generation family entertainment,” said Darrell Rodriguez, president of LucasArts. “The LEGO® Star Wars franchise is a massive hit with fans, bringing in sales of over 20 million units worldwide. We’re thrilled to extend this experience to LEGO® Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, delivering the humour and fun players expect from this award winning franchise.”

“LucasArts is an amazing partner, and working with them on the next iteration of the LEGO® Star Wars series continues to be a great experience,” said Tom Stone, director at TT Games. “The team at TT is working hard at making this simply the best LEGO® game ever with all new gameplay and features never before seen in a LEGO® game.”

LEGO® Star Wars III: The Clone Wars will include all the characters from both seasons of the hugely popular animated television series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, as well as some fan-favourite characters from the beloved theatrical Star Wars Saga. The game will feature brand new battle modes, giving players unique, head-to-head combat and an upgraded level builder, allowing the creation of customized bases and in-game battlefields. Play either as a Jedi or Separatist with all-new character abilities, such as Squad command, Lightsaber slicing, Lightsaber jumps, long distance Jedi attacks and Grapple Tie-Ups, all within a new, easy-to-navigate hub.

For more information on LEGO® Star Wars III: The Clone Wars please visit www.legostarwars.com.

About LucasArts

LucasArts, a division of Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd., is a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software worldwide for video game console systems, computers and the Internet. Based in San Francisco, Calif., as well as on the Internet at www.lucasarts.com, LucasArts was created in 1982 by George Lucas to provide an interactive element to his vision of a state-of-the-art, multifaceted entertainment company.

About TT Games

TT Games aims to become a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment for young gamers and their families. Based in the UK, the Group incorporates the TT Games Publishing organisation with world-renowned developer Traveller’s Tales, and subsidiary studio TT Fusion. The first title to come from the TT Games partnership was the award winning LEGO Star Wars: The Videogame, which won over audiences both young and old alike, achieving critical acclaim rarely matched for a title aimed at children. For more information, visit www.ttgames.com

About The LEGO Group

The LEGO Group (www.LEGO.com) is a privately held, family-owned company, based in Billund, Denmark. It was founded in 1932 and today the group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of play materials for children. The LEGO Group is committed to the development of children’s creative and imaginative abilities through its products, which can be purchased in more than 130 countries.

LucasArts and the LucasArts logo are registered trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. © 2010 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. and ® or TM as indicated. All rights reserved. LEGO, the LEGO logo and the Minifigure are trademarks of The LEGO Group. © 2010 The LEGO Group.

Also, this weeks Deal of the week will net you Star Wars The Force Unleashed DLC: The Jedi Temple Mission Pack, for 400($5). Usually 800($10), this is a saving of 50%! Get it now!

I also talk about it in our podcast, that will be posted shortly.

Let me start by saying the people at LucasArts are super nice, and opened the doors to all with access to the area after 4 today. And again they were super nice getting us into the demo.
It was a nice long demo which included the new trailer but more importantly GAMEPLAY.

The game is running on LIVE server.

We saw some Bounty Hunter action, some Smuggler action, and some two person group action(Sith and Bounty Hunter)

The game looks real good, and pretty far along. The art direction is very good and IMO a good choice as it allows for some great draw distances and other goodness(ie explosions, smoke and blaster/saber glows)

The bounty hunter is fairly straight forward, long rage attacks and a sick close combat flame thrower.

Smuggler is on the other hand very interesting, still long range, but no armor means you gotta use the new cover system. An awesome first for MMO’s and it seemed to work really well. Also the smuggler can kick at close range which then opens the enemy up to blaster shots.

But the coolness comes in the 2 player action, both players have responses when playing so the quests can be very very different each and every time. Working together is straight forward as any other MMOs.

The next coolness of the demo was the end of the two player boss battle against a jedi. When the jedi was killed you could loot his lightsaber amongst other stuff, and then DUEL WEILD!!!!

Other highlights were the HUD, its pretty much all on the bottom, you got your actionbars, minimap, player info, and XP bar. I thought it was a tad bulky and had some spots that weren’t really being used.

Overall its awesome looking and they said everything we know and love in MMOs will be there plus more!!

Oh and we got AWESOME SHIRTS!!!!!!

And before you all ask, there are no pictures, no video.  I hear rumors someone got video.  If they did they shouldn’t have been allowed to go to E3, behind closed doors the camera go off, its like wearing pants in public, you just do it, unless someone tell you not to.