Tag Archives: star wars

Never Tell Me The Odds.

I had to disable Jetpack because it wasn’t letting people post comments. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Rear Admiraless Josh asks

In The Empire Strikes Back, there’s a bit where the Falcon goes into an asteroid field pursued by a bunch of TIE fighters, and they have to avoid a load of rocks flying around very fast in close proximity. It’s what a lot of people think of asteroid fields as being like, but logically that’s can’t be right, as the rocks would just bash each other into sand over the course of a couple of centuries. So what is the inside of an asteroid field really like? What is the largest thing you can swing around while reasonably expecting not to hit anything?

Ooooh, “rocks just bash each other into sand over the course of a couple of centuries” is so close, and yet so far.

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Petroglyph.

Gnomishlich asks

Could I ask your thoughts on Petroglyph Studios, specifically Universe at War: Earth Assault? I’ve always thought of it as ahead of its time, but bogged down by implementation issues. your thoughts?

Oh. Petroglyph. Those guys.

For those not in the know, Petroglyph was formed by the last group of Westwood refugees back in 2003 when EA turned off the life support that was keeping the zombified husk of the studio alive and merged what was left with EA Pacific. Westwood were responsible for a couple of minor PC hits you may have heard of, such as Command & Conquer, Red Alert and all that jazz. In theory Petroglyph were well placed to carry on where Westwood had left off, immediately beginning work on two RTSes that eventually came to market in 2006 and 2007. But it didn’t quite turn out that way.

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Thoughts: Republic Commando.

I’ve come away from Republic Commando with mixed feelings. It’s getting on for seven years old at this point, and while it was overlooked at release it’s since garnered a reputation as something of an underrated classic. I can certainly see why. Republic Commando isn’t quite unique, but I’m only aware of a single other game that even tries to do the simplified dynamic squad command that RC pulls off so well (Brothers in Arms). At the same time this is practically the only thing Republic Commando has going for it, as otherwise it’s a remarkably by-the-numbers FPS shooter.

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