There's a lot up in the air.
Following our behind-closed-doors demo of Star Wars 1313, Anthony and I looked at each other and knew that we just saw a Next Generation game. Demoed on a PC, 1313 was the troll of E3 2012.
We know that the Xbox 360 couldn't run what we saw. We have doubts that LucasArts has the time or manpower to learn the Cell processor as much as they'd need to run the game on the PS3.
And of course, it didn't help that the developers specifically thanked Nvidia for their next-generation Keplar graphics cards. There was no way we weren't looking at the future of video gaming. And the future? It looks really pretty.
The first half of our demo centered around the way LucasArts, along with LucasFilm and Industrial Light and Magic, was making a game that was more cinematic and aesthetically impressive than anything we'd seen before. Naturally, this meant scanning in the facial and body movements from live actors.
Following that, we were shown how these actors appeared in-game, complete with retinal movements and facial twitches. A cutscene showed the player and another bounty hunter descending into Coriscant on their way to level 1313. Another ship latched onto them and attacked.
Here, the player-controlled bounty hunter engaged in some shooting and platforming reminiscent of the Uncharted series. Leaping from one smoking heap of a starship onto another, the bounty hunter lost his grip and barely clung to the broken wing of the enemy ship.
These were easily the most impressive graphics I had seen at E3, but at what cost? Smoke, fire, explosions, and particle effects all looked fantastic. The game sounded amazing and Naughty Dog has proven that cinematic action can be really engaging too. Still, so much is up in the air. We'll deliver any news on Star Wars 1313 once we learn more.
