The group of voice actors for the upcoming game will be joining some of the title's development team at the Best Buy in San Francisco (1717 Harrison Street) on Monday, Sept. 15 to celebrate the game's release.

The event will run from 7 p.m. to midnight and will also give gamers a change to play the game and have their photos taken with "some of their favorite Star Wars characters." That better be a confirmation of Wookie.

LucasArts, Sony Computer Entertainment America and Best Buy Invite San Francisco to Celebrate the Launch of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Party on Sept. 15 Kicks off New Chapter in the Star Wars Saga

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Sept. 5, 2008 – LucasArts, Sony Computer Entertainment America and Best Buy will commemorate the release of the upcoming videogame Star Wars: The Force Unleashed with an exclusive launch party, offering eager gamers a chance to celebrate the Saga and get their hands on the first copies of the game. The party, which will be held at the Best Buy store at 1717 Harrison St. in San Francisco on Monday, Sept. 15, will run from 7pm until midnight and will feature appearances by several very special guests, including:

- Sam Witwer, who plays Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice in the game and who also joined the cast of The CW’s “Smallville” this season; Adrienne Wilkinson, who plays Maris Brood, a dark and mysterious Jedi; and Cully Fredrickson, who plays Jedi Master Rahm Kota, a militant General who is the target of one of the Secret Apprentice’s early missions
- Executive Producer Haden Blackman, Art Director Matt Omernick, Lead Engineer Cedrick Collomb, Lead Content Designer John Stafford, Lead Systems Designer Rich Davis, and dozens of other members of The Force Unleashed development team at LucasArts

In addition, attendees will get a chance to play the full version of the game in advance and be able to get their photo taken with some of their favorite Star Wars characters.

An entirely new chapter in the Star Wars Saga, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed casts players as Darth Vader’s “Secret Apprentice” and promises to unveil new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy. The game’s expansive story is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. In it, players will assist Vader in his quest to rid the universe of Jedi – and face decisions that could change the course of their destiny.

Also, as I reported last week, tonight is the launch party for Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII at the Sony Metreon Center in San Francisco. The event goes from 6pm - 9pm and space is limited to 200 people.

And if that's not enough for you, our own Crecente will be attending and telling you all about his adventures at the Tecmo event in New York. Launch events, ho!

LOS ANGELES—Electronic Arts, which has had a studio in LA for years now, has learned a thing or two about Hollywood premieres. The game publisher hosted a world premiere launch party at the Hard Rock Café at the Universal Studios City Walk, just across the way from EB Games, which remained open an extra three hours to sell the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2, PSP and Nintendo DS game to die hard Simpsons fans and gamers.

Simpsons creators Albert Brooks and Matt Groening were on hand for the launch, as were the show writers who also worked on the game. EA had a yellow carpet set up outside of the Hard Rock for celebrities like Zach Levi ("Chuck"), Zach Ward (Postal) and Ian Ziering ("Beverly Hills 90210") to pose for pictures and talk to TV reporters. There was a live DJ and a Tommy's Burger's truck outside giving away free hamburgers, fries and sodas to everyone. Break dancers wearing yellow The Simpsons Game t-shirts performed outside for the crowd who didn't have access to the VIP party inside.

I had just attended the Walt Disney Home Entertainment Blu-ray Disc launch party for Pixar's Cars over at Social Hollywood on Sunset Strip and EA actually attracted more star power and had a much better organized event than even that Hollywood studio. But not everyone was impressed with the celebration.

"I guess it's how far the art of publicity and bullshit hype has come," said Matt Selman, co-executive producer and writer of "The Simpsons" and lead writer for The Simpsons Game. "They feel like having these young kids from the Disney Channel who I don't even recognize will help sales of the game. Anything to get yourself on those gossip pages, I guess."

Fellow "Simpsons" TV and game writer Tim Long was more diplomatic with his thoughts on the party.

"It's exhausting," said Long. "I don't know how Matt Groening does it. Just to be a little bit famous for one night, for two hours, it's killing me. There are just so many attractive young people milling about for this thing that I would have to wake up at 6 am on Tuesday mornings to write for. It just is mind-blowing that we actually got it done. I would really enjoy tonight if I were the type of person who could experience joy, but because I'm a writer, I can't. My emotions right now are neutral."

Both writers brought the wit fans have seen in "The Simpsons" TV show, movie (which hits DVD and Blu-ray Disc December 13) and EA's new game to every answer they gave me, as we talked upstairs in the VIP section of the party.

"The game allowed us to do a crazier story," said Selman. "It's like the biggest, most insane Halloween episode of the show we've ever done. It's almost like you made a Simpsons movie that had the rules of a Halloween episode with more ideas and more parodies."

Long said the fantastic thing about the game was that it has this epic scale that allowed us to explore the nooks and crannies of the Simpsons universe.

"With the TV show and actually even more so with the movie, there's a real discipline to follow in telling a story," said Long. "With The Simpsons Game we were able to go in different directions and we were able to explore peripheral characters, even when they're not interacting with The Simpsons family. For instance, I wrote some little seamlets that you can happen upon where you see Apu's wife talking to Chief Wiggum about immigration reform and they're having this crazy conversation that has nothing to do with anything you've seen before, but it just lends this incredible richness to the experience."

Although there have been many other Simpsons videogames over the years, dating back to the origins of the show, Selman said this is the first game that really originated from the show and then improved through the videogame company.

"All of the other games started at the videogame company and then the show did its best to make it good," said Selman. "That's why we call it The Simpsons Game. It's a blank slate. There's no clever subtitle like 'The Armageddon Agenda.' It's just they are in a game and realize it's hard to be in a game because there are alien invasions and all kinds of crazy things happening."

All four of the game's writers have grown up playing videogames, which helped when creating the concept for this game: The Simpsons become self-aware that they're in another bad videogame.

"The days I could spend all weekend playing Dig Dug on my Atari 2600 are sadly over," said Long, who's now married. "This game takes on videogames the same way 'The Simpsons' TV show takes on other aspects of pop culture. We would parody these games and they both make fun of and pay tribute to games. That's our way of saying don't sue us, we're actually paying homage to you."

Now that the game is out, the writers said they have plenty of fodder for additional games, and that "The Simpsons" TV series can easily go on to episode 500 or even 600. Next up for the writers is The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios, which opens in 2008 (and replaces the Back to the Future ride).

A line had already formed by the time I arrived with a sprinkling of fans, press and some people that looked like they perhaps worked for 2K. I sidled up and took up residence near my dear friend Scott C. Jones, writer at large and a few of his friends from that hi-toned Maxim magazine. We chatted charmingly until they finally let us in to the lushly appointed FELT club. The place didn't take much work to make it look like something out of Rapture and I was thrilled to finally see one of the life sized Big Daddy statues in person and even managed to snag him long enough for a personal photo. A few live models were also present dressed as Splicers and standing as still as wax figures although why they weren't running about disemboweling people was a bit beyond me. Saucy waitresses in ripped bloody pink dresses, dispensing shots of "Adam" (aka apple martini shots)out of giant syringes straight into people's waiting mouths. There were people dressed in all sorts of outfits ranging from the spiffy to the downright questionable (a stained Gamestop employee shirt? Now, really...).

I made my way upstairs to the second floor that was packed with multiple PCs and 360 all decked out with plasma screens and headphones so you could experience Rapture for yourself and these were full versions of the game mind you, not just the demo version. There were a lot of people checking the game out and one fellow in particular practically camped out on one machine all night. As I watched people rushing through the game, I hoped that when they got it home they would take the time to actually stop and look at all the detail the team had so lovingly lavished on the production.

One more more floor awaited me as I got in a small elevator in the back of the room and was let off in a room chock full of pool tables. I was fortunate enough to have a few shots (of booze, not pool) with the lovely Elizabeth Tobey of The Cult of Rapture website as well as Melissa Miller who you may remember from the "Hunting the Big Daddy" video plus several other folks who worked their asses off getting Bioshock to what it is today. Finally, the man of the hour Ken Levine arrived fresh from a raft of videos looking relaxed and fresh as anyone would be after giving birth to a giant Art Deco masterpiece of a game. We chatted for a bit and I congratulated him on a job well done and let him get back to his many adoring fans and co-workers.

All in all it was quite the swank affair and a perfect setting for the launch of such a great game (although the aquarium would have been genius). On they way out we got our obligatory swag bag featuring one of those fancy faceplates that are fetching such high prices on eBay, a hypodermic shaped pen a sweet t-shirt and a a really high end metal backed mousepad. No copy of the game unfortunately, but once I returned to The Big Apple, I proudly wore my "Welcome to Rapture" t-shirt to the store to pick up my Limited Edition that thankfully contained a fully in tact Big Daddy figurine. And now, as I finish writing this article, I finally get to relax and actually play the game after savoring the anticipation all day. And it's going to be sweet.