Yet, even after finding a career as a successful voice actor in cartoons and video games, Hamill has never voiced Skywalker in any of the Star Wars games. But why?

"When I played Luke from 1977 to 1983, games were in their infancy," the actor said in a recent interview with PC Zone. "I talked about turning a page and starting a new chapter. Those movies had a beginning, middle and end, and everyone sort of moved on... I don't really know how to answer that, because I've never been asked to do it. That's fine, though."

The 58-year-old Hamill concedes that he is too old for the role of young Skywalker. "If you're playing Luke the way he was in the films — from his late teens to mid-'20s — I've outgrown the role." But Hamill certainly hasn't outgrown an older Skywalker — certainly ripe material for a game.

Hamill most recently voiced the role of the Joker in Batman: Arkham Asylum, the same character he brought to life in Batman: The Animated Series.

PC News: Mark Hamill 'never asked' to voice Star Wars game [CVG] [Pic]

The video's creator, YouTube's kalleanka71 apparently is a Swede who enjoys doing these kinds of mashups. And he does them very well. This is his latest (released Dec. 25). Others include Dallas, Airwolf, both a Rebel Alliance and Imperial version, and a head-asploding MacGyver that simply must be seen.

Yes, the Spike Video Game Awards, held on Saturday night, brought the new shit like it was June and this was an E3 of old, with five games making their public debut at the show. For those who missed our at-the-moment weekend coverage, those five games are:

Batman: Arkham Asylum 2
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
Green Day: Rock Band
Deadliest Warrior: The Game
True Crime

That wasn't all. We also got our first look at a number of 2010's biggest titles (albeit ones we already know about), namely:

Halo: Reach
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Medal Of Honor
Spec Ops: The Line
Crackdown 2
UFC 2010 Undisputed
Tron: Evolution

Phew. While nothing above was truly surprising, it's still a lot more stuff coming out of a weekend in December than you'd otherwise have expected. Hence the recap.

You can catch the trailers and reveals here, here and here, while you'll find the full run-down of the night's winners (remember this was, before it became a pre-Christmas marketing event, an awards show) right here.

However, the fan site Battlefront3.net noticed, got in touch with Marazzo, and lo and behold, the guy replied. And confirmed to them that the game is in in development. Here's his quote to BF3.Net:

Thanks for getting in touch. The Original Title was Battlefront 3 but it evolved into Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption. However Battlefront 3 is also in development. It was by far the most fun and coolest casting I ever worked on.

What's more, the site member who contacted Marazzo said "he may be able to dig me up some Battlefront 3 storyboards, by the end of the week!"

Very interesting indeed. I've emailed a contact with LucasArts to apprise them of this rumor and ask if they want to comment. Anything they say that's updateable will go back here.

Battlefront 3 is in Development says Battlefront 3 Actor [Battlefront3.net via VG247]

The title was submitted for classification way back in June, and earned the game a Mature rating (for "fantasy violence"). Interestingly, it's listed as an internal Lucasarts project, with Activision down as publisher.

And it's not just the Classification Board making stuff up; "Star Wars: Legends" also appears as a recent filing with the US Patent Office.

A Star Wars game we've never heard of, developed by Lucasarts, mature content...anyone would think this was the game due to be revealed at the Spike VGAs later this month.

[thanks Brodie!]

Twitter maniac and former Kotaku guest editor Geoff Keighley is at it again, teasing more important goings-on happening at this year's spike TV Video Game Awards on December 12th. We've got the Halo: Reach premiere, and now a brand new game in the Star Wars franchise.

There's a teaser vid posted over at GameTrailers, but it doesn't do more than tease us with footage from older titles. Is it a new Battlefront? A new X-Wing game? Masters of Teras Kasi 2? We'll find out on December 12th.

We've mentioned it before, but now it's finally hitting store shelves, and we've got packaging images. While we still haven't received the definitive Jedi lightsaber battling game for the Nintendo Wii, Power A brings us what could be the next best thing. The original dark lord of the Sith extends his weapon in a challenge to all that would have their motion tracked. The fully-licensed Vader bust has a slot that fits your standard, first-party Wii sensor bar, filling a hole in your entertainment center that you never knew existed.

The Darth Vader Wii Sensor Bar holder should be available at Amazon.com and Toys R Us locations across the country. There is, unfortunately, much fear in the price. $39.99 is a bit steep for a thing that holds another, more important thing, even if it does look rather cool.

For many Star Wars fans, this is the end-all and be-all of character classes. The Jedi Knights are the warrior monks of the Republic, transforming combat into an art form and using their powers to impress their sisters the ladies. A serene, highly-skilled and extremely powerful force striving for peace in the universe, I've always found them a bit boring. Give me a charming smuggler any day.

Find out more about the Jedi Knights at BioWare's official Star Wars: The Old Republic web page. May the force be...you know.

"If you recall, Empire Strikes Back was the darker chapter and that is how we designed the ME2 story and experience: to try and make the player reflect on the challenges of the character." Continuing, he tells IGN, "If you put ME2 next to the original it is definitely a darker, harder game." Zeschuk is reiterating what http://kotaku.com/5353339/mass-effect-2-is-more-than-what-meets-our-eyes">he told Kotaku back in September.

The second Empire Strikes Back took the Star Wars characters and put them in the worst situation imaginable — well, not as bad as putting them in the newer Star Wars movies, but still pretty bad.

Mass Effect 2 picks up "soon after" the first game as Commander Shepherd is crewing up "a dozen of the galaxy's most dangerous operatives" just as a new menace threatens to wipe out the humans.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Mass Effect 2: New Details Revealed [IGN via VG247]

According to DarthHater, the terms (above) state

:• You acknowledge and agree that all points acquired during the Game Program are non-refundable and have no monetary value.

• You acknowledge and agree that all items acquired for points during the Game Program are non-refundable and non-tradable.

• You acknowledge and agree that [BioWare] reserves the right to add or remove points to your account at any time and without warning.

• You acknowledge and agree that [BioWare[ reserves the right to change/add/remove points rewarded in the Game store at any time and without warning.

Sounds pretty definite that some sort of Old Republic game store is at least being pondered for The Old Republic. This is language for a testing program of course, and DarthHater points out BioWare could be testing out how the system works by deliberately glitching it, thus requiring this kind of protection in the TOS.

But, DarthHater points out, nothing confirms that the currency used in this store is pegged to anything of real world value. They point out the TOS' statement that Bioware retains the right to "add or remove points from your account without warning," whereas Microsoft's Xbox Live TOS only reserves the right to "cancel suspend or ... limit access" if fraud is suspected. "This would suggest that these [Bioware] points are connected to purely in-game actions, more similar to "gold", "isk" or "Credits" then something purchased with real money."

Either way, it's an interesting find. It's still worth reminding that this is not final code at all, just a testing program.

Could Star Wars: The Old Republic have BioWare Bucks? [Darth Hater via MMORPG.com]

Tight timeframes ended up in a rushed development cycle, in turn resulting in a game that had huge chunks missing from the final, playable product. Chunks that coders later found out were included on the disc, albeit in a rough, unfinished form.

So some modders took it upon themselves to yank out that code, polish it up, drop it into the final game and give us all the version of KOTOR 2 that developers Obsidian originally intended.

Last week, the team at Deadly Stream announced that their work was done, and that if you own a copy of KOTOR 2, you can download a playable version of the restored content.

I haven't done so myself because, well, I banished all memory of KOTOR 2 some time ago. Anyone that does have a copy lying around, grab a copy from the link below, let us know how it all goes.

TSL_Restored_Content_mod ver1.4 "READY" [Deadly Stream, via Eurogamer]

Looks awful. Though, with that GIANT LIGHTSABER, we're sure a few will be scooped up by the Old Republic art team.

Vader Wii Sensor Bar Impedes Our Quest for Social Normalcy [Gizmodo]

The shell of the droid is a modified, improved version of one of those R2-D2 coolers. But the inside consists of a projector (with video coming out of the correct "help me Obi-Wan Kenobi" hole), along with eight video game consoles. Eight. The pic is a blurry, but we can make out Dreamcast, N64, SNES, PlayStation, Genesis, NES and...yeah, maybe an Xbox and an old Atari as well.

Custom R2-D2 Video Game Console [TheForce & Popular Science, via Gizmodo]

For a tie-in with Joe Schreiber's upcoming book of the same name - which is about zombies in the Star War universe - Star Wars Galaxies will in October drop an update called Death Troopers, which sounds like an excuse to drop you and your friends in a room and have them kill a bunch of "horrific new enemies with a frightening affliction".

So, yeah, zombies.

Still won't make Galaxies fun, but it'll at least make it good for a laugh.

This might be a reskin of the game, but going back to Hoth, one of the trilogy's most iconic settings, even in that quasi-Isaac from Dead Space getup has me intrigued. At least intrigued enough to fire up my old copy and toss around some palette-swap Wampas, I mean, Wookiees as practice.

Exclusive Ultimate Sith Gameplay [Gametrailers]

Oh, sorry, I just called it a "mod". It's not just a "mod", it's a total conversion, meaning the entire game - from handling to graphics to the menus - is being overhauled and given a Star Wars theme.

Galactic Warfare is the work of German modding powerhouse the blackMonkeys, and you can also check out some screens below.

[Galactic Warfare @ blackMonkeys]

Imagine a normally respectable Kotaku reporter badgering a LucasArts PR man: "But I want to fire the ion cannon!" Worse, imagine that turning into: "I'm going to go play a game over there [PixelJunk Shooter,] but can you get to the part where I can shoot the ion cannon and let me know? I'll come back over."

Happily, the nice LucasArts man at the Sony showcase event I attended late last month in New York did as I asked and let me fire the ion cannon from the surface of the ice planet Hoth, as rendered on a PlayStation Portable. Thus, Star Destroyers were made to explode.

That's the hook: Ground-to-space battles on the go.

What Is It?
Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron is a PSP and DS game coming this fall from LucasArts, developed by Rebellion and n-Space, respectively. True to the series, it is designed for multiple players to adopt the roles of Star Wars heroes and bit-players, grab any franchise vehicle they can find on the battlefield (think Battlefield) and wage war. Levels tend to be shaped for arena combat and the game design, as ever, is geared for a multiplayer experience, though one of the talking points for Elite Squadron is that a satisfying single-player campaign will be included.

What We Saw
I played the Hoth level of the PSP edition of the game during a Sony event held in New York City in late July. What I experienced didn't lead me with different conclusions than what Crecente wrote about in June, so for the basics, do check out his earlier preview.

How Far Along Is It?
The game is set for fall release, but as Crecente noted back in June, it feels like it's just about done.

What Needs Improvement?
Staying On Target: On the ground, with just one analog stick, it's still tricky to shoot who you intend to shoot and to not get beaten by a guy who is within arm's reach. Running and looking are both mapped to the left stick, an eternal PSP complication.

What Should Stay The Same?
Outer Space: Flying a snow-speeder is beginning to feel old. But flying an X-Wing is a joy that doesn't spoil. Why is that? The outer-space fracas between my fighter and some shielded Star Destroyers was a blast. Fighters can attack capital ships, land in them, have their troops lay siege. It's fun. That's been in Battlefronts before. But what's fresher is...

Space Vs. Ground: Those capital ships can fire at ground forces. I flew my X-Wing down to Hoth, endured a few-second load time (four, maybe?) and landed my fighter to join in the ground battle. AT-AT walkers were attacking the rebel shield generator. I hadn't seen the damage done by the capital ships, but I did hurry over to the Rebel's ion cannon. I tried to fire some shots. I kept getting killed, but after the aforementioned whining, I got my chance. My Star Wars hero stood at a Hoth super-computer and my PSP screen became a targeting reticule with the belly of a Star Destroyer blotting its sights. I fired away and blew the thing up. In multiplayer, other players could be up in space witnessing that while I'm on the ground.

[UPDATE: The fine readers of Kotaku and the good people of LucasArts have explained what was happening. The ion cannon was not in and of itself blowing up the Star Destroyer. It was lowering the shields of that large vessel. What I thought were explosions were either the ion cannon blasts or explosions caused by fighters shooting at the Star Destroyer and causing explosions while its shields were down. The Star Destroyer was not detonated by the ion cannon. My eyes tricked me. My Star Wars knowledge failed me. I apologize.]

Fictional Fiction: There were droids from Episode I or II or both roaming through Hoth. Battle droids. Things that were not in The Empire Strikes Back. There were also Tauntauns, which I could ride but from which I could not fire a gun. Disregarding Lucas canon, this Battlefront game mashes up Star Wars vehicles, characters and special heroes from all the movies. Why not?

Final Thoughts
I'm not a big multiplayer gamer, so I've seldom enjoyed Battlefront games the way it feels they are supposed to be played. But brief bits of the new one played solo were fun. Until I see it, I'm skeptical that a strong single-player campaign can be in a game like this. The levels, after all, are designed for open-ended skirmishes, not the forward advance of a well-paced level. So that's something to look out for if you tend to play portable games on your own. Otherwise, this game's battlefield is grander than you might expect to find on a portable system.

(While the game is also coming to DS, the above impressions apply only to the PSP game I played. Elite Squadron is expected this fall for PSP and DS, with the PSP one also being available as a download.)

Senior writer Hal Hood talks about creating the Smuggler class in the latest developer diary on the Star Wars: The Old Republic website, demonstrating the completely different approach that BioWare is taking in crafting the game's story. They want dramatic moments, romantic encounters, and a charming rogue to crack a joke at the worst possible moment, which as charming rogues knows, is the best possible moment.

Of all the stories in our game, the Smuggler ones are specifically written with an emphasis on humor and romance. If you're playing this class, you get to say the funniest things (usually at the least appropriate times), and are always on the lookout for people who find charming rogues irresistible. You'll be flirting with or laughing at the most exciting personalities in the galaxy: crime lords, gamblers, Bounty Hunters, senators, nobles, spies, Jedi and even Sith.

Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe I've found my Star Wars: The Old Republic class.

Not only are the Smugglers dashing adventurers, they even come with a posse. All this and a posse?

The most successful Smugglers surround themselves with trusty companions who are handy with a blaster when deals go sour. Han Solo had Chewbacca as backup, and Smugglers in our game will have their pick of several memorable sidekicks.

It really seems like BioWare is striking all the right chords, delivering what fans truly crave...their own place in the Star Wars universe. When I was a child, I dreamt of growing up to be Han Solo.

The Old Republic is the first Star Wars video game to let players truly live the dream of being Han Solo or Lando Calrissian. Other games have let you engage in a bit of smuggling for profit or simulate "scoundrels" as a collection of stat bonuses, but none come close to delivering the humor, romance and just plain fun of being a wisecracking Smuggler who triumphs against all odds. Every member of The Old Republic team is committed to crafting the defining rendition of the Smuggler archetype.

I love these guys.

Developer Blog: Creating the Smuggler [Star Wars: The Old Republic]

The new Hoth level, which brings one version of the game's branching plot beyond a new downloadable Tattooine level to an Empire-Strikes-Back-era level with AT-ATs and Luke Skywalker, will only be available in a new version of The Force Unleashed, according to LucasArts.

But on that disc, the Hoth level will be easily accessible.

A LucasArts rep told Kotaku today that the three extra levels that extend beyond the original release of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed — meaning, the already-released Coruscant DLC level plus Tattooine and Hoth — will all be accessible from the new edition's front menu. That means players who have finished the original release of the game won't have to worry about transferring their save file or even playing the game all the way through again, in order to reach that level. Of course they'll still have to get a copy of The Ultimate Sith version. It just sounds like renting or borrowing a copy of the new Sith edition may be an option for those who merely want to play Hoth and be done.

Star Wars: The Forced Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition, ships for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this holiday season.

The forthcoming Tattooine level, unlike the Hoth mission, will be downloadable later this year for Microsoft and Sony's consoles.

OK, so, you look like Isaac from Dead Space, and the Emperor's VO is loud enough to make me think this was a fan-produced trailer. But it's not. This expansion is on the level, and you get access to this storyline content in the fall. Enjoy!

Exclusive Ultimate Sith Trailer [GameTrailers]