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ICYMI: We've gone full Leia in honor of Star Wars
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-811506{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-811506, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-811506{width:570px;display:block;}#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-44035{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-44035, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-44035{width:100%;display:block;}try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-44035").style.display="none";}catch(e){}try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-811506").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Many of you will be leaving work as quickly as possible to catch an early screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We're helping you prepare for the glory of what awaits with a round-up of some of our favorite Star Wars moments and characters with all the products, amazing DIYs and games that are rocking our galaxy.We'll be back to normal for tomorrow, so if you see any interesting science or tech videos, please share with us! Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag to @mskerryd.
The Game Archaeologist: The return of Habitat
After over four years of writing for Massively, I've ceased to be surprised by how bizarre and unexpected this industry can be. However, if you had told me a few weeks ago that, of all things, Habitat would be coming back online, I would have laughed mightily in your face. And yet, that's exactly what's happening. The Museum of Arts and Digital Entertainment has taken up the challenge to restore LucasFilm's Habitat to working condition and then, for the first time ever, open this original virtual world up to the internet to play. Museum staff, former Habitat devs, and volunteers have been wrestling with the old code and hardware to make this happen, and I can think of no better topic for this week's column than to look at how this 28-year-old game for the Commodore 64 will emerge blinking in the light of the modern era. I reached out to MADE's director, Alex Handy, to chat about the project and get clarification concerning what steps will need to be taken between now and the moment the switch is thrown to power up Habitat.
The Queue: A very Star Wars Hallow's End
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. We're all nerds here at WoW Insider, so when Disney acquires Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, we have to mention it. Our first question today touches on that, then we jump into scenarios and more! @Medros asked: how upsetting is the Lucas Arts purchase by Disney? My inner kid nerd is weeping.
The Game Archaeologist moves into Lucasfilm's Habitat: Part 2
Last week on the exciting cosmic adventures of the Game Archaeologist, we uncovered the ancient civilization of Lucasfilm's Habitat, one of the early predecessors to graphical MMOs. While we talked about how it came to be and pondered just how much money we'd waste if game companies were still charging by the minute, we didn't have the time or space to cover the community and events that formed around this experimental project. That day has come. Prepare your bladder for imminent release! Giving a bunch of players tools to do every which thing in the game and turning them loose without strict regulation might seem like a recipe for an instant sewage pit of a game today, but our cultured, classy behaviors weren't quite trained into us in 1986. When players first set eyes on Habitat, they weren't thinking of min-maxing, kill-stealing, or raid progression; they were trying to make sense of a virtual world using the only frame of reference they had to date: their own lives. Out of a melting pot of ideas and objects came fascinating stories from one of the earliest MMO proto-ancestors of the modern era. Get your '80s on as we head back... to the future!
The Game Archaeologist moves into Lucasfilm's Habitat: Part 1
For some of you reading this, you may simply never have known a world before the internet existed by virtue of your age. It's not your fault, but as generational divisions go, this was a biggie. The internet saturates so much of our lives now that it's even difficult for those of us born prior to the '90s to remember how we functioned without smartphones, Google searches, and terabytes of cheap entertainment on demand. I think there were video game arcades in the mall or something. Because of this, some of you will not understand the import of how it felt when technology advanced to the point that people could reach out online and interact with others, first through written communication and later through applications and games. What we take for granted in today's MMOs -- the constant presence of thousands of real humans interacting with us in a virtual space -- simply blew the minds of those who first encountered it. And way back when, those encounters depended on the person and technology available. Some folks had access in the '60s and '70s to the early form of the internet and email in universities and government offices, but these close encounters of the virtual kind only started to make its way into households in the '80s (and even then, mostly to those plugged into the geek community). The developers of these programs -- the MUDs, the BBSes, CompuServe, etc. -- were truly pioneers forging a path while trying to figure things out on the fly. So it amazed me to hear that I've been missing out on a key part of MMO history by overlooking Lucasfilm's Habitat, which wasn't quite an MMO by modern standards and yet created a graphical virtual world with many of the elements that were adopted into later projects. In our two-week look at Habitat, we'll see just how eerily similar this 1986 title is to what we know today -- even though it came out on the Commodore 64.
Star Wars Blu-ray extras revealed early by iOS app launching at Comic-Con
We're still a few months away from the Star Wars movies release on Blu-ray, but dedicated fans can get a preview of the set this week in the Early Access app for iOS. Set to debut in time for Comic-Con on July 20th, the free app promises some of the 40+ hours of bonus materials planned for the discs, including concept art, models and interviews with cast and crew. We've already seen iPad apps pulling in extras to go along with movies like Tron: Legacy, but this is the first one we've seen launch ahead of the Blu-ray release. Check out a couple more screenshots and detailed description after the break, then come back tomorrow for our hands-on look at the Star Wars app.
All six Star Wars films coming to Cinemax HD
Star War fans everywhere join hands and rejoice! Cinemax has struck a deal with Lucasfilm to broadcast all six Star War movies in high-def for the very first time come this November. Sure, there have been times in the past when the Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith have ran on both HBO and Cinemax in high def, but Lucasfilms have never allowed the original trilogy to be aired in the higher resolution. Plus, this makes the first time all six films will be shown on the same station. The deal apparently allows the station to run a few times throughout the month so if ya got to work for the first time through, there is sure to come a time again in a few days that will allow you to sit back and enjoy 15-hours of Star Wars in HD. Dare we speculate that maybe this signals George Lucas's bow to everything that is good and just about high definition?[Via HomeTheaterBlog]
