And here we were thinking people had lost interest in Star Wars games. And here you are, proving that even the most mistreated fans will flock back to George Lucas' wrinkled, cash-soaked bosom (or at least have a quick test suckle). Lucasarts announced yesterday that over a million people have downloaded the Force Unleashed demo for the 360, a figure that apparently set a new speed record for the console (fastest to 1 million downloads, which it hit in eight days). Over 1.3 million people downloaded the demo on the PS3. That gives us a grand total of 2.3 million downloads. For a week and a half, that's a lot. Course, it'll all be for naught if you all thought the game was a bit shit and don't buy it, but hey, we're talking the past here, not the future.

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The Secret Apprentice, Maris Brood and Rahm Kota will be hanging out at the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed party later this month when the game hits shelves.

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 favourite Star Wars characters". That better be a confirmation of Wookie.

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Early reviews are in for Force Unleashed (the game), and at this (early!) stage things aren't looking as good as Lucasarts would have hoped. If that scoring trend continues, the game will sell a few copies (if only for the branding), yeah, but it won't set the world on fire like the company were probably banking on. Ah well. Least the book's doing well! Force Unleashed the novel topped the New York Times best-sellers list for hardcover fiction over the weekend. So, are Star Wars novels taken more seriously by their creators than Star Wars games? Or are SW book lovers just suckers? Who knows! Could be all of the above.

Star Wars Book Tops NY Times Bestsellers List [GameDaily]

There's nothing like a demo of a Star Wars game to take the edge off a chilly August. I imagine a heater or a hot water bottle might have the same effect, but why would you bother when there's absolutely nothing Jedi-related about them? Yeah, I thought so.

If you can keep yourself warm for just a couple more days, you can enjoy the fiery gameplay of The Force Unleashed on Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. According to the Activision release, the demo will feature the TIE Fighter construction facility and a tutorial on how to Force Grip like a pro.

Text resembling a cut-and-pasted press release can be found after the jump.

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Apparently the THQ Wireless version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the iPhone wasn't a surprise to everyone. Over at Crunch Gear they've had this video posted since the middle of last month, demonstrating the sheer screen-tilting power of the force. It looks...hmmm. It looks as if I am sticking to the console versions. Yep, most definitely.

Exclusive: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for iPhone [Crunch Gear]

Generally we get some sort of press release to go along with screenshots, but this just isn't one of those cases. THQ Wireless has released a set of screens showing us what Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is going to look like on Apple's iPhone. Apparently the game will used gesture-based touching to activate force powers, such as drawing a lightning bolt to activate force lightning. Seems simple enough, and looks relatively simple to boot. Probably not the version I'd go with if I had to choose one, but having a portable Jedi in your pocket is nothing to turn your nose up at. Check out the screens below while I try and decide if I want this game or the THQ Wireless N-Gage version.

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Along with the cartoony yet curiously compelling Clone Wars and the innovative Fracture that is hovering at the very edge of my interest, LucasArts presented one more game at E3 2008, and this one is truly going to be epic. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a game I have been secretly drooling over since it was first announced, from both a technical perspective as well as the story standpoint. Sure, die hard Star Wars fans complain about continuity, but what else is Vader going to do during the gap between movies? Kick back and eat some Hot Pockets? Sure, but that only takes like five to ten minutes.

Between the LucasArts presentation of the game and my brief hands-on, I walked away feeling confident that this could not only be one of the most exciting Star Wars video games of all time, it could very well provide moments more epic than anything we saw in the three prequel films.

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Entertainment Weekly got their hands on a new Star Wars: The Force Unleashed trailer that delves into the story of the upcoming Sith-centric game. I wouldn't go and watch if you want your knowledge of the game and its story to remain virginal. Otherwise you absolutely have to go check it out because it's got some amazing gameplay shown off, including walkers being cut in half and some blistering combo attacks by the apprentice. Makes me want to play it some more.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed [EW]

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Going in to my time with Star Wars The Force Unleashed, I figured the best the game could do was recapture the fun of playing Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II on a console.

While The Force Unleashed pushes the graphics and, to some degree, the AI, forward, the experience of playing Unleashed was, as I had hoped, fairly similar to the hours of time I sank into Dark Forces II.

The game was enjoyable, at times a blast to play, but nothing that is going to shake the rock solid formula crafted by Dark Forces II.

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Unconfirmed, but word has it that LucasArts just axed the team responsible for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. If this true, this rumour is reminiscent of rumblings we heard earlier this month that once The Force Unleashed ships, LucasArts will pinkslip 100 employees and cease internal development. All of this comes as LucasArts recently saw massive layouts. These latest, rumoured layoffs were long-time staffers who had worked on big titles like X-Wing, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. If The Force Unleashed proves successful, LucasArts might find itself at a disadvantage if it plans on doing the game internally.

Eds Note: We were contacted by a LucasArts staffer who was part of the Force Unleashed team, stating these layoffs mentioned in the original Joystiq post were not recent and that there have been no additional layoffs since what we reported earlier this month.

LucasArts Cuts Hit [Joystiq via CVG]