It's here. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Growing up on Star Wars and watching Lucas butcher my childhood with The Phantom Menace and then letting him redeem himself with Revenge of the Sith, I was intrigued by the idea of this game.

The game is the first to actually tie in directly with a series of movies so much that it has become considered a legitimate part of the Star Wars mythology.

So far, the game does not disappoint. Most movie tie-in games are total crap. Hellboy and Harry Potter come to mind as strong examples of that.

Force Unleashed gives you a chance to follow Vader's secret apprentice, codenamed Starkiller, as he hunts down various Jedi knights for the betterment of the Empire. There are strong hints that Vader is grooming him to help kill the Emperor.

It's a good storyline and the game play is just straight fun. Learning force powers and wielding a lightsaber through the game and developing new abilities gives "Codename:Starkiller" appeal because he grows and learns as the game progresses.

The fact that they are not telling what the main character's name is gives me the idea that his true identity is going to be revealed later in the game and will tie into the movies somehow with typical Lucas flare, I'm sure. The secrecy of it all is a little hokey, so that might be the game's one flaw, but it's a lot of fun to play.

I was waiting to make any sort of judgments on Sarah Palin because I wanted to see what she herself had to say rather than listening to what was said about her.

Sitting on that fence, waiting to see what her words would say about who she is, I found out quickly on Wednesday night.

She seemed eager to spout out the same right-wing rhetoric that so many of her contemporaries in the party have been using for years. Her tone was snarky and condescending as she said, "I guess a small-town mayor if sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities."

This is disturbing on many levels. She seems to think that what normal people do on a normal basis is worthless and petty. Community organizing helps people get involved in their own communities and is nothing to laugh at. It is important in many communities, and especially in areas like the poorer neighborhoods in Chicago.

The rest of her speech sounds like it was written by any number of the right-wing pundits out there, with no regard for fact or accuracy. She says, "Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests," in a speech, and an evening, rife with attacks on Obama, Biden and democrats in general. These attacks include shots at base supporters and the average everyday people who are the backbone of the democrats' campaign.


I found a transcript of it right here: Sun Times