StarFighter Flashes us!
In public too! Those downright dirty rotten Star Wars-o-philes! Oh wait, hang on, I get it!
Lucasarts' latest Star Wars cash-in, the surprisingly good-looking "Star Wars Starfighter" uses Macromedia Flash Player technology to enhance its user interface, both companies happily announced recently. The game shipped yesterday to territories in the United States, and already sites like Daily Radar are saying that the game will "satisfy your inner space jockey quite nicely," which sounds like an offer. In a rather amusing statement, Macromedia pres' Kevin Lynch pointed out that the "Macromedia Flash community has long been rebelling against the dark side of boring, static user experiences. The great experience in Star Wars Starfighter shows the incredible flexibility in delivering Macromedia Flash content across a wide variety of devices." The actual application of Flash sits on top of the proprietary 3D engine developed by Lucasarts and handles tasks like menu selection, and general administrative stuff. Using the Macromedia development kits to develop Flash-based UIs is actually quite a good idea. God only knows how many times we've had to slag off games for their interface ineptitude - Flash offers a pleasant mix of visual jazz and functionality.