One of my earliest Star Wars™ memories involves chasing my best friend around the house with an original X-wing toy, somehow managing to miss her TIE fighter no matter how fervently I shouted "I got you!" This was almost certainly the genesis of my love of Star Wars™ space combat. My desire to blow up snub fighters and capital ships persisted throughout my early childhood and melded nicely with my passion for video games. This is why the space combat Comic Con announcement for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ brought a smile to my face. With the recent PC Action information and PC Gamer leaks in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to look back at some of the ways we see Star Wars™ space combat represented in video games.

A snooping Darth Hater fan found unreleased footage of the Sarlacc Enforcer busting a move in-game. See if you can emulate the dance moves at home!

We here at Darth Hater are breaking Non Disclosure Agreement and risking a major tongue lashing from LucasArts and BioWare lawyers, but we had to tell you about the absolutely amazing thing Star Wars: The Old Republic is including in the game that they haven't spoken about at all.

Video after the jump.

Although Darth Hater's staff heard whispers of a Star Wars: The Old Republic presentation during PAX East revealing playable species, an industrious forum user snooped around the official website and discovered a hidden image that is potentially a preview of this Friday's update.

More after the jump.

The community begged for concrete details about the class paths for months. Until now, all we could bring you was speculation. Sean Dahlberg announced on the official forums that this Friday's update will include information on the final class paths for the Sith Inquisitor and Jedi Consular classes:


As stated in Sean's post, we have an exclusive look at these class paths after the jump.

The countdown at Bioware is now done. Bioware is hosting an online contest/auction to celebrate their 15th anniversary. Everyone has a chance to win some custom computers as well as other neat things. (As long as you have/make a twitter account and live in the United States)

Head on over for a chance to win.

Arguably the greatest rift in the Star Wars: The Old Republic community came from the possibility, now reality, of four of the eight classes as force users. This discussion spawned shortly after the Sith Warrior was released and described as a melee focused class, and only grew in intensity. Having nearly a month to think about this design choice, we felt it was important to weigh in with our opinion.

So the cat is officially out of the bag for the two remaining Star Wars: The Old Republic classes: the Jedi Consular and the Sith Inquisitor. This fills out all of the careers in the game, and the reaction to the last two reveals has been interesting to say the least. Over at the official forums, there is a veritable hotbed of opinions about the last two classes, from crushing disappointment, to concern over debate on no clear healing classes, to outright wild notions (that might be trolling). In other words, there's a lot of the typical MMO community reaction to any kind of definitive announcement; that, my dear friends, is a blend of mass hysteria and crazy jumping to conclusions.

One of the mantras of the marketing team behind Star Wars: The Old Republic has been "the four pillars" that make up an MMO: exploration, advancement, combat and story. TOR has made a splash in the MMO community with a marketing emphasis on story, however the recent change in direction, hinted at by Jake Neri, is what we should be paying attention to. With many months of narrative buzz words behind us, we may be entering a new phase in the news coming out of Austin. Could it be that we are finally approaching the second pillar?

Everyone on the Star Wars: The Old Republic official forums, and at Darth Hater, has their hearts all a-flutter over the possible announcement of the Jedi Knight, the anticipated lightsaber-wielding class for the Republic side of things. With the Sith Warrior taking center stage for the latter part of the summer, it seems that the holidays will be bringing us plenty of the lighter side of things with their peace-loving Jedi counterparts.

By now, folks who've been following the game have had a chance to take in the latest Developer Dispatch from BioWare on the making of the planet Coruscant. Like many others, I was impressed at the six minutes of explanation detailing how the developers plan on making Coruscant meet the expectations of the players who are eager to get their hands on it and experience what it has to offer. The Coruscant presentation brings up an interesting point regarding the world of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and how large and massive Bioware plans to make the various areas of the game.

The recent media released about the planet Coruscant included multiple pictures of a taxi building being implemented within the city-planet. These pictures may have conveyed different methods of transportation, potentially not unique to the Capital of the Republic, showing what could be the basis for intraplanetary travel or even interplanetary travel to other worlds. But what possible systems could this crazy "taxi system" be hinting at?