Kids seeking Star Wars games?

Ah yes, the marketing blitz for Star Wars Episode 3 continues and - for those of us hearing more about it from the gamers at our house than from the media even! - New York Times gaming columnist Charles Herold says there are two great game options for them. One is a role-paying game for Xbox called Jade Empire that isn't about Star Wars at all but is "instantly recognizable as a follow-up to Bioware's 2003 game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, with a similar interface and almost identical morality and dialogue systems." The other is more for kids and those who just love the Star Wars experience: Lego Star Wars, which "recreates scenes and events from 'Star Wars' Episodes I, II and the forthcoming III" in animated Lego-style, Herold writes. You can't die in the game, which is good for kids, but it's even "easygoing fun for adults with poor gaming skills ... who want to bond with their children by playing along [in] cooperative mode, which allows two players to go through missions together." Speaking of Jade Empire, the Times reports separately that a new language - Tho Fan - was developed just for the game. It "sounds ancient and distinctly Asian. Its "sh" sounds come from the back of the throat, as they do in Chinese. Its "r" sounds are made with a tap of the tongue, echoing Mongolian." And it was created by Wolf Wikeley, PhD candidate (with a weakness for Japanese animation and first-person-shooter video games) in the linguistics department at the University of Alberta.