There’s a certain sense of inevitability waiting at the end of the corridor. The young man’s parade boots echo sternly on the grated floor as he strides purposefully toward the blast doors. After a theatrical pause, the blast doors fly open and the snap-hiss of a lightsaber ignites the air with a sharp tang of ozone. With a nod, the TIE fighters in the hangar swerve into motion and systematically crush the scrambling stormtroopers clinging to each other for dear life. I’ve dreamed of this before.

Since early childhood I’ve been compelled by the darting lasers of interstellar battle juxtaposed with the serene mysticism of the Force–and I’m certainly not the only one. LucasArts has created a veritable empire, no pun intended, from the interest garnered from a simple desert farm boy’s destiny. Obviously the screaming TIE fighters, Mandalorian armor, wookiees, wry robots and promise of planetary destruction helped too, but since the spawn of Star Wars in the late seventies, we’ve seen three more (admittedly lukewarm) movies, PEZ dispensers, action figures, bed sheets, lunch boxes, over a hundred books, Legos and, more pertinent to this discussion, over seventy five video game titles.

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In my gaming career, there have always been titles that may not have achieved proper success with the masses, but piqued my interest enough and captured my heart sufficiently to beg the question, “Why isn’t there a sequel or a remake of this game?”.

I fully understand the fact that for a sequel to be considered, a game must be successful enough to garner critical praise or sell enough copies to accrue enough money for the company to profit. However, no matter how good a game may seem to me, and no matter how much I enjoy it, the fact that many gamers adhere strictly to what game reviewers or friends have to say hinders the success of many franchises that deserve a fighting chance to either improve or continue with more of the same.

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With summer fast approaching and bringing with it the joy of no school, time in the sun, sweet sweet air-conditioning, and everything else, I’m highly anticipating the time I finally get to spend without being graded constantly. The upside (and possible downside) to all this is a sudden burst of free time. Veteran MMO players groan at the thought of the zerg of teenagers pouring back in barrens chat. Trust me, I’m right there with you.

If you’re like me, you may find sometimes, with that nice extra amount of free time, you being to grow bored of the things you’re playing. Naturally, I could always go outside and maybe play a sport, or perhaps take up stamp collecting. But, um, no. I’m a gamer. And if you’re here reading this, so are you. A lot of us freeload…er…gamers, may or may not have the money to spend on picking up a new console game or MMO every couple of months. Because of this, I’ve decided to try to be helpful and put together a list of free options for summer gaming fun.

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Fandom. All games have a positive fandom following. That’s the people who make kick-ass websites and wallpapers and avatars, or construct painfully detailed walkthroughs for you. Without these guys, games would be a lot more difficult - especially when you’re missing that one Dalmatian puppy / heart container / summon, and you’ve searched every damn level twenty times over.

But there’s another side to fandom too, as anyone who has ever waded into the murky waters of fanfiction.net knows. Yaoi artwork, Mary-Sue fanfiction, bizarre crossovers… if you ever got into a particular series or game, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

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