Can you guess who's one of the playable characters in the upcoming game Star Wasr: The Force Unleashed (Sony PS3 , Microsoft Xbox 360)? For starters, he's one of the first cool bad guys with real followings. Yup, it's none other than Darth Vader and he's itching to kick some furry Wookiee butt when this game hits. More details in the full version.

Think about it: games controlled by mere thought may be possible as early as 2008. NeuroSky has developed such technology, demonstrating it last April with a Darth Vader game where users control his light saber by just thinking it.

But as fate would have it (and dozens of movies have told us the same) that tech that deals directly with the mind has consequences. Recent studies have shown that the new tech may be dangerous for the brain and some (though not all) scientists expressed concerns about the prospect.

NeuroSky's brain-computer interface (BCI) uses sensors attached to the scalp to detect brain wave patterns. As long as the user concentrates on a certain object in the game, they can control it. In the Darth Vader game, users were able to light up the saber just by concentrating in their minds that it's lit up.

Scientists discovered that users are sometimes forced to slow down their brain waves to play, and they consequently have trouble focusing afterwards. Niels Birbaumer, an independent BCI researcher explains:

Imagine that somebody uses a game with slow brain-wave activity and then drives a car while still in that state. You could have an accident. I think it's a rare possibility, but it should be tested before people do this.

Nam Do, the CEO of Emotiv, another company whose technology runs on the same principles, explains that it's "normal to have these concerns" but that it does not apply. He says, "There is no two-way interaction, and the technology does not require the user to train their brain to get into a predetermined state in any way." Greg Hyver, VP Marketing of NeuroSky, supplements this by saying that the concerns arise only from the lack of familiarity with the tech.

The technology is still in its early stages and some scientists doubt we'll be able to play complex games with it this soon. More like old school ones like Tetris. Maybe Arkanoid? Still, it's pretty cool and the companies say they may be able to release the tech by 2008.