Star Wars the Force Unleashed – Xbox 360

First of all, you should know that this game is kind of short. I received it yesterday and it took roughly 10 hours on standard difficulty to complete.

Yet the fact that I didn’t move the entire 10 hours is testament to this game’s ability to be loads of fun to play, regardless of game-length.

THE GOOD:
The opening level places you in command of Darth Vader, giving you a preview of the absolute power of the force… that you realize you can’t match at first with the apprentice. As the developers have stated, this is to give you a chance to realize what you can become.

The absolute awesomeness of this level really sets the tone for the game. Marching down and eliminating Wookies while ATAT’s walk down below from the cliff and Star Destroyers, troop transports, and TIE Fighters fly all around left me feeling like this was really Star Wars.

The leveling in the game gives you a chance for character customization once you take control of the apprentice. Want your force-grip to be able to grab two enemies instead of one? Spend your force points in upgrading force-grip. Also – you can wear various costumes, make your lightsaber one of nearly 20 colors with various special effects, and really make your character your own.

The gameplay is solid, with a few questionable level designs toward the end of the game.

THE BAD:
The story is ‘good’ but as I gave the writer of the novel a hard time for not delving deep enough – I have to say that the cutscenes were chopped down to the point where you really can’t grasp the full impact of the story which was more clear in the novel.

The Romance:
The love dialog/romance is worse than George Lucas if that gives you any indication. These characters develop feelings for one another despite Juno Eclipse being little more than a ‘professional imperial’ who forgot to button the top 5 buttons on her uniform and having no dialog really outside of a few sentences in the cut scenes.

Then again – if I saw a woman dressing like that I suppose it wouldn’t take much romance for me to develop feelings for her either.

Multiple Endings? There is a dark side ending and a light side ending, but this isn’t Knights of the Old Republic. 99% of the game is the same regardless of what you choose to be/wear/do. The final ‘choice’ is made 30 seconds before the final boss fight. Regardless of how you play the game – it comes down to what you do 30 seconds before you fight the final boss. I was hoping for a variety of missions or at least a change in objectives.

Frustrating objectives:
Sometimes your objective is very vague. I spent more than one level wandering in circles and jumping off cliffs trying to figure out what to do because the mission objective was something like “Pick out the hydrospanner from the flexoregulator” which is probably something you would know if you were an uber-geek who knew what either was. Guesswork and trial and error. Also – in the second Raxis Prime level the force controls at the end LIE to make you die quicker.

Bugs:
Few and far between, but I had some ATST decide to despawn (which was good for me) and a few hiccups. For the most part the game was solid.

OVERALL:
Despite the flaws, I sat through the entire 10 hours and couldn’t stop because it was extremely addictive. The game is simple – but it works and is fun. You can tell a lot of love went into this, but you can also tell that the cutscenes feel disconnected from the rest of the story in terms of dialog because of spotty editing which leaves you wanting more.

This is better than anything else LucasArts has had in a while, and you really feel like this is Star Wars.

Bottom line: A step in the right direction. A+ Gameplay, C- Story.

It took me no time at all to become a fan of The Force Unleashed. The game starts you as Darth Vader himself, fighting your way through the Wookie planet to eliminate a rogue Jedi in hiding that the empire has discovered. Vader lets you experience what some of your force abilities will be throughout the game as you later play his apprentice. And while is was very entertaining, I found something a little disturbing about killing dozens of wookies. They howl at you as they die and everything…

Soon you are playing Vader’s apprentice, trained by Vader himself in the Sith arts. Your abilities are much more limited from what Vader himself had; I’m guessing to leave Vader as a benchmark to what you can aspire to become. Still, TFU doesn’t waste any time and throws you right into the action. The force abilities you are given are incredibly fun to use against your enemies: foring pushing them into walls, picking them up and chukcing them like dolls, picking them up and chucking them like dolls into TIE Fighters, lightning, force repulse and the good old fashioned hack and slash with your lgihtsaber. You think that killing dozens of rebel and storm troopers alike might get old, but it really doesn’t. The more of them you kill, the more force points and combo points you build up and you get all new ways to eliminate them. And even though you seem to be an unsoppable killing machine, the game is still challenging in spots, and I’m only playing it on the medium difficulty. Battling other force users is one point where the game can get challenging and also more fun. Matching wits and strengths jedi to jedi is a very fun gaming experience. Upgrades also add a nice element to the game, collecting points for new force combos, upgrading your abilities and upgrading your character’s stats. This adds an extra addictive element to the game in a mild RPG fashion.

And then there’s are the visuals. They are amazing. The character designs, the lighting, the action; they are all flawless. The backround settings and environments are also gorgeious and have an almost painted look, like a mural. This might sound out of place but it actually looks really amazing. You might see what I mean when you first arrive on the junk planet. My only complaint here is that some of the close up textures look a little bland, mostly on the fungal world that I’ve noticed.

Audio is great too. Much of the score is old John William’s classic, so there’s no complaint there. A lot of the affects seem to be taken right from the movies, which is also fine. Sound affects for explosions and force sounds seem about as good as I could expect. And I especially like how the troopers plead for their lives as you pick them up with the force and wave them around.

The story itself is also very well done. It bridges some of the gap between episodes 3 and 4 and actually explains some of the continuity. It also manages to do this without recycling old Star Wars stories and themes which is nice.

So I enjoy this game a lot. One complaint I’ve read in reviews that I only partially agree with is slightly clumsy controls. There is some room for improvement there (when using force grip, throwing an object and getting it where you want it to go can be difficult.) But every game for me has something about the controls or gameplay that I don’t like, and I usually look past it. Another complaint of mine is lack of multiplayer. This could be an awesome game multiplayer.

To reiterate:

Pros: Mostly great graphics, fun and addictive gameplay, awesome force abilities, good story

Cons: Some clumsy controls, graphics could use work in some areas, no multiplayer

The Force Unleashed is a great game for the Star Wars fan or otherwise and I recommend it.

Game was way over hyped but isn’t every semi-major title these days? I had a lot of fun with the game but once I finished the SHORT story mode I was left with a feeling that I should have waited to rent the game from Hollywood Video. Granted there are things to find, achievments to get all that good stuff on mutiple play throughs, but I could not bring myself to play through more than once. I will be selling the game once I find the time. PLEASE RENT, you won’t be dissapointed. It’s a fun game but with no multiplayer there is little left after you complete the game.