Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has a lot to live up to. The hype generated by the early tech demos and then its impressive trailers has been enormous. But hype is a double edged sword. While it serves the purpose of exciting fans into anticipating its release, it also considerably raises the expectations set for the game. But does Lucas Art’s latest Star Wars title justify the hype, or is this another title doomed to disappoint its fans?
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a third person action game that has you playing as Starkiller, Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, who is tasked with carrying out his dark master’s bidding. Over the course of the game, you will travel a variety of different worlds from Raxus Prime to the Death Star, encounter characters that will be instantly recognizable to fans of the Star Wars universe, and hack and slash your way through tons of enemies while mastering the powers of the dark side.
The combat, obviously, is the most integral part of the game. Most of the time you’re reliant on your lightsaber to murder your way through legions of stormtroopers and aliens, but an important tool of the Jedi is the force. Starkiller can use force push to shove enemies off of cliffs or push in doors, force throw to hurl around enemies like rag dolls, or even force lightening to electrocute your foes. As you decimate whoever stands in your way, you earn experience points which gradually accumulate to unlock even more powerful attacks.
While combat is an important part The Force Unleashed, tragically it is also one of the weaker aspects of the game as well. The enemy AI does do an impressive job of displaying the new euphoria engine, but unfortunately, the implementation of this technology feels more like an aesthetic touch than any actual improvement in the game play department.
The generic grunts serve little more purpose than cannon fodder for you to earn experience and health. You do feel like a complete badass hurtling their bodies into walls, but after the two hundredth time or so, some of the novelty begins to wear off. Instead of something fun to look forward to, fighting can feel more like a chore at times. You can’t skip over them without dying, but at the same time, you may gradually begin to tire of killing the same enemy over and over again.
Oddly enough, almost as if to rectify this glaring problem, the developers toss a myriad of enemies who are immune to your force attacks. What this means is that you can’t use the force to toss them off the nearest cliff. I can only assume that this was implemented to add variety. However, while one might assume the developers were attempting to encourage gamers to experiment with new tactics, there’s really no creative means of killing them and end up just being artificially difficult to defeat. They establish a division between easy enemies and hard to kill enemies, and far from creating a balanced game play experience, they serve to only frustrate and annoy.
My final complaints about the game play are the bosses and the quick-time sequences. The boss fights don’t feel very satisfying. Whether dueling with a rival Jedi or taking down an AT-ST, you never quite feel like you have actually accomplished anything once you emerge victorious. And the quick time sequences? Enough already. They are already the biggest cliché in gaming, and it is tragic that The Force Unleashed felt the unfortunate need to follow this awful trend.
One thing that The Force Unleashed does do correctly is its story. Acknowledged by George Lucas as an official part of the Star Wars canon, The Force Unleashed tells a genuinely compelling and complex narrative that ties in well with the rest of the Star Wars universe. Some of the more hardcore fans will be skeptical about some of plot elements that radically alter the Star Wars lore and, admittedly, there are times when the story tries a little too hard to establish itself as a significant part of the canonical time line. Still, The Force Unleashed is definitely considerably better than some of the other stuff by George Lucas.
Midi-Chlorians? Jar-Jar Binks? Jengo Fett? I don’t like sand? Are you serious, Lucas?
Whether you’re a fan or not of the changes that The Force Unleashed make to the official Star Wars storyline, the game’s story definitely serves its purpose. It fills in some of the gaps in between Episodes III and IV, and it gives gamers an incentive to keep playing.
Graphically the game looks great –from the character models to the effects to the level design to the cut scenes; being a badass Jedi has never looked better. The soundtrack adds that needed atmosphere to your stormtrooper murdering escapades, and its voice acting (which stars Sam Witwer as Starkiller and Nathalie Cox as Juno Eclipse) is also impressive and well casted.
I loath to condemn The Force Unleashed for its myriad of game play flaws, but simultaneously hesitant to give it praises either. The Force Unleashed is not the Jedi Knight III that many were hoping for -it lacks the balance, the game play variety, or really the polish that a game like Jedi Knight II had.
Regardless, if you enjoy action adventure games, there’s still a whole lot of fun to be had. Though it has its problems and ultimately fails to live up to its hype, the story is great; the graphics are amazing; and the combat, though flawed, is still enjoyable.
With no multiplayer and few reasons to replay through the game again, The Force Unleashed may not be a must buy title, but I can confidentially still say that for ardent Star Wars fans, it is still a must play title.
Mark Fujii: I'm your typical college student who plays too much video games. I also work as an electronic sales associate, meaning I sell Ipods and violent video games to your children when not trying to sneak off and play Super Smash Bros while the boss isn't looking. Oh, and I'm totally awesome. True fact.
Comments
Add your comment
the217
Sections
Buzz Magazine
Mark Fujii
I'm your typical college student who plays too much video games. I also work as an electronic sales associate, meaning I sell Ipods and violent video games to your children when not trying to sneak off and play Super Smash Bros while the boss isn't looking. Oh, and I'm totally awesome. True fact.
Mark (Mark) says:
(Posted September 18th, 2008 at 10:38 am)
Ok i just played and beat the game in less then 18 hours now i have nothing to do with the game because i have a xbox 360 and not the wii i had no idea about the duel mode for the wii.
and now that i do im so fucking pissed that lucas arts fucked up another game that looked so cool. i feel like im being pissed on by george lucas and his bullshit company lucas arts every time i buy a game from them. i think this will be the last one i buy ill rent or barrow them off of someone one for now on.
“fuck you lucas arts i’m so glad you bitches that made this game got caned.”
To be specific, there’s no multiplayer in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, because there is on the Wii, PSP, and DS. As far as specific reasons are concerned, we don’t really like to get into the reasons why we don’t do things because I don’t think there’s really a satisfactory answer that people would really be happy with. So, there isn’t multiplayer and that’s kind of how it is… fuck who ever said this to.