Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

8.0

Format Xbox 360

Developer Lucasarts

Publisher Lucasarts

Genre Action

4 Comments

Most would agree that the recent Star Wars films have not been kind to the fans.

Revelations such as the news that Anakin built C-3PO, The Force is a product of Midiclorions, and Jar Jar Binks even existed have been tough to swallow, so it's with great pleasure that we report The Force Unleashed has renewed our faith in the franchise.

The game takes a refreshingly different approach to the series to some of the more recent Star Wars games we've played. All too many of them were compelled to throw in as many popular characters and locations as possible, often at the expense of a storyline that makes any sense whatsoever.

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The Force Unleashed, however, strikes just the right balance between paying fan-service and introducing brand new characters that have a chance to develop throughout the game. It's a really dramatic tale full of suspense.

The game is set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, and follows a young but powerful Jedi called Starkiller. He soon becomes an assassin and spy under the employ of Darth Vader. Only the dying embers of the Jedi council remain, and the Emperor's tyrannical reign is at its peak. These are dark days indeed, and all credit to LucasArts for creating a grittier and edgier scenario altogether.

Empire's new clothes
Without wanting to spoil the game's storyline, it actually does an excellent job of bridging the gap between the trilogies, while still finding time to introduce some brand new - and slightly subversive - ideas to the Star Wars saga.

The game takes every opportunity to resist cliché and finds a new way to approach familiar characters and settings. Plenty of characters have a 'wow' factor, from the sexy (yes, really) Juno Eclipse to the bionic Rodian scavengers and the sabre-lancing Royal Guards. Everything just looks mean. This is a Star Wars game so tough that even a Jawa will try to kill you.

They won't actually succeed, though. thanks to the the way that you can levitate them, smash them into anything within range and then fry them with your Force Lightning. And the good news is: that's just the start of your powers.
It feels really good being bad, and this game really doesn't care who you decide to annihilate.

The only caveat is that you're encouraged to do it with style, mixing up all your attacks to earn extra experience points - that in turn unlock even more flamboyant attacks. Using Force Levitation is so much fun, not to mention super-powerful, that we hardly ever bothered using the lightsaber.

Although given how boring it is by comparison, that's not saying as much as it should do. Mashing away with melee attacks is just tedious throughout, and while you can unlock various combos later on it never gets more complicated than just pounding the X button.
You find youself using only the physics-based Force powers because they're so much more fun to use, and because they leave a lasting impression on the environment.

The Digital Molecular Matter tech used behind the scenes creates real-world properties for the objects in the game, and it takes every opportunity to show off realistically bending metal or splintering wood.

Feel the Force
This serves to make your mastery of the Force all the more empowering, and the highlights are spectacular: like hitting a giant metal door with Force Push, ripping it open like a giant can-opener. It's a shame, then, that it isn't used more ambitiously. There are only a few basic puzzles in the game that make the most of this excellent feature; mostly it's just a visual effect.

Another system the game uses is the Euphoria engine, the same one used to create the excellent character animation in Grand Theft Auto IV. It doesn't work quite as convincingly in The Force Unleashed, probably because there are so many more ways to mess with your enemies.

When you drop an object in their path, some Stormtroopers just seem to fall over as if they've had a heart attack. That said, it is hugely entertaining to see them desperately clinging onto each other as they attempt to resist your powers of levitation.

The overblown Force powers also serve to make much of the game very easy. Most of the time, you're ploughing through enemies like a snowplough through a sheep field.

It's only when the end-of-level Jedi arrive that there's a sudden difficulty spike. The boss battles are unbelievably frustrating because there's just no pattern to the way they resist your powers. It seems to be all about playing the averages, spamming them with your Force Lightning enough times so that some attacks will eventually get through. It isn't even worth trying to play these battles tactically - you'll be cruelly smashed down.

Where am I?
The biggest problem with the game, though, is the way the camera works. Jumping forces the viewpoint to spasm upwards, making it practically impossible for you to see or even judge where you're going to land in relation to the enemy.

Jedi are known for their agility, not for falling face first into the mouths of hungry Sarlaac. If Luke Skywalker had this problem, The Return of the Jedi would have been a very, very short film.

Even more infuriating, during boss battles the camera angle switches to a fixed perspective, which can obscure their position and leave you taking a beating from somebody completely off-screen.

A lesser problem is that it's all a bit shallow, never needing much brain power to carve through the next set of enemies. Despite this, there's always a desire to see which dazzling sci-fi vista lies over the next horizon. If you thought Raxus Prime, Cloud City and Kashyyyk looked great in the movies (and you certainly should have) they look even more dramatic here.

Not only are the settings epic, there's also a satisfying attention to detail. Like Kazdan Paratus' attempt to build a new Jedi council chamber using shambolic droid replicas of Yoda and Mace Windu.

So, it gives us great pleasure to say that this isn't just another franchise game: it's the closest that you'll get to a sequel to the movies. It's not the cleverest game ever made but there's certainly enough excitement, intrigue and massive explosions to keep you interested.

Ben Talbot