Ever eager to keep a fanatical fan base happy, this instalment of the seemingly endless Star Wars Universe franchise concerns the adventures of Starkiller, the secret apprentice of Darth Vader, on his quest for power and to attain the approval of his master by completing their joint ultimate goal, galactic domination via defeat of The Emperor.
This game overall is such a mixed bag it's a little hard to decide where to start, so I'll go with probably it's best feature; the physics. Those clever little programmers down at LucasArts through some technological wizardry that my tiny brain can't begin to comprehend, managed to combine three separate physics engines into one masterful gameplay experience. The ever reliable Havok engine was used to designate the general launching of objects and people (which thankfully there is a tonne of), the Euphoria engine which was used to essentially elaborate upon the enemy AI to the best of my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) and lets those helpless little troopers attempt to save themselves by grabbing onto barrels and such when hoisted aloft by your force grip, and lastly the DMM engine which produces some truly impressive particle physics with the realistic smashing of glass, wood and metal.
This incredibly complex mesh of physics helps make for a fun gameplay experience on the whole when coupled with the number of force powers you acquire throughout the game. Six in total are placed at your disposal by the last level, my personal favourites being the fairly standard force lightning and force grip. I have heard many people complain about the downplaying of the lightsaber and how pretty much all of your force powers are equally as, if not more, effective at dispatching legions of enemies, but what can you expect from a game called THE FORCE Unleashed. I also found it a refreshing change to have some variation on my killing rather than having your main plan of attack as hack and slash until everything is dead. I got a great sense of satisfaction from gripping a terrified Stormtrooper, flying him around the room before crisping him like a well done steak with maxed out lightning and then discarding his corpse through a space station window into the endless void of space. Sweet! Undoubtedly one of the best games I have played in recent times for just over the top childish violence.
The character upgrade system was a little too simple for my liking, although it is hard to complain about because it was effective and let you really give your character some differentiation from your friends if you wished it to, by really focussing on defence of a specific force attribute for example. A little more would have been nice though.
I have heard many people on these forums and a few friends say that they were not a fan of the story accompanying this game. I respectfully disagree. I thought it provided a logical (if albeit previously unmentioned and slightly random) link between Episodes III and IV in the saga and although Starkiller's character seems a little convoluted and inconsistent (for example he has no qualms with killing hundreds and thousands of imperials, but when a sarlac is chained up his heart audibly rips in two for it) I thought he wasn't a bad creation for a late addition to the cast. The compulsory inclusion of a love interest for our protagonist feels very tacked on though, like one of the developers decided to stick the pilot in at the last minute to make the more lonely patrons of the game feel loved while playing it. The dialogue between characters (in particular you and your aforementioned love interest) sounds downright cheesy on many occasions and the voice acting also leaves a lot to be desired. Princess Lea doesn't sound anything like the real Princess Lea! Even Darth Vader sounds very different to his appearances in the original films.
One thing that I found to be a fly in the proverbial ointment of this game, was the auto targeting system. In a massive fire fight the game often decided that a nearby explosive barrel was posing a much greater threat than a AT-ST stomping on my face, and directed all of my force lightning towards it immediately before it got the chance to escape! Also this combined with the fixed camera angles in some of the boss fights made for some controller snapping frustration when you would lose track of where Starkiller was and whatever the hell he was holding and attacking. On the topic of boss fights though I felt the quick time events were actually done pretty well and I enjoyed witnessing the extreme antics of my character performing outrageous finishers on the tougher opponents. The windows for pressing the buttons weren't too narrow either and gave you just the right amount of time. Even if you did miss them the game did not punish you too severely, as it only makes you begin the quick time sequence from the beginning, unlike most games which kill you for not having the reflexes of a Jedi in real life.
Overall I would highly recommend this game as a rental, because although it was great fun, I really doubt that I will play this game through to completion again. It is very much story driven and now that I know the end I don't feel like going through it all again just on a slightly harder difficulty. That being said, replaying it wouldn't take me too long because this game is also criminally short. I finished it on the normal difficulty in something like four hours. FOUR HOURS! That is nearly as short as Portal, and this game cannot get away with being half as good for the amount of time and money it requires.
This game overall is such a mixed bag it's a little hard to decide where to start, so I'll go with probably it's best feature; the physics. Those clever little programmers down at LucasArts through some technological wizardry that my tiny brain can't begin to comprehend, managed to combine three separate physics engines into one masterful gameplay experience. The ever reliable Havok engine was used to designate the general launching of objects and people (which thankfully there is a tonne of), the Euphoria engine which was used to essentially elaborate upon the enemy AI to the best of my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) and lets those helpless little troopers attempt to save themselves by grabbing onto barrels and such when hoisted aloft by your force grip, and lastly the DMM engine which produces some truly impressive particle physics with the realistic smashing of glass, wood and metal.
This incredibly complex mesh of physics helps make for a fun gameplay experience on the whole when coupled with the number of force powers you acquire throughout the game. Six in total are placed at your disposal by the last level, my personal favourites being the fairly standard force lightning and force grip. I have heard many people complain about the downplaying of the lightsaber and how pretty much all of your force powers are equally as, if not more, effective at dispatching legions of enemies, but what can you expect from a game called THE FORCE Unleashed. I also found it a refreshing change to have some variation on my killing rather than having your main plan of attack as hack and slash until everything is dead. I got a great sense of satisfaction from gripping a terrified Stormtrooper, flying him around the room before crisping him like a well done steak with maxed out lightning and then discarding his corpse through a space station window into the endless void of space. Sweet! Undoubtedly one of the best games I have played in recent times for just over the top childish violence.
The character upgrade system was a little too simple for my liking, although it is hard to complain about because it was effective and let you really give your character some differentiation from your friends if you wished it to, by really focussing on defence of a specific force attribute for example. A little more would have been nice though.
I have heard many people on these forums and a few friends say that they were not a fan of the story accompanying this game. I respectfully disagree. I thought it provided a logical (if albeit previously unmentioned and slightly random) link between Episodes III and IV in the saga and although Starkiller's character seems a little convoluted and inconsistent (for example he has no qualms with killing hundreds and thousands of imperials, but when a sarlac is chained up his heart audibly rips in two for it) I thought he wasn't a bad creation for a late addition to the cast. The compulsory inclusion of a love interest for our protagonist feels very tacked on though, like one of the developers decided to stick the pilot in at the last minute to make the more lonely patrons of the game feel loved while playing it. The dialogue between characters (in particular you and your aforementioned love interest) sounds downright cheesy on many occasions and the voice acting also leaves a lot to be desired. Princess Lea doesn't sound anything like the real Princess Lea! Even Darth Vader sounds very different to his appearances in the original films.
One thing that I found to be a fly in the proverbial ointment of this game, was the auto targeting system. In a massive fire fight the game often decided that a nearby explosive barrel was posing a much greater threat than a AT-ST stomping on my face, and directed all of my force lightning towards it immediately before it got the chance to escape! Also this combined with the fixed camera angles in some of the boss fights made for some controller snapping frustration when you would lose track of where Starkiller was and whatever the hell he was holding and attacking. On the topic of boss fights though I felt the quick time events were actually done pretty well and I enjoyed witnessing the extreme antics of my character performing outrageous finishers on the tougher opponents. The windows for pressing the buttons weren't too narrow either and gave you just the right amount of time. Even if you did miss them the game did not punish you too severely, as it only makes you begin the quick time sequence from the beginning, unlike most games which kill you for not having the reflexes of a Jedi in real life.
Overall I would highly recommend this game as a rental, because although it was great fun, I really doubt that I will play this game through to completion again. It is very much story driven and now that I know the end I don't feel like going through it all again just on a slightly harder difficulty. That being said, replaying it wouldn't take me too long because this game is also criminally short. I finished it on the normal difficulty in something like four hours. FOUR HOURS! That is nearly as short as Portal, and this game cannot get away with being half as good for the amount of time and money it requires.
