Zero Punctuation: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

[Tiger Sora]

YAY im the 300th person to post on this. Great episode. ^_^ keep it up.

 

[duckferret]

if yatzee ever reads these (which i dout) i say that all the games he reviews are just point in no matter how ever crappy others think (which i happen to agree with). the Force unleashed kinda good in my oppinon i've only played both and i say to you yatzee good work o and the ps3 is only a smije better than the wii. Anyway the games were somewhat good they both had some good graphics and the force is cooler than it was in the other games i mean who wouldn?t like a force push that can smash 10 guys through 7 walls and leave just the body blood splatters that look like chalk line (o wait that doesn?t happen) well anyway both are comparably good if you actually play to get all the stuff. what you have done on you reviews are awsome... don't get me wrong i'm not a blind folower i just like the way you actually do this crap(don't expect to many curse words i don't do that to much) all i know is that i'm going to reply every video not like a gaywad though all i know now is that the next game will have 4 outcomes


1. you hate it
2. you semi hate it.
3. you give it a somewhat bad review but complement it along the way or
4. you rape it through it into a ditch and cover it in shit let it gain conscienciousness tell it a comferting story on how good it is that stab it in the stomach rape it up the bum and throw it in a sewer with just enough cianide to make it think it was at the greatest party ever and it missed it

Gee, I wonder why he wouldn't read these.

 

[nww02]

Awesome review. Strange how it was 40% bashing the game, 60% bashing George Lucas . Anyone who's seen Spaced will understand the frustration we ALL feel at that 'tard of a director, and the foetid sputum he's forced us to watch in Eps 1-3. I too was hoping that Force Unleashed would stick more to the Books / Ep 4-6 canon (much as Dark Forces / Jedi knight etc), and was as bitterly disappointed as Yahtzee.

The thing I liked about this review was that it didn't fuss about with the 'smoke', i.e. the gameplay or the characters or the plot too much, but went straight for the heart of the fire: Lucas / The Wii / The nonsense cheeball of Episodes 1->3. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it comes out for the PC one day. Until then, I think I'll be avoiding this game.

 

[acebrainbuster]

TO DUCKFERRET
GOOD POINT NO WONDER HE COMPLAINS ABOUT THE MAIL HE GETS HE READS THESE HA

 

[Sinisterair]

Yes i agree blame lucas for every thing......aids........bastards

 

[jimClassic]

Haha! Funny review. I haven't played it yet, but I heard it's great from a few friends. So I'm still going to risk it.

 

[Vromnir]

My cousin keeps telling me the Wii version is fun as hell and that he beat it within a few days or so (he's got school after all). I haven't played it yet, but I wasn't all that enthusiastic about it to begin with.

And what? The apprentice's name is Starkiller? Wasn't that what Lucas was originally going to have as Luke's last name? Wow, the irony in that. I think there was a Starkiller in KoTOR, as well.

I found the review to be hilarious, because I dislike the new trilogy a lot. It didn't have the endearing characters or even the realism of the first trilogy. Yes, puppets, miniatures, and special effects are more realistic than CGI CGI and more CGI. I'm sorry but that's the cold hard truth.

And Goodman: Maybe Yahtzee didn't wanna blow his money on another copy? I mean, I know he gets paid and all to do these, but that doesn't change the fact that Aussie's get stuck with ridiculous price tags.

Actually, Starkiller was just a codename for the apprentice. He didn't have a real name.



P.S. You're thinking of Bendak Starkiller, the mandalorian(?) who only fought in death matches. Somehow you get dark side points for killing him.........

 

[Vromnir]

Actually, TFU played it extremely safe, just ripping off GOW and adding a star wars layer. Only that's not what they promised...

As for the challenge - no-one's suggesting that it should be piss easy just because you're an overpowered Force user. But the game designers need to come up with better ways of providing a challenge than just arbitrarily making enemies immune from certain attacks just because they say so. Think laterally for god sake, it's your job. Force lightning seems to take a lot of concentration, so maybe make it that you can barely move whilst using it. Enemies could swarm you or shoot you from behind. Some enemies could be very agile. Find challenges that are consistent with the basic principle on which the development team claimed to be developing the game - "kicking arse with the Force".

I mean, think about the universe in which you're setting the game. Imagine you WERE a Sith with these powers - what would you actually be vulnerable to? The above are just a few suggestions. There are plenty of ways they could counter the powers being overbalanced without simply nerfing them or giving enemies unpredictable and silly immunities.

See, the thing is, most people get into a routine. That's why some people start rolling out the immunities, enemies that cause you to break out of the routine and do something that isn't normal for you. It's a bit of a dick move, but hell, GoW did it to some extent with the Troika gunners having impervious helmets (nothing stopped you from sniping them in the leg with a 1HK perfect active reload sniper bullet, but eh) and guns that killed you in approximately 1/1000th of a second if you stood in their line of fire too long.

As for ripping off Gears, I'm not entirely sure how you were playing it, but it didn't play like Gears for me at all. Gears had a strong emphasis on using cover and evasion to your advantage, especially on the 'medium' and 'hard' difficulties where Boomshots, Torque Bolts, and glowretches turned into instant death (I absolutely loathe the mining station on med/hard because half the time you can't even see where the damn Therons are until you have a torque in your chest, but that's another story). TFU played more like "overwhelm the enemy with massive firepower." Normally a boring strategy, but when you're limited to melee, physics objects, push and lightning, then it can become rather interesting.

Also, as to "unpredictable" immunities, a lot of these enemies made multiple appearances throughout the game, save the bosses, who had blatantly obvious immunity shields and/or behaviors. It's pretty quick to realize that "energy shield" means "smack with lightsaber, then fling into space." It just forces you to react to changing situations. And some enemies on whom abilities were less effective could still be effectively incapacitated by them (i.e. Purge Troopers -- you could interrupt their attacks, but you'd never send them truly flying, with Force Push).

I could make plenty of comparisons to other games, like Gargantuas in HL being immune to all but explosives, or Striders being the same, or Hunters being neigh invulnerable to bullets (they actually were initially in Ep2, designed to be killed only by physics objects), or Halo Hunters having annoyingly tiny weak spots (and in the latter two games no quick way to deal with them aside from ROCKETS, MORE ROCKETS, MORE MORE MORE).

You HAVE to make these choices a LOT in games. How obvious it is varies. And it can be done in many ways. Complaining about a completely obvious one, with enemies that SHOW their varied immunities -very- clearly (come on, if you can't tell in a mob of stormtroopers which one is an EVO and which one is a normal stormtrooper, you're not looking close enough) is a little silly.

P.S.: The lightsaber isn't weak if you actually look at the combo list and learn some of the better ones. Sith Flurry, Sith Strike, Sith Smash, Leaping Smash all spring to mind. Mindlessly mashing X (or flailing your wrist, or whatever the PS3 button is) isn't the way to get the best mileage out of it. Not to mention, if you can keep an enemy knocked down, you can inflict massive amounts of damage by standing over them and tapping your saber button once. Granted though, the way the XBox version plays, I don't think it was truly -meant- for any of the other consoles, just a weak port...

And if you truly can't figure out how to beat a certain enemy, you could always just throw a large object at them. That always works.................unless they throw it back.

 

[Engwallwithpinksocks]

Thtat's the thing. The developers said that you would "kick ass with the force".

Kinda funny that the Kotor series second game made an huge effort to humanize the jedi and make them vunrable, only for games like these to come and say: hey, jedi are awesome but we'r gonna med them EXTREME!!

You do plenty of asskicking with the force though. Pulling an ISD out of the sky, hurling Stormtroopers every which way, ripping up giant tubes that spray Carbonite onto whatever you point them at, jumping into the middle of a group of enemies and sending them flying with Force Repulse, crushing AT-KTs like beercans and splitting AT-STs up the middle...

You've never done this kind of asskick before in ANY Star Wars game prior.

The problem is that ALL jedi kick ass with the force. So then needed to make the protagonist ludacrisly powerfull (hence the prewiev material where we saw the apprantice take down a goddam starcruiser). Fair enough. But in the end, your just a strong jedi, not the über monster that you were said to be. Which admitedly makes sense, but that just means that they shoulden't gone into it with such an attitude.


Of course you kick ass with the force, your a jedi! Even in the Kotor series second game whitch made a HUUUUGE plot point about the vunarability of the jedi hade you kicking insane amount of ass. How do you NOT make a game where you play a jedi where you don't kick ass( removing their limbs clerly dosen't work since then they come back with prosthetic arms and bitching new suits). Hence, making the game on a premise which it already fullfills is like foucusing a game where you bang hookers on "putting on a conbom" or "insert you penis into a vagina". it will happen regardless how you approche it, SO WHY NOT TRY TO DO SOMETHING MEANINGFULL INSTEAD?

 

[MikePhilbin]

YahtZed,

my big problem with Force-based games is you don't use the Force. You just allow the player to repeat-press on specific Force tricks. Where's the Force Pull Down Top or Force Crush Your Head or Force ... you get the idea, a more free-form (creative) force, rather than a dogmatic do this now ForceF***er or I'll Force you from here to kingdom come.

maybe your reaction to this excellent LukasArtz format overload wouldn't have been so jaded if you'd had one of these to waggle you wiimote around with - Hybrid Assisted Limb [http://mikephilbin.blogspot.com/2008/10/hal-5-hybrid-assistive-limb-cyberdine.html]. Yes, it's by the CYBERDYNE company of Japan. No fear, eh?

 

[Doug]

I have to admit, Force Unleashed didn't impress me on the videos. Turok, Haze, Too Human, SW:FU, and that upcoming Space Marine game all made me think when I saw their preview videos/gameplay examples "MEh, looks like a average or below shooter with a gimmick."

 

[BlueInkAlchemist]

I didn't think the chick was that unusual. I mean, my eyes, too, oscilate rather than do any of this so-called "blinking" nonsense.

I thought that was the norm. Apparently not. Perhaps I should see a doctor.

You have something else in common with Juno Eclipse. You'd look smashing in that black Imperial uniform.

 

[Adrasta]

The only problem with the game is that making this game cannon was absolutely ridiculous. Kotor should've been cannon

This is really nothing you should be worried about... the whole "canon" babble is a bunch of nonsense anyway. Every single source outside of the original three movies contradicts the original three movies in a way or another, regardless if Lucasfilm calls it "canon" or not.

I agree, though, that this was a pretty bad and disappointing review. It was only like 10% about the actual game, 20% about how Lucasfilm sucks, and 70% about the shortcomings of the Wii.

 

[BigBadMuthaShutYoMouth07]

This game was not suppose to suck! We all need to call lucus arts and tell them to make the game again and to make the shit right this time.

It makes no sense why I dont have a wii game to look forward to until 2009 except for GH World Tour. And No I am not excited about the next mario title, Im so sick of mario I dont know what to do. I mean I know mario adveture games are fun as hell, but Im just really tired of mostly having to rely nintendo games, I want to play a 3rd party title that is just as good as the 360 or PS3 version, sure of course theirs gonna be a graphical downgrade but I've learned to accept that.

Well anyway even though most reviews said the game wasnt good I wanted to see for myself.

Well lucus arts took my dreams of being a sith badass and shoved it up their ass and then craped it out on my face after eating a bean filled chilli with a side of beans and washed it down with bean juice.

 

[titaniumwombat]

Heh, the whole 'slap his hands away from the editing desk and give him a box of crayons' line had me crying, as well as all the bashing of the new movies. Fantastic review!

cheers.
t.

 

[LiquidSteel]

I was excited about this game before it came out and heard all the very bad reviews, played a friends version and then decided I have more fun running round the Plains of Oblivion for hours on end collecting grass, but then again Lucas is busy humping all his 70s franchises to death, so really he should be stopped.

 

[scatman94]

Hilarious review as always. Yahtzee rocks!

 

[JediMooCow]

Follows The Escapist's own review of saying how damn awful it was. I can only agree that a game that rests on a singular, repeated mechanic is only doomed to fail.

Yes. I can't think of a game that's relied on a singular, repeated mechanic that hasn't been doomed to failure. Well, except for Pong, Tetris, Duck Hunt, Pac Man, Mario, Minesweeper and Peggle.

Still, as far as a fair few recent releases go, you make a fair point.