How To Make a Jedi Disappear...

By Jay Williams
More Star Wars Force Unleashed : Wii Review

Well peeps, here it is, the much anticipated Star Wars: Force Unleashed reviewed, road tested and sure to please.

Even as I type now, it's already the highest selling Star Wars game ever made which is testament to the pulling power of the Star Wars brand and the rich story this game weaves.

The Star Wars brand has a long, loooong list of games on offer, titles including X-Wing vs TIE Fighter and one my faves, Star Wars: Obi-Wan, which saw you playing as Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

Taking control of the virtuous Jedi master, you had force skills to subsume your foes, much to the same degree as this new game, The Force Unleashed.

But in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed your powers are more refined and this time you're batting for the Dark Side... It's always more fun being the bad guy.

From the beginning this game is impressive, and for multitudinous reasons. The graphics are smoking hot, with awesome special effects, high definition visuals and a grand sense of scale on some levels. 

But it gets better.

You start the game playing as Darth Vader, stomping through a Wookie village searching for an unusually strong presence in the force.

By the end of the first stage you'll be well versed in the controls (slashing, choking, jumping, running, etc.) which aren't too demanding and also the camera system, which is decent.

So Darth Vader has fought off the Wookies and defeated another pesky Jedi Knight and has discovered a little boy who has a powerful force aura. It's this young mind that Vader seeks to bend to the dark side, to mold to his own evil schemes.

This little boy is Vader's secret apprentice. His name is Starkiller.

After finishing the enjoyable first level, it's evident that the game is fun to play and gorgeous to look at, but the story imposes itself very strongly on proceedings and in the Star Wars universe this adds greatly to the experience.

The story is set between Star Wars: Episode III (Revenge of the Sith) and Star Wars: Episode IV (A New Hope), and after the first level you take on the role being Vader's right-hand man or "secret apprentice".

Like no other Star Wars game before it, The Force Unleashed ties in with the six movies. It actually serves as the bridge between the two Star Wars trilogies and has been sanctioned by George Lucas himself.

LucasArts spent a lot of time on the scriptwriting, voice acting and other technologies to make the story and cut-scenes more involving, and even the music is kick ass. 

The whole production comes together very nicely and Star Wars fans will be ecstatic.

The game tasks you with doing Vader's dirty work but sure does make for some fun times with the plucky young Starkiller. 

The game is played from the third-person 'over the shoulder' point of view and is like few other titles, with maximum attention to the physics engine making your in-game interactions highly satisfying. 

As you run around cauterising your enemies and zapping them with force powers, you'll notice things like the way trees bend when objects are hurled at them, if you look closely. 

This is very cool, and helps draw you into the gameworld without even knowing it half the time.

LucasArts was in kahoots with a few other development tools and they have combined programs such as Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) by Pixelux Entertainment, and Euphoria by Natural Motion Ltd bundled with Havok Physics.

Now I know what you may be thinking, like I was when I heard all this mumbo jumbo, "what the hell does this all mean?" 

Well folks, it means some seriously sweet gaming. 

The various technologies blend together to make everything in an environment react just the way they should, and they help to create a more realistic game world that has a real sense of weight and substance.

Anecdotal evidence happens all the time -- if I was to pick up a box with my Force Grip powers and send it flying through a window, it would smash the window and send bits of glass everywhere. 

And just say the window was part of a star ship... Well you guessed it, the vacuum of outer space sucks everything (and anyone) into space. Pretty sweet, hey?!

Not only that but some things bend instead of breaking and bodies react much in the same way. 

With loss of life, your foes go limp and ragdoll as you crush them against walls, their joints hyper extending in a gruesome parody of the real world.

Some of the features in The Force Unleashed, such as force skills and force points, are a nice addition and add a bit of a role-playing, stat-building aspect to the game. 

Force points being awarded every time you complete a certain mission or kill an amount of foes and you use these point to skill up your character.

There are three types of Force points:

 Force Combos
 Force Powers
 Force Abilities 

The choice is up to you and your playing style: you may choose to be really powerful with your saber or tough against attacks depending how you want to go about things. 

There are also four main force powers:

Push
Grip 
Repulse
Lightning

Upgrading these various powers will determine how you approach different situations in the game.

Gameplay is fairly user friendly and easy enough for anyone to pick up and play but there's a decent mix for those seasoned players looking for a challenge with some nasty force combos to learn.

It's not long until you are “Unleashing the Force” so to speak because Vader's apprentice is quite strong even in the beginning of the game, but the real fun starts once you have unlocked Lighting force.

Lighting force sees you shooting lighting from your finger tips through your enemies' bodies and once it's upgraded the havoc truly begins, damaging multiple targets at once. It looks very cool watching the dynamic lighting of the force lightning as jumps from target to target.

There are also a bunch of other features such as difference costumes and light saber crystals which can change the colour and abilities of your saber.

Apart from completing the missions there are also these things called Holocrons which are scattered throughout each level giving you rewards and unlockables, such as Force points and so on.

The gameplay and graphics of this game are very good, and the new game engine works well, allowing you to explore and interact fluidly.

I didn't come across any gameplay or mission errors, but rather a programing error (or perhaps an overlooked detail) towards the end of the game.

On the mission summary screen there is text that reads (Default Text) and your jedi points aren't counted for each level. Also there's an issue with how many Holocrons you collected for the last stage which is an annoyance.

Now I am not sure if this was due to the developers being rushed to meet a release date or if it's a PS3-only problem [it's a known Xbox 360 glitch as well - Ed] or even just my copy of the game but I wouldn't expect something as simple as this error from LucasArts. 

Other than this minor but annoying oversight, the production quality is generally very good, with good menus, interface, and an overall polished look and feel.

After beating the game a couple of times, I can see what it lacks. 

It needs a multiplayer area, or perhaps a co-operative mode. There were rumours that a multiplayer element will be downloadable at a later date, but no good comes from the rumour mill... 

The targetting system is also a bit twitchy and the gameplay can get repetitive after a several hours, but what kept me coming back to The Force Unleashed was the sensational story, the triumphant music, the excellent graphics and cool gameworld interactions. 

It's pretty amazing battling with massive rancors or robotic walkers, and some of the set pieces on the various levels leave you wide-eyed in amazement. Man I love next generation graphics!

The cool force powers and awesome light saber moves are also very enjoyable and add an extra layer of involvement to this videogame.

It's not the best Star Wars title we've played, but it is a lot of fun and fans of the movies will love playing it to find out what happens after Episode III when Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader.

Bring on the prequel!

Game: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
System: PS3
Players: 1
Online: Downloadable Content
Developer: LucasArts
Distributor: Activision

Rating: 80%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)