Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Review
Added September 22nd, 2008 by Artie Augustyn
When it comes to pleasing fan-bases, the Star Wars community doesn’t expect much from anything related to their beloved franchise. As long as the book, movie, video game, or action figure mentions a lightsaber, wookie, or “the force” it’s bound to sell thousands of copies. So when LucasArts decided to start production on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, a game that takes place between Episode 3 and Episode 4, they could’ve predicted it was going to sell at least a million copies. But not everyone identifies themselves as either a Jedi or Sith. Hesitant video game enthusiasts may have trouble enjoying what’s offered in The Force Unleashed because of the gameplay hiccups and generally underwhelming experience. On the flip side, there’s much potential in TFU, and whether or not you feel attached to the story being told throughout the game, indicates your overall enjoyment.
The Force Unleashed tells the story of Darth Vader’s apprentice “Starkiller.” Vader discovers Starkiller as a boy in a rebel camp, and decides to corrupt him through the dark side’s debaucheries rather than killing him. The game takes place a few decades after Starkiller’s discovery, at which point in time he’s ready to begin Vader’s bidding. Although the story in its entirety is highly predictable, The Apprentice is one of the more interesting characters developed within the Star Wars Universe. Given the placement of the game’s plotline between the two feature films it’s obvious what his fate evidently is, but the story engages the player to cheer Starkiller on, and “Boo” his adversaries.
Other than The Apprentice (and Vader of course) all the other characters bear shockingly unimpressive personalities. Each cast member is either so bland to the point that they can’t be differentiated from the walls they’re standing in front of, or are overly clichéd. The game’s most interesting “original character” is a robot named Proxy, but has an eerie resemblance to HK-47 from Knights of the Old Republic. Even though the voice actors for these roles deliver superb performances, the rest of the cast is so disappointing you’ll want to focus on Starkiller’s narrative and try to ignore everything else.
Since you are a trained Jedi, you’ll obviously be using an abundance of force powers and lightsaber trickery to defeat your foes. Sadly there’s nothing special to the action in the game. LucasArts seem to have copied every third person action game that’s come out in the past five years. Arbitrary quick time events, simplistic leveling system, monotonous beat-em up combos, linear game design, “magic” attacks and even antiquated boss battles make their way into this outdated relic of a game. The combat feels as if it’s running on age-old traditions and expects the players to find exploits in the design, rather than improve their skills. This leads to a lot of the frustrating sequences to be a dumb-luck guessing game as opposed to something that’s challenging and fun.
Speaking of challenging, The Force Unleashed has extensive balancing issues. Each level dances all over the difficulty spectrum, starting out simple, but ending in a way that’s so frustrating you’ll want to pull your hair out. As mentioned before, most of these pockets of gameplay anguish are due to the game’s design, but it’s worth noting that the game features some infuriating bugs and programming annoyances.
The first things you’ll notice are fairly minor. Checkpoints are before cut scenes rather than after, forcing you to repeatedly watch the same thing. But eventually the problems intensify, enemies will become invincible, your force powers won’t register for any reason at all, the targeting system relies on where Starkiller faces as opposed to where the camera is looking and much more. The worst of these problems is a glitch in the game that tells you incorrect information. Near the tail-end of the game, you’re required to complete a quick-time event that directs you to place the control sticks in a certain position. However the instructions are incorrect, so if you follow the game’s advice, you’ll never be able to complete the level, or the game. When you’re forced to stop the game, go to Google and search how the hell you’re supposed to complete a section of the game, I consider the game broken (As of this writing, there is no patch for the game). With just a month more of polish this game could’ve been a lot more bearable.
Along with technical vexations, there is a complete waste of technology. Prior to Unleashed’s release, all the marketing and Public Relation efforts went into touting the three engines found in the game. Havok Engine gives everything weight, Euphoria lets every character move and react to hit naturally, and DMM (Digital Molecular Matter) gives objects properties such as “wood” or “steel.” All three engines work perfectly, and when you see them work, it’s mind-blowing. Real life reactions that we’ve taken for granted translate to video games with excellence. Wood is softer than steel, organic structures stretch and rip apart instead of breaking off easily like metal. The problem is not the engines, but the fact that the game doesn’t use any of the three in interesting ways. Unless you go searching for a glass panel to throw an enemy through, or some random background object to play around with, you could go through the entire game without knowing any of these engines were being used.
Even though there’s a lot of potential lost in Force Unleashed, there’s still a few things to enjoy. There’s much lore to be explored in this game including key plot points of Episode IV, such as how the Rebel Alliance was formed. And, although the story is predictable, it bridges the gap between the two trilogies in a satisfying way. If you want to play an average Star Wars experience, The Force Unleashed is par for the course. Those of you looking to have an engaging video game experience, may want to invest time looking elsewhere, or rather, replay God of War, since this is practically the same game.
