September 22nd 2008 18:50
The Force Unleashed has finally made its debut and it’s time to see if it lives up to the initial hype. For the most part, this is one of the best Star Wars games around and it will probably be awhile before anything better comes around. It’s certainly not without flaws, but overall The Force Unleashed is quite a satisfying experience. The full game is far better than the demo would have indicated, with tons of options, force powers, upgrades, power ups, and more that weren’t even hinted at before. Your Jedi characters uses a “level up” system somewhat similar to Knights of the Old Republic, but without the d20 system trappings. As you progress in “levels” you can either choose new tiers of force powers or upgrade already existing ones. There are a massive number of powers, and most of them are actually useful. Some of them, like Force Punt, are a bit on the silly side and aren’t worth purchasing, but almost all of the others are uniformly awesome. The many varied environments also look much more amazing than the simple star ship interior we saw in the demo. There is also the huge plus of actually getting to play a level as Darth Vader, which doesn’t happen often in Star Wars games.
The cinematic nature of the boss fights is simply second to none. It uses a system similar to what was seen in God of War or Resident Evil 4 where you press specific combinations of buttons to execute movie style attacks that you can’t normally use. Because Jedi wielding amazing force powers in lush environments are involved, they get pretty freaking sweet. The boss designs themselves are top notch as well. Kazdan Paratus, the little Jedi with the mechanical arms, has officially surpassed General Grievous and Bobba Fett as coolest Star Wars character of all time.
Now, on to the not –so-awesome stuff. First off, it has been scientifically proven that Darth Vader never jumps. If the lawful evil dark lord of doom ever needed something that he couldn’t reach, he would use the force to bring it to him. He certainly wouldn’t lower himself to physical exertion to get to something located on a higher level than himself. Yeah, it’s a weird complaint, but it did actually affect the level immersion I felt in the Vader level. Another immersion problem that will probably annoy more people than just me is that the level of realism in the game keeps boomeranging back and forth between extreme and comical. Objects sway in the wind, people grab on to things to save themselves from being thrown of a ship, trees come crashing down when a tie fighter slams into them, and so on. Everything is very detailed and realistic, until an object gets destroyed. Sure, you can slam an enemy into a tree repeatedly until it comes crashing down on top of the rest of the squad of storm troopers, but then the tree literally disappears. What is the point in having repercussions for actions if they just disappear immediately after occurring? It’s like we are back in the SNES days when enemies blinked rapidly and then disappeared after you have dispatched them.
The force powers also could use a bit of tweaking. You can use the force to levitate and throw objects on the up and down and side to side axis, but you can’t rotate them. This is especially frustrating because there is a puzzle that requires you to move objects into specific positions using your force powers, so you have to repeatedly pick them up, move them over, set them down, and pick them up again because you can’t rotate the angle of the object. There is also the annoying fact that you can’t switch between targets when using the force to lift up objects. The game auto-targets what it thinks you are looking at, and it often gets it completely wrong.
Most of these complaints can be overlooked because of how awesome the rest of the game is. Hopefully the developers will learn from the experience and make the next Force Unleashed style game just a bit closer to perfection.
The newest Star Wars epic hits shelves this month, and from all indications this one is going to be one of the better titles in a series that has had its share of hits and misses. My brother in law has been carefully watching the development of The Force Unleashed at a level that has border lined on complete obsession, so even though I’m not that big a fan of the series or action games in general, I have become rather interested in this game because of its three separate engines that cover things like physics, motion, and character self-preservation.
In general demos seem like a bad idea, as they take people away from the main development of the game, and there is no way to know how much of what is in the demo will actually still be in the game itself. Will the bugs in the demo be present in the game? Will the graphics be of the same quality? Will the controls have changed? Are all of the powers available to the main character on the demo the only ones in the game? Playing a demo really puts too much guess work into the process of deciding which games are worth it and which aren’t. They can serve as a general guideline, but really don’t give any specific information to help in your decision.
With that warning in mind, I did get a chance to play The Force Unleashed demo, and overall it looks like it’s shaping up to be a pretty great game. On a humorous side note, when you download the demo on Xbox Live, the title says “Star Wars: TFU Demo.” This is odd because there is more than enough room on the title bar to have written out “The Force Unleashed,” and it provides some unintentional humor since it seems like they are going for a shortening of the popular internet acronym STFU. Are they trying to say Star Wars: The F*&! Up Demo?
Anyway, on the demo itself. There is a tutorial that shows how to use the force powers so the player doesn’t get frustrated when playing through, and it’s pretty comprehensive yet easy to grasp. The force powers themselves are uniformly awesome, but you could probably play the whole thing through just using the push and pull mechanic and completely ignoring other abilities such as force lightning. There are plenty of things to grab in the environment and throw at enemies, like boxes, droids, other enemies, and even huge TIE fighters.
There are really only two complaints worth raising about the demo. The first is the lack of blood and gore. The game makes a point of focusing on how much damage your light saber can do to anything. If you strike a wall, there will be a permanent gash in that wall. If you hit a droid, it will fly into two pieces. Yet for some reason when you strike a storm trooper or rebel guard with it, they simply get knocked backward and then disappear when they die? It really ruins immersion, and makes the game less believable. I understand the developer’s plight though, as a certain terrible writer who for unknown reasons has millions of dollars and a huge franchise under his control wants to make certain that that franchise never gets out of a PG-13 range. The other issue is rather minor, and may not even be present in the game itself. When you have the character jump in the air, he automatically uses his force powers to keep himself floating if you attack with your light saber, which allows you to remain suspended above the ground to attack large objects or flying things. It would have been nice if there was also an option to do a downward attack, jumping into the air and then striking downwards with the saber to hit an enemy below. The demo ends with a large scale battle between the main character and a contingent of storm troopers backed up by an imperial walker. It’s a fun and challenging battle, and they throw in a mechanic very similar to what the “God of War” series does. Once the boss is reduced to a certain health level, you have to hit a specific combination of buttons on the controller to pull off a finishing move. In this case, cutting the walker completely in half with your light saber.
Overall the demo seems to indicate that The Force Unleashed will probably become the best Star Wars game in recent memory. It’s a shame that the amazing use of force powers couldn’t have been mastered by earlier games. Imagine if Knights of the Old Republic had been this in depth with use of force powers!
Moving away from video games, while I was watching the latest season of Lost (love being able to download them on Xbox Live!) I noticed something rather amusing. In one of the last episodes of this season, when Sun is about to accost Mr. Whidmore about the secrets of the island, there is a brief moment where you can see him in the background talking to some colleagues and you just barely make out the end of their conversation. He very clearly says “Orgasm, thanks!” and then walks away. What could a group of high profile businessman on the street be talking about that ended that way? A secret for the ages I suppose…
Ty Arthur
Bloodyaugust
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