Ty Arthur
BloodyaugustThe Force Unleashed Full Game
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 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.
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