Review: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 17 September 2008 05:32

Opinion and Analysis

Level design could have been improved.  Though the backdrops and settings are spectacular, the game-play ping-pongs between linear corridors and huge cavernous battle arenas.   This is not inherently bad, the geography is well constructed, but the smattering of puzzles seem ill defined.

There are not a great deal of visual hints to solve the puzzles, and not too much logic in doing so.  A couple of times, I fluked the solution, simply by trying as many different approaches to the issue as I had in my arsenal.

The RPG elements come in three categories,  armed with points earned during combat, Starkiller can learn new melee combos, enhance or learn new force powers or latent abilities.  It is a simple system that by the end of the game most players will have unlocked everything on offer.  So there is no real sense of crafting a character.

Star Wars aficionados will revel in the broad inclusion of the subject matter, and the epic battles involving towering Rancor’s or imperial AT-ST’s will surely impress,  the thankfully forgiving and seamless cinematic timed button elements, incorporated for boss finishing sequences will enhance this notion.

There are plenty of other Star Warsian elements to unlock, in the form of art work, character profiles and more.  There is also a forth level of difficulty to be unlocked, which is pretty much the only reason for replayability in this single player game.

In many ways, The Force Unleashed is a forerunner for the DMM and euphoria equipped titles to come.  Some fans will see the game sequences as a way to fill the gaps between story telling cinematics, others will enjoy the game as a whole and simply be thankful that the Stormtroopers in this Star Wars outing provide a challenge that to this point in video game history have seen them as lamest enemy ever.  

7 locked down actuators out of 10