Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

While I generally avoid games that tie in to popular movie, book or comic franchises, I’ve found it often pays to make an exception for Star Wars. Whether it be first person shooters or RPG (if you haven’t played Knight of the Old Republic, I give it my highest recommendation) games set in the Star Wars universe have been of exceptional quality, and offering more than a mere fan tribute to the original material. It was thus with high expectations that I recently set out to try Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the newest offering for the 360 and the PS3. Despite some negative professional critical reviews, I found the game to be a fine addition to the tradition of excellence that Star Wars games have cultivated, despite being, like Han Solo, a little rough around the edges.

Plotting Points by Tan(x)
Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Game: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Platform: XBOX 360
Played For: 7 hours


The idea behind the Force Unleashed is to let you control a Dark Jedi with nigh boundless control of the Force. You assume the role of Darth Vader’s apprentice, secretly being trained to overthrow the Emperor in events that transpire just shy of the original Star Wars movie (i.e. episode IV.) Our protagonist is a conflicted character, capable of easily blowing apart every great vehicle or tech that you wish you had for your action figure collection if you were a kid in the 1980s. Lots of power and no direction, following good old Darth (not voiced by James Earl Jones here) but mixed up with Rebels as well, the Apprentice should appeal to the teenage mindset. He’s also accompanied by a hot blond pilot named Juno Eclipse (they certainly have Star Wars naming conventions down correctly), or at least she would be hot if the character animations were a little better. The animators didn’t manage to get the motions of humans walking quite right… every character has a weird angularity, stiff but hunched back, and droid-like motions that kinda hits the uncanny valley creepiness factor.

There are two places where the graphics excelled. The backgrounds throughout the game are amazing… almost too detailed in some cases. And the various boss fight sequences could have been choreographed by Jackie Chan… they are intense, exciting and skilled… good enough to make you wish you could just sit back and watch, rather than pushing the right button at the right time. Force Unleashed is highly cinematic, one of those video games that leaves you shaking your head and wondering why Hollywood no longer seems to produce the kind of involved story and action that is present in this medium. The visual style throughout the game is also highly consistent with established Star Wars lore… huge cavernous Empire architecture, junk yards full of discarded tech, a spectral, glowing mushroom world. There are some strange places where video game logic emerges… certain locations teem with tiny side rooms of no import and no content, as if Imperial construction crews kept tunneling in the wrong direction and aborting. Also, the game is linear, so you won’t have much choice where to turn next at any given moment.

You do, however, get all the usual critters and droids populating the world, and there is a definite pleasure to picking up those little cleaning robots and flinging them at Storm Troopers using your Force powers. That’s not my favorite move, though… when you encounter Jawa, make sure to make a grab… you’ll be rewarded with a Jawa punt-kick. From the crowd-pleasing Rancor to the giant tentacle pit monster thing, each creature is cool to see and amusing to battle. Oh, and there are a few alien Star Wars Jedi babes in there for the cheesecake factor as well.

A major criticism of the game was that it presented an amazing array of super powers, only to quickly make every enemy immune to their use. I think this is unfair… in my play through I used a variety of powers on every level, and found that often one hit from a lightsaber would knock out an enemy’s shield and leave them vulnerable to any nasty death you felt like imparting… force lightning, flinging them into a chasm, and so on. There were a few enemies that I found more frustrating than fun… for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out a good defense against snipers, and it was imperative to hunt them down and kill them first thing in each arena situation.

Actually, my largest complaint in the game was too much use of your powers… there were a few sequences where you had to rely on the wildly inaccurate and fidgety force grab technique. The power obstinately targets exactly the wrong thing at every use, and good luck flinging things in the direction you intend… even I can throw something with more accuracy, and I’m a math nerd. Sheesh!

My nephews are fully addicted to that Clone Wars stuff on TV these days… something that I haven’t been able to get into in the least. If you are more a fan of the good old days of Star Wars, think that the best movies were the original three and don’t spend much time cogitating on the new ones, then you may be a fan of this game. Celebrating old school Star Wars more than not, The Force Unleashed is a fine addition to the saga, and an action game par excellence.

Will I play it more: The cut scenes could be part of an all-day Star Wars athon