The world is full of ideas that look spectacular on paper: sparks of revolutionary thinking like microwaveable chips, surround sound headphones, the Spice Girls reunion, and everything ever sold by Verimark. Unfortunately, the brilliant minds behind these ground-breaking inventions often neglect the practical and crucial step of properly executing these brainwaves, leaving us with an anticlimactic end product which makes it seem like all that creative genius was splurged and wasted at conception.<\/p>\n
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a prime example of such an idea, and while it tries ever so hard to live up to its potential, its ambitious ideals set its own bar just a little too high. This serves as a sobering realisation that, despite some very thick smoke and very sparkly mirrors, not even the almighty King Lucas can create the next best thing since sliced bread.<\/p>\n
Star Wars geeks will no doubt frost their trousers within minutes of firing up Force Unleashed. The official ‘Lucas Approved’ story slots itself in somewhere between Episode 3 and 4, and seeks to elaborate on the elimination of several Jedi stragglers still loyal to the Light Side, mentioned only in passing in the films.<\/p>\n
Players assume the role of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, a Sith novice called Starkiller. (Interestingly enough, this was the original name for Skywalker which was changed at the eleventh hour before ‘A New Hope’ was first released.) Tasked with eliminating the last remaining Jedi opposition, Starkiller must travel to a variety of planets and locales in order to exterminate these insurgents, and ensure that Vader is left free to practice his Force Grip on incompetent Generals, bumbling Stormtroopers, or his Official Princess Leia Stress Ball™.<\/p>\n
The protagonist is controlled from a third-person viewpoint, and vanquishing evildoers (or in this case, the good guys) is done using either the trusty Lightsaber or a variety of Force Powers: enemies can be lifted and bashed about with Force Grip, savagely toasted by Force Lightning, or violently blasted away with Force Push. These Powers form the backbone of the entire game, and players can experience loads of sadistically-satisfying fun by brandishing them in all sorts of cruel and creative ways.<\/p>\n
However, even though players will travel far and wide in their force-driven quests, it’s a let-down to discover that wielding the Force is not only the main act, but is also the supporting performer as well as the complimentary freak show. As thrilling as it is flinging shrieking enemies quite literally across the level, or dropping an entire Tie Fighter on the head of an irritating Jawa, the bug-ridden powers of the Dark Side seem gimmicky and end up making the game feel like an elaborate tech demo.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately the game falls flat in its execution, and the primary culprits are the underdeveloped control, camera and targeting systems. The targeting reticule tends to point at what Starkiller is facing, regardless of where the camera is, which often results in misdirected attacks and wasted Force energy. To make things worse, the levels are littered with objects which can be picked up and thrown, but gamers will more likely find themselves throwing the controller after the hundredth time that a crate or other non-conductive inanimate object bears the brunt of badly-aimed Force Lightning. Much like an epileptic in a strobe light factory, these highly quirky implementations will disorient, frustrate and annoy you before ultimately leaving you rabidly frothing at the mouth.<\/p>\n
Making the tech demo experience even more ‘realistic’ is a technology called ‘Digital Molecular Matter’ which tries to give objects and characters real-world properties (such as a crate which may dent if hit softly or explode if hit harder, or a tree that’ll bend before it breaks). Unfortunately, this comes across as more of an unnecessarily elaborate extra on top of the well-established Havok physics engine than something that actually makes the game more enjoyable.<\/p>\n
The AI is supposedly further enhanced by the ‘Euphoria’ engine, claiming to boost enemies’ questionable intelligence by allowing them to flank you, flee when necessary, or even to grab onto something when being terrorized by Force Grip. While these events really do happen in the game it’s nothing that couldn’t have been accomplished by scripted events, and thus comes off like a cheap marketing ploy by King Lucas and his Lucasarts cronies.<\/p>\n
Additionally, players can upgrade their Powers and combos by collecting Holocrons scattered in semi-secret areas around the levels. There are also extra outfits for Starkiller to find (because we know hardcore gamers are usually quite concerned that their character’s clothes and accessories are in this season), and crystals to change your Lightsaber’s colour (see previous brackets), but it’s obvious these are just cosmetic additions.<\/p>\n
Although it’s good to see some extra effort put in by the developers in this regard, there is a delay every time an option is accessed in the pause screen, which quickly becomes tedious and infuriating. What should be a quick character upgrade ends up taking a good few minutes of valuable gaming time: in fact, we recommend that gamers hide all sharp objects before attempting any customization, because on top of all the other jaw-clenching, teeth-gnashing irritations Force Unleashed will toss up, a simple upgrade will have you seriously considering going postal.<\/p>\n
The visuals are quite impressive on most of the levels, and Starkiller will encounter everything from mutant plants to junkyard monsters. Some well known characters make a reappearance, although it’s jarring to discover that not all are voiced by the original voice actors from the films; some are hardly noticeable, but others are so disappointing that the sense of immersion and authenticity is broken, further adding cheapness and yet another let-down to what could have been a really spectacular Star Wars experience.<\/p>\n
Overall, Force Unleashed is a fun game for the most part, but it’s really not worth all the hype. It’s kind of like the last lonely hooker meandering the cold city streets of downtown Jo’burg at 4am on a Sunday morning: sure, she may seem unique and exciting at first with exotic features like that fetching glass eye or curiously arousing peg-leg, but once you get her home you’ll find that doing the (quick and awkward) deed will ultimately leave you feeling disappointed, unsatisfied, and embarrassed that you actually paid money for such trash.<\/p>\n