Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

"The Reduced Star Wars Company"

For those who don't get the joke in the Tagline, The Reduced Shakespeare Company perform plays in a minute or less, and that's how this game feels.

I'd like to say I'm a gamer, but certainly not a hardcore one, and even I had waltzed through this quite merrily in under 8 hours. For what is essentially an action game with a nod to RPG (based on the fact you can customise your skill levels) Force Unleashed is incredibly short.

From the little I had seen before I bought the game I thought this was a new KOTOR (Knights Of The Old Republic) that Nintendo fans were going to get a look at as well, and after the first level I still had that impression. In fact, the game does play pretty well, although lightsaber duelling is a little lost, I found I was blasting away with Lightning more than anything else, and the lightsaber customising is fun, again in a way similar to KOTOR.

The storyline is what redeems this game from complete mediocrity for me. Before opening the packet I already had concerns. Were you going to stay true to the Dark Side? Where does this new Jedi fit into the Star Wars universe? The fact that there is no Apprentice in Episodes IV - VI suggests that the protagonist can't survive or renounces the Force somehow and how this is dealt with is actually very clever.

The control system is by no means complex (I'm playing it on the Wii), making it simple to perform varying combos/Force powers etc. but still letting you feel like you have some control over your lightsaber beyond flailing the remote at the screen. Certain combos that require various movements of the controller rather than just button pressing also feel quite involving as you can imagine the motion relating to what's going on on-screen.

The graphics are also actually reasonable by Wii standards, beyond the odd point of lagging or seeing objects that you shouldn't be able to in the distance. It's all very classic Star Wars so as long as the StormTroopers look right, everyone is reasonably happy :) Same with the sound, it opens with the classic from the films and really stays quite tru to whats gone before, so nothing terribly original but nonetheless fitting for what it is.

As I've said above, my major issue with Force Unleashed is it's length, imagining a KOTOResque game I was looking forward to 20-30 hours game time and enough variety to make me want to start over again to see how something else would work. No. This just never materialised, although you will probably have to go back to pick up Holocrons and Saber Hilts, the gameplay isn't affected by this at all, it just becomes work for a Completionist rather than good gaming fun.

Franchise games are rarely great, but this would at least looked good. Everything was ticking the right boxes for a really enjoyable game, then came the realisation that I'd hit the final boss already. Double it's length and this would've made up for KOTOR never being Nintendo bound, as is it's a poor substitute that left me wondering why Id bothered forking out £35 for under 8 hours play. That's not good making, it's cashing in on what could've been something special.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/08

Game Release: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (EU, 09/19/08)