Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

"Has its fair share of problems, but its a great game otherwise."

When I picked up the force unleashed, I knew it probably wouldnt be the game lucasarts claimed it would be. The best star wars experience ever. It tries very hard to be the best, but I dont think it tops KOTOR at all, to be honest.

Graphics/physics engine: 8/10
The graphics in this game are AMAZING. They have a mixed bag of the new prequel trilogy type environments, and the classic environments, like the star destroyers and even the death star. The environments look pretty amazing, from the trees in kashyyyk, down to the reflections on the floor in the death star and star destroyer stages.

Physics: 6/10
The physics engine is the biggest problem with this game. Lucasarts used THREE different physics engines together in this game, which really does make sense, since so many things in the environments are moving. The problem is that these physics engines dont get along well at all. This results in some boss battles being unwinnable because the enemy gets stuck up in the air or on the floor, getting stuck on the ground after getting knocked down, and (rarely) enemies get stuck in the wall. These problems still have yet to be patched. And, yes MANY people have actually complained about this to lucasarts, they havent done anything. The glitches are alot worse on PS3 unfortunately, so if you own all three (like I do) consoles and planed on picking up the PS3 version, Id reccomend getting the 360 version instead.

Gameplay: 8/10
This is where things get a bit stale. The game is titled 'The force Unleashed' but to be completely honest, it doesnt feel unleashed. Early in the game it feels unleashed yes, but when you get to later levels, especially the Death Star one, you feel weak and underpowered. The enemies get progressively more of what I like to call 'anti-force' as you move along, my least favorite being the cyborg troopers. They can pick you up and throw you around, but (even though you can pull a freaking star destroyer out of the sky) you cant pick them up and throw them around. There is a rather large logic gap, and it seems like the dev team just threw those enemies in there to add an extra half hour to the game (if playing on hard).

speaking of the length of the game, the game is about 9 -17 hours, 17 being if you do all of the difficulties and care enough to play the DLC. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there are no bonus features (movie trailers, developer interviews, making ofs) to be unlocked aside from saber crystals, force powers and costumes for your character. That to me is a let down, as this is quite a huge release, and they didnt seem to care enough to actually put in videos or anything like that, which they did do for that crappy Episode III game.

The gameplay, aside from the flaws mentioned above, is alot of fun. In fact, this is the best star wars game ive played since Jedi Knight 2 and Jedi Academy.

Presentation: 9/10
Overall the presentation on this game is top notch, the cutscenes are amazing and the menus are..well menus, and they do their job. The only thing that I have to really complain about here is the load time between the two pause menus. It takes 10-15 seconds when switching between the regular menu and the stats/customization menu. This is unacceptable, nothing really changes on the menus each time you load them, so why the hell does it take so long to load? last year was a big one for games, fallout 3, soul calibur 4, saints row 2, by far this had the slowest load time I saw on any big name titles last year. At least they were nice enough to give us little fun facts to read while on the load screen.

Story: 10/10
Ah yes, the story, this is by far the best part of this game period! Even though most people reading this will have probably already played, I wont give anything away. Lets just say that there are MANY plot twists that I didnt even see coming in this game.


Overall: 8.2/10
To me this should have been the new TV show and movie, and the clone wars should have been a game, after all the clone wars movie on the big screen looked like complete crap, It looked like a huge cutscene from a PS2 game. Not to mention the clone wars had a horrible story with characters out of character and logic gaps galore. The show isnt doing too well either from what Ive heard. Had it been the other way around, this would have made a good gap closer for the time between 3 and 4.

Anyways, if youre a big star wars fan and STILL havent got this game, what are you waiting for, go get it NOW! Even if you arent a huge fan of star wars, this game is quite fun to play and Id say its probably still worth a buy because you can do so much cool stuff in it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/02/09

Game Release: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (US, 09/16/08)