I finally got my chance to play a real copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed recently. Of course, I had planned on buying it for the Xbox 360 immediately after the release of the game, but as I reached into my pocket I discovered that I was poor. I ended up waiting for Juan to finish his Playstation 3 copy of the same game, of which I borrowed and enjoyed thoroughly...for the first hour at least. After that the game became a tedious mess of mixed graphics (Some of the characters are perfect enough for a low budget movie, while others look like they were slapped together from the leftovers of previous star wars games). The plot showed that Lucas has no remorse in taking a stack of Expanded Universe books and ripping them in half (Throwing them into a fire is not unlikely either). The gameplay, well that is fun at first, until you realize that hack and slash is just a lot easier than using any of the force powers. This is unfortunate because the whole appeal of the game was to...wait for it...unleash the force, in ways never before imagined at that.
And out of all the things that bother me the most, this is probably the MAIN complaint I have about the game...
That's right. In the parts where you weren't trying to figure out how Vader's cape worked, you try relentlessly to get the camera back into a reasonable position for killing Wookies and Stormtroopers alike.
That's not to say the game was SOOO horrible. It was actually a playable game, with a backstory to some of the events which everyone wanted to see on a screen of some sort.
:SUMMARY FOR THE LAZY PEOPLE:-Gameplay-The combat is amusing and creative, if you are only planning on playing for about an hour or less at a time. If you can look past the camera controls, it isn't so bad. The Xbox version (I played the Demo on this one) felt a little more streamlined though compared to the PS3 imitation of a controller.
-Graphics-People are ugly, planets are BEAUTIFUL. Although they can get a bit repetitive, the artists went all out in designing the different worlds.
-Story-It is Star Wars. I love seeing the something new in the universe, but certain points of the game (I'll avoid spoilers for you OCD people out there) made me slap my forehead in disgust. Honestly, whoever wrote the script needs to be stringed upside down and slapped by a fish, or something equally as smelly. If you love the original Star Wars canon, don't spend money on this game. Borrow it.
-FINAL CONCLUSION-There is ALWAYS something to love about Star Wars. The only problem here is that it is
just another Star Wars game. There is nothing really special about it other than the new technology that allows force telekinesis and lightning.
Rent it, or buy it used or just borrow it. Don't spend you're hard earned money on this game unless you have nothing more important to spend it on...like food...or soap.
