by Libe Goad on Monday, July 07, 2008
The Star Wars movie series may have come to a close, but the billion-dollar brand is still going strong, thanks to a never-ending series of tie-ins, including toys, books, animated spin-offs and, of course, video games.
We recently got a chance to play through the first several levels of LucasArts' latest, The Force Unleashed, and we found a lot to like, along with a few things that will bother gamers used to recent highly polished efforts from Grand Theft Auto IV to Metal Gear Solid IV.
The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You are Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice! The Dark Lord of the Sith himself has trained you to use a lightsaber and unleash the power of the Force, but now your destiny is your own. Will you join Vader as the next great Sith, or will you choose to defend peace and justice as a noble Jedi Knight? The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
Lucas Arts
The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You are Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice! The Dark Lord of the Sith himself has trained you to use a lightsaber and unleash the power of the Force, but now your destiny is your own. Will you join Vader as the next great Sith, or will you choose to defend peace and justice as a noble Jedi Knight? The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
Lucas Arts
The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You are Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice! The Dark Lord of the Sith himself has trained you to use a lightsaber and unleash the power of the Force, but now your destiny is your own. Will you join Vader as the next great Sith, or will you choose to defend peace and justice as a noble Jedi Knight? The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
Lucas Arts
The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You are Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice! The Dark Lord of the Sith himself has trained you to use a lightsaber and unleash the power of the Force, but now your destiny is your own. Will you join Vader as the next great Sith, or will you choose to defend peace and justice as a noble Jedi Knight? The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
Lucas Arts
The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You are Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice! The Dark Lord of the Sith himself has trained you to use a lightsaber and unleash the power of the Force, but now your destiny is your own. Will you join Vader as the next great Sith, or will you choose to defend peace and justice as a noble Jedi Knight? The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
Lucas Arts
The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You are Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice! The Dark Lord of the Sith himself has trained you to use a lightsaber and unleash the power of the Force, but now your destiny is your own. Will you join Vader as the next great Sith, or will you choose to defend peace and justice as a noble Jedi Knight? The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
Lucas Arts
The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You are Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice! The Dark Lord of the Sith himself has trained you to use a lightsaber and unleash the power of the Force, but now your destiny is your own. Will you join Vader as the next great Sith, or will you choose to defend peace and justice as a noble Jedi Knight? The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
Lucas Arts
The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You are Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice! The Dark Lord of the Sith himself has trained you to use a lightsaber and unleash the power of the Force, but now your destiny is your own. Will you join Vader as the next great Sith, or will you choose to defend peace and justice as a noble Jedi Knight? The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
Lucas Arts
The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You are Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice! The Dark Lord of the Sith himself has trained you to use a lightsaber and unleash the power of the Force, but now your destiny is your own. Will you join Vader as the next great Sith, or will you choose to defend peace and justice as a noble Jedi Knight? The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
Lucas Arts
The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You are Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice! The Dark Lord of the Sith himself has trained you to use a lightsaber and unleash the power of the Force, but now your destiny is your own. Will you join Vader as the next great Sith, or will you choose to defend peace and justice as a noble Jedi Knight? The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
Lucas Arts
The game starts out on an especially strong note -- you play an opening tutorial level as Darth Vader (voiced by Matt Sloan – the Internet-famous filmmaker better known as Chad Vader). With most of his Force powers turned up to high, Vader stomps through the linear level, making quick work of the Wookies on their home planet of Kashyyyk, while learning the basics of lifting rocks and blowing open locked doors.
It's during this first level that you'll also run into some of the game's limitations. Despite some nice character models and lighting effects, the locations themselves are mostly generic and lack detail. There is, however, often some interesting background animation going off far in the distance – like the Star Destroyers flying overhead in the first level.
One of the most-hyped parts of the game is the Molecular Matter technology that paints in-game objects with the physical properties of their real-world counterparts. Wood splinters like wood, glass shatters like glass, etc. It's impressive to see in action – such as when Vader splits trees in the opening level, or his apprentice (your playable character for most of the game) bends back metal doors in later levels. But – we were disappointed to see much of the destructible environments (as well as vanquished enemies) vanish into thin are seconds later. For a game not nearly as detailed as some other recent games, it's a surprising throwback.
As Starkiller, Vader's secret apprentice, the next few levels play out as assassination missions for Vader. Levels are largely linear, but we found that some areas can be tackled in different ways – we bypassed most of the enemies in one dangerous zone by zipping right past them on our way to blow up a shield generator (although they were waiting for us when we had to pass through again, and in an especially bad mood).
You may not want to skip too many fights -- defeating enemies adds to your health, and builds Force points for unlocking new Force powers (or upgrading the ones you have), as well as new lightsaber combos (although, lightsaber combat is still mostly button-mashing).
From our hands-on time with the first four levels, we can safely say The Force Unleashed offers excellent twitch-based action, if not exactly a lot to challenge your brain. The level of polish isn't what we've come to expect from a major mainstream entry, but the game doesn't skimp on the big set piece thrills -- especially for fans who have waited a long time to indulge the Dark Side.
Heh.."Starkiller", at last - thanks for that. And not DARTH Starkiller, either..cause we all know that Darth is a *name* and not a TITLE, don't we, George?? My only question..will we get a sequence in which Artoo's jets are permanently damaged?
awesome
awesome
i really looked forward to this game and i hope it's on the wii
starkiller is so effing hot.
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