Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360)
Manufacturer: LucasArts Part number: 33276
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Gamespot editors' review
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360) price range: $19.99 - $59.99
- Reviewed by: Kevin VanOrd
- Reviewed on: 09/15/2008
- Released on: 09/16/2008
There are a number of thrilling moments lurking in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed--enough of them that you'll likely be disappointed that it drifts so often from the things it excels at. Amazing displays of power and destruction are interspersed with inept, poorly conceived gameplay sequences, making for an inconsistent journey that, fortunately, gets more right than it does wrong. It certainly gives a fantastic first impression, starting with a tutorial level that serves as a great introduction to its complex protagonist. Yet while the initial levels impress, the later ones stumble a bit. Force Unleashed is a very good game that could have been great, had it not taken so many unnecessary detours.
This is the best Star Wars story in years.
A big chord and brass fanfare signal the opening of Force Unleashed--the same intro that sparks excitement in millions of fans the world over every time they hear it. If you're interested in this game because you're looking for familiar science-fiction pageantry and a classic good-versus-evil tale, you'll find it delivers both. In fact, The Force Unleashed represents a real step forward in storytelling for the famed franchise, delivering a story both more intimate and more powerful than the entirety of the second film trilogy. Sure, it offers its share of melodrama, but it's tempered by emotive voice acting and expressive character models, and together they provide the emotional heft long missing from the movies. The drama is further enriched by a vivid art design that breathes life into the franchise's long-sterile visual exterior.
Leading the narrative charge is Galen Marek, aka Starkiller, Darth Vader's secret apprentice. The Clone Wars have ended, and Vader orders you to hunt and destroy the last of the remaining Jedi. The story, as brief as it is (the game ends at around the eight-hour mark), contains multiple twists, features some friendly and not-so-friendly faces, and is both explosive and remarkably intimate. You'll interact with Vader, of course, but Starkiller spends most of his time with an android called PROXY and his female pilot, Juno Eclipse. Sharing the details of the trio's adventures would spoil too much, so suffice to say, you'll grow remarkably fond of Starkiller and his companions, and their moral conflicts carry a lot of weight.
If you're interested in The Force Unleashed for more than its story, you'll find that it's a mixture of pure fun and pure frustration. The fun wins out, mainly because when it runs on all cylinders, you truly feel like a powerful Dark Jedi, using a variety of force powers and lightsaber slashes to rain death upon rebel and imperial foes alike. You can thank the game's robust physics engine for those thrills. You can grab any number of objects and characters using your force grip power, and when combined with other skills like force lightning and force push, you can fling stormtroopers into Wookiees, crush Felucian tribal leaders under boulders, and smash AT-STs with scattered barrels. In open environments, these mechanics deliver--big time. Grabbing a Rodian from a distance, electrocuting it, and flinging it into a crowd of shock troopers; hearing your lightsaber hum and whir after you whip it toward an innocent Wookiee; or just drop-kicking a whining Jawa: These moments may very well cause you to yell with glee. This is a game that will make you grab your friends to show off your potent skills.
When the Force Unleashed rocks, it really rocks. Too bad it doesn't always stick to its strengths.
Unfortunately, developer LucasArts often fails to string these amazing moments together long enough to keep the momentum going. The impressive physics work quite well in huge, open areas like a TIE Fighter facility. The action gets problematic at almost any other time, however, and the hyperactive physics become almost as much of a liability as an asset. This becomes more apparent as Force Unleashed's targeting foibles come more clearly into focus. The targeting is loose, which makes it incredibly easy to grab something other than what you intended, and even easier to throw it at something other than into its actual mark. In the most claustrophobic areas, this might mean flinging an exploding barrel into yourself, throwing it into nothing at all, or targeting a completely immovable item--which then begs the question why the game let you target it with force grip in the first place. And as is the case with many third-person action game cameras, getting in a smaller space means claustrophobic camera angles that cause you to lose perspective of the bigger picture. This is more of a problem here than in most games, though, because Force Unleashed chooses a target not based on the direction the player is facing via the camera, but which direction Starkiller is facing. That's fine in large environments, when there is more camera maneuverability. Otherwise, it becomes a frustrating paradox of ideas: In confined areas, Force Unleashed requires greater player precision, but makes it more difficult to be precise.
Despite these moments of frustration, you'll often find that Force Unleashed is a pleasant challenge, particularly during the best of its boss encounters. The boss battles on your first visits to Felucia and Raxus Prime are the best of the bunch, because they're fun and challenging without being frustrating. These multipart battles are implemented well, letting you restart from that section of the encounter should you die, rather than forcing you to restart at the very beginning. In all of them, you'll need to be constantly active, use a mix of different skills, and pay close attention to patterns. Most of these encounters feature a cinematic camera that may zoom in and out during the action, which makes some of them even more exciting. In others, the camera angles more annoying, since it restricts the viewing area, thereby exacerbating the targeting and physics issues. A battle featuring a bull rancor could have been epic, but it's too easy to get stuck between the rancor's legs, or inside the large skeletons scattered about. The battle is also bugged; in both the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, the rancor's health bar disappeared, rendering the beast impossible to kill and requiring a restart. In a later boss fight, the camera pulls back and magically appearing invisible walls keep you confined to a limited area, which is odd, given that Force Unleashed avoids invisible walls for the majority of its campaign.
User reviews
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One of the better Star Wars games to come out
by DrumMaster1982 on November 28, 2008
Pros: It fills in the gap between Episodes 3 and 4. Let's you finally be a sith and have fun with all their powers. Lots of room for experimenting with combo's and various types of attacks. You get to play as Darth Vader for once!
Cons: Story seems a little bit last minute fabricated at times often looking for the quickest way to make something tie in together. Load times are aweful.
Summary: I've always been a big fan of Star Wars games, going all the way back to Star Wars X-Wing for PC back in the early 90's. The first ...
Summary: I've always been a big fan of Star Wars games, going all the way back to Star Wars X-Wing for PC back in the early 90's. The first really good game which put you in 3rd person mode was Jedi Outcast. This game obvious takes a lot from that game but with modern graphics and technology it takes it 10x's further. This game had to live up to a lot of hype and close to 3 years in the making from when it was announced to the delays and post-ponement...it's hard to impress everyone when at that point they're expecting something mind-blowing.
Don't get me wrong, it is a very good game and kept me entertained the first and second time through but with what it excells in graphics and overall gameplay, it strongly lacks in story. You have one of the greatest Sci-Fi stories of all time to build a game around and smartly you put it set during a timeline that was never explored by any other game or movie (aside from the Knights of the Old Rep 1+2 and the Dark Knight series which I found incredibly boring).
This game fills in the 15 - 18 or so years from where Episode 3 leaves off and before Episode 4 begins. This is a huge span of time that could have gotten a minimum 2 games dedicated to telling this portion of the story. One of my biggest gripes with Lucas Arts is that they develope games without and intention to leave it open for a sequel...almost as if they expect their games to fail. Sure we all know what's going to happen eventually, but you have this opportunity to really dive into the little details instead the game feels rushed to get to Episode 4. Force Unleashed could have easily been split into 2 games and would have let this unknown story really develope and grow. Instead you feel like you're bridging 2 decades worth of missing story into a game timeframe of a couple of weeks.
Leave the game on a cliffhanger like the movies...let us think we've done something really good and redeeming but then smash our hopes in the last cutscene to show that the journey isn't quite over yet. I believe George Lucas had some part in the storyline of this game, which makes me wonder if he's turned into the Gene Simmons of movies/games in which it's just about how well you can market and bleed the Star Wars franchise for every dollar it still may hold in it.
A good game that had some much potential, but still enjoyable. -
Good single player game
by hydra38811 on October 9, 2008
Pros: The graphics are good.
Variety of enemies with different abilitiesCons: A few glitches in the game play.
Boss fights are boring.
Short game from start to finish.
No Multiplayer.Summary: This was the first Star Wars game I've purchased and I can definitely say I wasn't disappointed. Despite the few downsides in this game, it is definitely worth ...
Summary: This was the first Star Wars game I've purchased and I can definitely say I wasn't disappointed. Despite the few downsides in this game, it is definitely worth you time to play. The weak boss fights are made up for by the hundreds of peons you fight on your way through the levels.
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Awesome game, bad camera.
by DMC94 on September 25, 2008
Pros: Gourgeous graphics, a great story, the controls are good and easy to use, great designs for new characters.
Cons: The cinematic camera is extremely frustrating when fighting other saber-wielders, in some areas there are just too many enemies around you, for instance on Imperial Kashyyk.
Summary: Overall this is definatley the second best Star Wars game ever made, even with the crappy camera.
Summary: Overall this is definatley the second best Star Wars game ever made, even with the crappy camera.
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Really a very average game.
by MrBig1000 on September 23, 2008
Pros: The force powers are good fun for a while, but become a bit repetitive. The story is good and it all looks great.
Cons: Very limited, linerar level design
The camera angles are horrible.
The lightsaber duels are just a series of button mashing exercises, I much preferred the Jedi Knight series in that respect.
Full of glitches, getting stuck on scenery.Summary: Gameplay-wise this is a very ordinary game indeed, In some areas it seems to borrow heavily from older titles such as Bounty Hunter (level design) and Revenge of the Sith (...
Summary: Gameplay-wise this is a very ordinary game indeed, In some areas it seems to borrow heavily from older titles such as Bounty Hunter (level design) and Revenge of the Sith (appalling, OTT button mashing - especially on the end of level boss sequences).
The much talked about DMM stuff is fun for a while, but I can't say that it really adds a lot more than if it had been just faked animations.
In a nutshell, this seems to be another example of a Lucas venture that spends too much time on the little details of the special effects and not enough time on the on the real point of the project (in the case of the films this is story and the case of the games it is how it plays)
I found that saber fights and use of force powers much more satisfying in Jedi Outcast, I suspect partly becuase they were less over the top and therefore you felt you have a greater degree on control over them.
In short, when you strip away the Star Wars element, this is just an average button masher! Very, very disappointing for the a game that 3 years in development and delayed by almost a year. -
Major disappointment
by johnbuker on September 22, 2008
Pros: -Stunning graphics
-Interesting StoryCons: -Horrible level design
-Too many glitchesSummary: I just got a 360 about 6 months ago and I've been eagarly anticipating this game ever since. They did some things very well- the overall presentation of everything ...
Summary: I just got a 360 about 6 months ago and I've been eagarly anticipating this game ever since. They did some things very well- the overall presentation of everything is stunning, but the level design harkens back to the days of very linear first generation FPSs. A starship (or planet or whatever) the game should be designed so that you get the feeling that you're in the environment that they're trying to depict. The different rooms, hallways, paths, etc are mostly fine from an artistic standpoint, but my biggest complaint is that none of the levels really fells like a cohesive whole- they feel like they were designed as a series of obstacles instead of as part of a living world. I'm fine with a linear story for this type of game, but at least make it feel like what I'm doing is contributing to how the game plays out instead of just feeling like I'm hacking my way through one room to get to the next.
I apologize for my poor grammar in my review. I wish there was a way to clean it up, but I can't seem to edit it.
Other things that are less than they should be:
-The game freezes here and there for about a half second- always in the same places. The freezes aren't frequent but still occur often enough to be annoying.
-The cut scenes (while well written and acted) are jarring in the way that they're presented. They look good while they're playing, but they hit you by surprise both in the way that they start and where they throw you when they end. In this day and age, cut scenes should be working in a lot more seamless then they are in this game.
The graphics and story make the game worth playing, but in the end the whole game feels incomplete. A bit more thought into the level design and some more time working out the glitches could have made this game a homerun, but as it is it's a renter at best. Not horrible, but not great.
Updated on Sep 22, 2008
I thought of another analogy to use when decribing the level design in this game. If you were designing a level to look like an ordinary house, then you'd expect that house to have all the rooms that an ordinary house would have- a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, a hallway, and one or more bedrooms. The problem with this game is that the levels are all living rooms and hallways with hardly any of the other things that would give them a realistic design. What's there isn't necessarily bad, it just feels incomplete. -
COMPLETELY AWESOME!!!!!!!
by slinkyi on September 22, 2008
Pros: The Game is presented in HD and it shows. Including while you are playing and the movie segments that are infused in the gameplay!
Cons: RPG only, no online gameplay that I have found... bummer
Summary: First, I'm a huge SW fan, the storyline is killer, the gameplay is awesome, the graphics are incredible, so,... what are YOU waiting for!!!
Super Game!Summary: First, I'm a huge SW fan, the storyline is killer, the gameplay is awesome, the graphics are incredible, so,... what are YOU waiting for!!!
Super Game!
Specifications
- Manufacturer: LucasArts
- Part number: 33276
Product Basic Spec
- Platform Xbox 360
- ESRB rating Teen - Violence
- Genre Action
- Elements Action - adventure
- Context Science-fiction
- Number of players 1 Player
Game
- Developer LucasArts
- ESRB Teen
- ESRB descriptors Violence
- Max number of players 1
Manufacturer info
- LucasArts
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- Website: http://www.lucasarts.com/
- Address:
P.O. Box 10307, San Rafael, CA 94912 - Phone: 415/507-4545
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