The Force Unfinished

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: A Tale of Two Video Games.

When it’s firing on all cylinders, this game is one of the best Star Wars games ever. When it’s not, it’s one of the worst.

Story

This is an odd juxtaposition. A story game in an adventure game. It REALLY plays like God of War in its mechanics, and its story is duly similar. The interesting thing about Star
Wars canon is that things only happen once. And the story that ties together the prequels and the original trilogy has this as a gap. It’s not always a sane one, it’s a book one. As insane as the movies are (and boy howdy on that note) the books are really batty. This is a decent bridge, but due to its role as being A STAR WARS video game it mirrors the two protagonists of each trilogy. For a video game, this isn’t bad. In fact, it’s one of the better told stories I’ve seen. As a piece that’s supposed to be (thus far) the definitive gap filler, it’s kind of a letdown. It’s interesting to people who care about Star Wars more than a little.

Design

The levels are fairly straightforward and uninteresting, but when they are big they aren’t varied. Critiques leveled are that the graphics are too simplistic or that the path is too linear. First off, few are the adventure games where the path isn’t linear. Sandbox style game play in a supposedly linear story doesn’t work either. It’s a platform adventure hack n’ slash. This is a rather solid genre. When games like Assassin’s Creed or a Spider Man game ARE open ended, the critique is that they are not straightforward enough.

It’s the most detailed Star Wars game on any console, and the best implementation of Force Powers. The practical considerations like not amputating opponents when you slash with your saber are a shame, but it’s a practical shame. While a lot of the levels are very… similar. There is a good deal more detail and nuance than your average game. Some of the levels are practically inspired design, others feel very average. Some of the levels feel too busy, but I’m fine with that. Star Wars can be messy, and I’m not sorry for that feeling.

Gameplay

This is one of the games that are geared towards the “Core” gamer. Its gameplay utilizes every button on the controller for combos and various moves. This is at times disorienting. This approach is necessary given all the choices the character has, but I can’t help but feel bad for the newly minted gamers who are going to be excited by this, but are frustrated by overly complex controls. They did the best with what they have, but it doesn’t change the fact that this game is sharply for the experienced hand.

Sound

It’s Star Wars. Greatest soundtrack ever. The sound effects are dead on (they even get in the Wilhelm, for goodness sake’s). My complaint here is the lack of more variety. Star Wars is a deep canal, and there’s plenty of music to go with, yet it seems the mixes here are smaller. Given that John Williams wrote specific themes for characters, their lack leaves the game an exhaustive mood. Everything is mood music or The March of the Empire. It didn’t work in the prequels.

Glitches and Bad Choices

Sometimes, the game takes a good idea and ruins it, and that does a lot of damage to its reputation. This is a game that many can be proud of, but the lack of polish or discretion in certain instances offer a counterpoint to the developer layoffs. It pains me to say, but some of the decisions and quality checks that failed really do warrant termination. Not an entire team, per se, but these are revenue-costing mistakes, and punitive actions are due.

This game is unforgivably insipid at times. It’s embarrassing, and it makes this a rental, not a buy. The Star Destroyer scene is really as terrible as you’ve heard. It’s embarrassingly glitchy, it’s unreliable and it hurts to do. For such a centerpiece of the game, it’s really awful. Took me over an hour and a half. How this ever got past testing, I’ll never know or understand. When you use the force so effortlessly (that’s kind of the point of the game) this section feels awful.

Boss fights are also poorly implemented. Imagine that you spend an entire game with a certain viewpoint and move reactions. Which you do in The Force Unleashed. Until a boss fight. Then you get these wide shots that are really hard to control in. It’s not what you’re doing 90% of the time, and while it does offer a wider venue, it throws you out of the game and your character’s health suffers for it.

That most enemies need a lightning bolt in order to inflict significant damage is also kind of sad. The environmental damage is minimal and takes too long to pull off. For a game built around the havoc engine, there’s a lot you can’t do. Penny Arcade’s comic tells a more interesting combo than any available in the game.

Glitch-wise, the most egregious errors are in general combat. At one point, my character froze up and couldn’t move. Got seriously owned. It took about 15 minutes to get to that same point in the level. Argh. Enemies would randomly spawn. Sometimes, my Nerf lightsaber wouldn’t even make contact on stormtroopers. It’s ghastly. Targeting is a damn joke in this game. It’s as bad as some of the Playstation 1 Star Wars games. It’s sad, because the enemies will kill you, lots.

I don’t know what kind of demands this game is to the hardware of this generation, but their menu system is the worst I have ever seen. Every menu needs to load up. If you need to add experience points or learn new skills midbattle, you will wait a while. Switching lightsaber colors, that’s a load. The menus and submenus are poorly arranged and use the top right-left triggers for switching purposes. It’s not an effective design. The wait times are unpleasant. Too many games have shown me it doesn’t have to be like this.

Releasing this game now is a curious move. There is no Teen rated mega-game for the holiday season other than the Rock Band/Guitar Hero stuff for the holiday season. This game could have used another month or two of troubleshooting. Core gamers, the kind most likely to buy this game, do read reviews and these errors will translate poorly in sales figures. Kids do not deserve a game that is hard to play not because the game itself is difficult but because the game design is poor. This game needed to bake a little longer.

Final Analysis

For everything this game does right, it does wrong. I recommend playing it, because going to the Star Wars Universe is always compelling. It’s really a wonderful, sometimes delightfully unpretentious world. There’s a lot to be said for craftsmanship, however, and this game makes mistakes that are inexcusable. This apprentice isn’t a Jedi, yet.