Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 14th October 2008

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We unleash the force with this latest Star Wars offering from LucasArts.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Details:

Goto Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Game Page

	Action
	PC/PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Nintendo Wii
	LucasArts
	LucasArts

12+

Out Now

Star Wars games seem to have improved in recent years, so it’s was no real surprise that fans of the saga were brimming with anticipation after The Force Unleashed was announced with it’s revolutionary physics and AI, but sadly instead of being the revolutionary title we were promised, the game feels more like a yester year hack and slash.

The game's story is set during the era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. Players take up the role of a Darth Vader’s secret apprentice who helps Vader to hunt down and destroy the last remaining Jedi so that one day he maybe powerful enough to assist Darth Vader in overthrowing the Emperor and take control of the galaxy far far away themselves.

The Force Unleashed has been done in a very hack and slash style, Vader’s apprentice isn’t armed with any kind of blaster just his lightsaber and his use of the force as he faces hordes of enemies from both sides. Luckily for him though his enemies aren’t the brightest to ever grace a videogame, which is disappointing, especially since it was one of the features of the game that was talked up by LucasArts before its release.

Enemies seem to be very much distance activated, meaning that they will quite happily look directly at you and do nothing until you get within their range and then they will decide to come after you, this is pretty much the rule for the game although there are a few exceptions. Enemies combat skills also leave a lot to be desired, for as much as you are greatly outnumbered throughout the entirety of the game you would expect to meet your demise fairly often but despite the overwhelming odds against you progression through the games levels is fairly rapid and enemies are easily disposed of.

One of the biggest talking points about the games AI was how enemies will do anything to stay alive, which you would expect to add to the challenge of the game. Sadly it doesn’t and all it seems to do is work against the games difficulty as most enemies are easily frightened and will often turn heel and run leaving them open for you to simply hack down with your lightsaber.

Of course no Star Wars game would be complete without an array of force powers at your disposal and as you play a Sith trained in the dark side by the darkest of dark lords you have a whole bunch of powerful tricks under your belt to help you equal the odds against you.

Vaders apprentice can throw and smash enemies into objects or far off into the distance with force grab or push groups of stormtroopers aside with force push. Machinery can be manipulated using force lightening or you can easily dispose of enemies by sending bolts of electricity through them.

Force powers can be upgraded as you progress though the game giving you access to more powers such as being able to throw your lightsaber or generate a protective shield around you. You can also make powers more potent. Several characteristics of Vaders apprentice can also be modified, such as how fast he regains health or how much force energy he has.

Scattered throughout the levels are a number of power-ups that give you a temporary boost such as invincibility, unlimited power or health drain that sucks the very life out of near by enemies. Lightsaber power-ups can also be found hidden in Jedi holocrons scattered throughout the levels, these can simply change the colour of you blade or make it more effective at deflecting blaster bolts and so on.

The games story is pretty extensive unlike some recent game, so you should get a good amount of playing time out of the it, however sadly once completed there’s nothing else to the game as online or multiplayer action is completely absent from the title.

Levels are structured exactly as you would expect with you having to fight your way through hordes of enemies before facing an end of level boss, some levels also have a mini boss battle midway through but to be fair these aren’t as challenging as the end of level bosses can be.

Visually The Force Unleashed looks solid, with the game set on many worlds featured in the films. Each level features an impressive amount of detail with lots going on in the background and references to the movies hidden throughout most of the levels.

The games environments feature a fair amount of destructibility with you being able to sweep certain rocks, trees, blockades and even certain buildings away with your force powers, it’s not really been implemented on a large scale so its pretty good to see object shatter into pieces.

Character models are also highly detailed with excellent animation, the game also runs at a constant smooth rate no matter how frantic on screen action becomes. The only downside to the games graphics are the odd graphics tears and the games camera which can be very annoying as during frantic fighting it can often leave enemies out of sight.

As you would expect from a Star Wars game the audio in Force Unleashed is excellent with sound effects and music that sound like they’ve been taken straight from the movies. Voice acting is also very good and well performed.

Star Wars The Force Unleashed may not be the revolutionary title that many fans would have expected, delivering more of a classic hack and slash playing experience. However having said that it still does offer a very good playing experience that is accompanied by excellent graphics and audio and it’s worth a look for the general gamer and is obviously a must have for Star Wars fans.