rebeldoom
CAGiversary!
Hello all, my name is rebeldoom and I am very new to these forums. I would just like to say that this is my first game review (possibly my last unless time permits otherwise) and I would really enjoy crit on it if possible. I wrote this game review originally for another forum but I felt I should also post it here to see how I did on it. Thanks!
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
A game review written by rebeldoom
--rebeldoom
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
A game review written by rebeldoom
A long, long time ago….in a galaxy not so far away, considering we are in it, the movie STAR WARS: A New Hope hit theaters and captured audiences in an epic Sci-Fi Movie of villains, heroes, and the Force. Two trilogies of movies and many games later, a new game was launched for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii utilizing advanced technologies of Digital Molecular Matter physics engine by Pixlelux Entertainment, The Havok physics engine, and the Euphoria physics engine by NaturalMotion. There are other game consoles that it has been released for but the aforementioned consoles are the main release consoles. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed introduces new characters and a few well-known ones as well, but is this a game which can stand up to its own robustness of quality? Read on to find out…
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed bridges a gap in the Star Wars universe that has incredible importance in the Star Wars universe: The timeframe between the two movies Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. This setting in the Star Wars universe is crucial as in this timeline we already know several happenings that are going on. For one, Darth Vader is hunting down the remaining Jedi for Emperor Palpatine; The Death Star is being constructed; The Rebel Alliance is forming to rebel against the Empire. Many of these are very important details that shape how the original Star Wars trilogy came to be. Many of these details are also duly noted and take shape in The Force Unleashed as well.
First let’s look at a few of the new characters that are introduced in this new installment in the Star Wars Universe. We have Galen Marek, who is known as Starkiller, Juno Eclipse, and many new Jedi and enemies. The main player plays as Starkiller for the majority of the game and is Darth Vader’s secret apprentice whom Emperor Palpatine does not know about. Darth Vader trains you and then sends you on missions to track down and kill the remaining Jedi who survived Order 66. Accompanying Starkiller on this mission is a driod named Proxy who was designed by Darth Vader to train Starkiller further. The droid uses training modules and image morphing technology to assume appearances based on exercises programmed into his memory for training and Imperial records. Also accompanying the player on these missions is Juno Eclipse, one of the best Imperial pilots and assigned by Darth Vader to be your personal pilot. She takes liberty in upgrading your ship, the Rogue Shadow, to make it better suited for your missions. Starkiller is very strong in the force and you use these powers to simply kick-butt using the Force. However, instead of it being a super-jedi, or super-sith in this case, who can use force powers at will and pull a Star Destroyer out of the sky (as shown in the announcement trailer), the game designers have implemented several safeguards to keep the game play experience exciting for the player. These safeguards include leveling, a Force meter, and several other interesting things to make the game play well and tough for the player. The leveling up in the game happens as you gain experience points by defeating enemies. Upon gaining a level, the player receives points to use in upping certain sections of the player’s Force Abilities, Lightsaber Abilities, and Physical Abilities. So at the beginning of the game, the player is essentially a weak person and by the end can be very powerful. In addition to that, the player has a Force Meter under the health bar and is colored blue. When the bar is empty or yellow, the player must then wait for it to recharge back to a blue color to use any force powers again. Those two limitations change the game completely and cause the player to think on how to unleash the power of the force.
Another important aspect to the quality of the game is the enemies that the player encounters throughout the course of the game. The enemies in Force Unleashed vary on the different difficulty levels but one aspect of them is that if you use say a lightsaber on an enemy for the entire game, later on in the game, that genre of enemy will have gained added resistance to the lightsaber attack. This causes the player more frustration and enemies that are harder to kill. In addition, the game has the player pitted against new enemies that were not shown in other Star Wars games or movies and you have to fight them, sometimes as bosses. I will not spoil anything here for those who have not played it but you will be fighting a multitude of ground enemies in what possibly is the best plot, and the most revealing plot of all time in a Star Wars universe game.
I think this would be a good place to stop and talk about the technology that has been incorporated into the game. Euphoria, is a physics engine that makes objects aware of one another to the point of knowing everything exactly from forces hitting it, objects close to it, and etc… This is a powerful, and fun, tool when, for example, you Force Grip a soldier and he is near a crate. The soldier will actually reach out and grab the crate!!!! This does not happen all the time though, but when it does, the box becomes aware of the soldier there and the way he is grabbing the crate and then each object reacts to each-other. Next is Havok, which has been used in many games including Halo 3. Havok basically encompasses the body physics like the rolling body from an explosion. I feel as I don’t need to go into detail with Havok as it is pretty self-explanatory. Then we have DMM, or Digital Molecular Matter. DMM makes materials act like materials would in real life. Wood will snap like wood or splinter depending on how you as the player break it. Glass with shatter or crack like glass as well and etc… These three technologies make this game one of the most graphical games of Star Wars ever! Here is an example I have come up with to give you all an idea why I say the aforementioned: “You walk into a room and pick up a soldier using the force while he is near a crate. The Euphoria engine kicks in and makes the soldier and crate aware of each-other and the soldier tries to grab onto the crate but can’t keep a good hold which causes the crate to move slightly. Behind the crate and soldier is a glass panel and you force push the soldier and the crate towards the glass. Now DMM kicks in and registers the crate and soldier flying at it, the angle for the impact, the force and speed behind the crate and soldier, and etc… Then upon impact the glass shatters and the soldier dies which is where Havok comes into play with the ragdoll effects.” So see how that could appear in-game?
All of the aforementioned material on the game characters, force powers, enemies, and physics engine though, mean nothing in a game if the storyline is not good at all. I have all ready stated that the Force Unleashed bridges the gap of time between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: A New Hope, but how does the game actually fit in to that timeframe while holding true to the Star Wars Timeline? The game itself is divided into two acts, one act taking place closer to Episode III and the other act taking place closer to Episode IV. With that being said, you will see how the last of the Jedi fall from Order 66 and then how the Rebel Alliance forms to fight the Empire. The game demo showed that the first level in the game where the player plays as Starkiller, is a Tie Fighter factory. You will have your first duel with a Jedi Master Kota. Now I said above that the first level of the game where the player plays as Starkiller, it has been released publically by the developers that the very first level is located on Kashyyk where Darth Vader is searching for a Jedi who is in hiding. In this first level, you will be playing as Darth Vader and will see how he finds Galen Marek (Starkiller). With that being said, I cannot really reveal to much about the plot of the game without spoiling the game for those of you who have not played it, but I will say that the game has two different endings: One where you are on the Light Side of the Force, and one where you are on the Dark Side of the Force. These two endings can easily be accessed by simply replaying the last level and choosing the opposite of what you chose before, which to me is kind of lame as I think it could have woven in throughout the entire game. But the Dark Side ending is actually harder to beat. Also, only one of these endings is in canon with the Star Wars universe.
This game is not just isolated to the Xbox 360 though. It has been spread across multiple other systems including the Playstation 3, Playstation 2, Nintendo Wii, Playstation Portable, and the Nintendo DS. Each game brings something unique to the console it is being played on that differs from the others with the exception of the Playstation 3. The version for the PS3 is very similar to the Xbox360 version. The version for the PS2 is very interesting and offers original content that was taken out of the other versions. This content is planned on being added in as Downloadable Content for the PS3 and Xbox360 as well. The Wii version offers the freedom of actually feeling like you are wielding the lightsaber and using the force-powers through the Wii-mote and Nunchauk controller. The Wii version also offers Multiplayer but it is not through the internet connection. I personally this could have also been implemented through the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well, but then I’m not the developer of the game. The PSP version and the DS version are simplified from the console versions somewhat and do not have DMM or parts of the other technology involved with The Force Unleashed. In addition, the Wii and PS2 versions of the game are around $20 cheaper but these apparently do not have DMM and Euphoria infused in them, but Havok is in all the systems except for the DS version. There are complaints about the PS3, 360, and PS2 version controls but really they are very simple once you get them down. I will also say that out of all the systems, the 360 and PS3 versions are graphically better with the technology used in the game itself. To keep this a fair review however I will say that the Xbox360 and the PS3 versions have had numerous complaints of bugs and glitches that haunt the game, on how Euphoria and DMM could have been used more thoroughly throughout the game, and various other complaints. My version of the game has been unlucky in the sense that one of the major bugs haunts it, but this bug can easily be avoided on the 360/PS3 version if you just do not change your costume from what the game automatically does and as long as you don’t change the color of your lightsaber from what the game does. I can only agree that DMM and Euphoria could have been implemented more into the game itself. In the end though, my complaints may differ from yours and their complaints differ from mine in ways. I hope LucasArts makes a patch/update for the game to fix the bugs and glitches that should not have affected the game in the first place.
All in all though, I was very pleased with the game for the Xbox360 even if some bugs may have faulted the game a bit. This game is simply amazing and adds to the already interesting storyline of the movies. This game is as close as you can get at the moment to a Star Wars game that feels like it has put you IN a movie as this game was also co-developed by Industrial Lights and Magic which was the Lucas Arts company responsible for the movie graphics in all 6 movies. The only thing that I wish Lucas Arts could have done to the game was to have the costumes that you are wearing carry over into the cut-scenes (like the different jets in Ace Combat 6). However, I recommend this game to you all and even though the controls may be a bit different at times, but when are game controls for a brand new game not new to a buyer?
--rebeldoom
