Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 4th October 2008
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Conclusions

With all this talk about how great it is to lift your enemies above your and batter them to death against their own allies, it’s rather easy to overlook some of the fairly obvious flaws that The Force Unleashed unwittingly rams down your throat as you play.

What’s most unfortunate though is that a lot of these issues are fairly minor, but constantly occurring ones – or problems that we have long hoped would fall out of fashion.

The boss fights for example can be a hugely tedious matter, not made massively easier by the cheap tactics that some of them employ such as bringing huge robots to their aid. What’s really infuriating though is that each fight is usually preceded by an unskippable cutscene that you’ll have to watch each and every time you die. That just isn’t fun.

The bosses get even less fun when you get round to actually finishing them off too, which invariably presents itself as a quicktime event; otherwise known as ‘Press X To Win, Oh To Late You’re Dead. Here, Let Me Reset The Animation For You So You Can Do that Exact Same Thing All Over Again – Oh You Messed It Up Again’ event.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Conclusions

So, yeah, those aren’t fun either. In fact there’s not even a penalty for failing one, so they aren’t just un-fun, they are also utterly unneeded. Whoever decided they should be kept in the game should be subjected to Force Flaying and Force Vinegar Bath, right now.

As the game goes on, it slowly becomes apparent how unbalanced the action can be at times too. You can be running through space-age corridors with reckless abandon, shattering windows and flinging barrels, chucking your electrified lightsaber and generally having a great time until you hit a certain baddie and then its suddenly time to die five times in a row. Great.

A lot of this is down to how hopelessly over-powered the Force Pull power is as it can be used to pretty much just insta-kill anything you come across except for some of the harder, more armoured baddies. When you reach these guys they tend to knock you down much faster than you can change your tactics. It doesn’t get much better when the EVO-armoured troopers start spamming you with homing rockets and melee attacks either. We thought a lightsaber could cut through anything?

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Conclusions

Without meaning to add another negative on what is essentially a pretty good action game, Force Unleashed does get massively repetitive as you go on and if you don’t pace yourself with the gameplay you’ll quick be left with Unleashed burn-out. There’s very little variation to the gameplay when you get right down to it and though the physics system, force powers and casual RPG mechanics are a great distraction there’s only so long you can disguise the fact that you’re running along an endless corridor hitting too-familiar aliens.

Conclusions

There’s been a deliberate structure built in to this review and of the three pages you’ve just read you’ll have probably noted that the first two say that The Force Unleashed is a good game. The last page however doesn’t, getting stuck on the issues that plague the game.Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Conclusions

The reason for this is quite simple and that’s that this is what playing The Force Unleashed is like. Two thirds of the game – the cool effects, the story, the graphics and the sheer joy of it all – is all very well done and enjoyable. It’s engaging and you really want to play it.

The final third however isn’t quite so graceful, proving to make use of all the elements of game design that gamers have come to hate over the years. Arcade style bosses who swarm you with cheap bully-tactics and who don’t let you recover during a fight? Inescapable cutscenes and pointless quicktime events that add absolutely nothing? Check and double-check.

It’s a shame really, because The Force Unleashed is a pretty good game. Not essential playing perhaps, but enjoyable certainly and with a faithfulness that makes it as worthy of accolade as Jedi Knight. These few flaws make parts of the game really annoying though and in the end that does hold the final experience back.

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