The Force Unleashed... unfortunately

Alright already, stop nagging! So I'm writing a blog! There, you happy? Unfortunately I bring bad news: The newest and highly anticipated game of Star Wars, "The Force Unleashed" sucked. I don't mean it sucked like other games, I mean it was really bad. Not just really bad, horrific. Ok that might be going a little too far, but hopefully you catch my drift.

I was smart enough to wait on this game. Through a free one month trial of gamefly (which is cool, but way to expensive) I got to play this game for free, though I still feel as though my time has been cheated. I would like to go on record as saying that I didn't ever think this game would be as great as they built it up to be. I still remember when the first trailer came out and my roommate Jon was all hyped about it and I said it would bomb. It sold like crazy so he got that part right, but I'm pretty sure I won that bet (if we even bet... dangit).

First off, you put the game in and loading screens are a pain. When are we going to be past the era of loading screens? Lots of them in this game, even when you pause to go to the force upgrade menu: loading screen. The graphics are of course stunning, props for that, but graphics don't make a game. Plus there are some glitched graphics so that's fun.

Where this game falls apart is the playability. Within the first three levels I had found enough bugs unintentionally (I no longer get paid to find them so why try?) that I would have recalled this game. It is so buggy it is ridiculous; I even found a spot where I fell off of a platform, and all the sudden was standing on thin air. I walked around for a bit, then jumped back up, unscathed.

The storyline is predictable and fairly bland. I will give props to the voice acting though, very well done, though not enough to save the plot. First off, I don't care who's apprentice you are, you cannot kill Shaak Ti, especially only 3 levels in. It just doesn't happen, she should have killed me instantly. Second, you can't beat Darth Vader or the Emperor, but that's a whole other story. While I realize they were going for the "over the top" force powers, it was just too crazy, even for the star wars universe. A Jedi cannot pull a star destroyer out of the sky, it's just insane.

The gameplay was very archaic. I realize it's a new thing to have good flow to a game, but this was going back to the NES. If an enemy was in the middle of a swing, he was not able to be attacked. Odd? Yes, but also you can use this to your advantage: enemies cannot hit you while you are mid-swing. This stayed true till the later levels. Along with that, I considered, from the trailers and even the demo, that this was to be an action/adventure game. However after playing it and having many frustrated moments this game could practically be classified as a platformer. You jump from place to place, redundant and boring for a game of this caliber. I was sorely disappointed.

Needless to say I was disappointed with this game. I greatly appreciated Game Informer's take on it, that they should make a sequel where Darth Vader wakes up and it was all just a bad dream. It's also sad that George Lucas approved the storyline as canon in the Star Wars universe. It makes too many blatant and stupid connections to the original trilogy, it's like saying "please, like me! I know I'm a sucky game but I'm trying to be cool!" Speaking of trying to be cool, later in the game your droid fights you and uses a Darth Maul module. Yeah, you fight Darth Maul, the coolest sith ever! This gave me mixed feelings; since I both love Darth Maul, and despise this game. I came to the conclusion through beating him though that it doesn't matter who you are, you can't beat Darth Maul (Obi-Wan got lucky, or we'd all be screwed). And while they put Darth Maul in to make more people like it, it was too little too late.

So that's my 2 cents on the game, take it or leave it. I think I've played enough Star Wars games to know. It seems like with Star Wars the games either totally rock or totally suck (Rebel Assault II anyone?). My recommendation, stay as far away from this one as possible. I think I'm done ranting now, I'll go to bed.