LucasArts promised so much with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, but what did they really deliver?

Let's take a look...

The buzz surrounding LucasArts' most recent instalment was phenomenal.  They ran TV ads to promote its release, they whacked it out on seventeen-and-a-half thousand different gaming platforms (except, PC, curiously) and even got promotion of the game by way of having its lead character, The Apprentice, inserted forcibly into Soul Calibur IV, joined by his master (and, if you believe my own little distorted version of the Star Wars canon, his lover) Darth Vader on the PS3 edition, or the diminutive green Frank Oz version of my paternal grandmother, Yoda, on the 360.

I picked up the game for the PS3 and gave it a play through and as a long-time fan of Star Wars (I used to make my parents rewind the VHS and put it back on when Empire or Return of the Jedi had finished), I can tell you that I was filled with totally mixed feelings about the game.

The concept was fantastic and the fact that George 'ooh, where's my chin going' Lucas gave the go-ahead for the story to be canon is amazing, though only if you're a fan, I guess.  It had two new pieces of software to show off, which will also be put to use in a forthcoming Indiana Jones game.  These being Euphoria and Digital Molecular Matter. 

Euphoria is an animation engine that provides non-player characters (NPCs) with the ability to try to protect themselves from hazards, react as if they had a real musculo-skeletal system and nervous system, which means that with every occurrence of the same situation, the way the NPCs react will be different.  In-game, this translates to imperial stormtroopers diving for cover or, when lifted with the Force, trying to grab onto nearby ledges, beams, poles and even other NPCs.  It's a clever piece of kit, especially how it enriches the realism of the game and I really don't think that its application in The Force Unleashed could be faulted.  A definite win for LucasArts on using Euphoria.

Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) is a system whereby elements of your surroundings are composed of digital versions of the material it's meant to be.  So instead of having your regular glass, which is just made up of the same material as the wall, but transparent and programmed to execute an animation and becoming insubstantial upon taking a predefined amount of damage, a piece of DMM glass will be made from a digital version of glass, with its own breaking point and will react differently to being force pushed to how it would react to being shot with a blaster.  And it will shatter differently every time.  Metal bends and buckles, dents and twists, wood splinters and, well, that's about it.  It was such a great idea and I was looking forward to it so much, but what let it down was how limited in use the DMM was.  It wasn't everywhere; most parts of the map were indestructible, but while I wasn't expecting a Red Faction-like map-destroying experience, I also wasn't expecting the linear, confined and exploration-light feel the game had, and I was surprised by just how underused the DMM system was.

The game looks amazing: FACT.  You can't detract from the fact that the game is a glittering, sparkling, shiny example of seventh-generation console splendour.  From the clean lines of the imperial bases to the organic, lush verdance of the wookiee homeworld of Kkkkkashyyykkkkkkkkkk, then onto the fungal unfamiliarity of Felucia and the golden, glittering, rodian-infested wastes of the junkyard planet of Raxus Prime, the graphics do astound you.  But I must let it down again by saying that right there, I have listed every playable location in the game.  Kashyyyk, imperial base, Raxus Prime, Felucia.  Just four locations, each with their own striking look, but still, just four locations all the same.  You visit each one of these twice in a set order, with a set path.  There is the option of character customisation in terms of what order you learn combos and what magnitude you set your Force powers at, but other than that, it's a one-way street.

George Lucas gave the brief to his development team that The Force Unleashed should provide the player with the experience of "kicking people's ass with the Force".  And so it came to pass that The Apprentice's abilities with the Force were quite unlike anything we've seen before.  In the movies, the Force was an unseen agent, occasionally marked by a deep rumbling sound, which appears in TFU but the Force's powers are also visible in this game.  Push and grip, the two main elements of gameplay are accompanied by cool-but-wholly-unfamiliar distortions in the air.  And some shimmery blue light.  Quite why is a mystery, but still, they're there and they look pretty cool, even if they are surplus effects.

The gameplay itself is very, very satisfying.  Picking up stormtroopers or rebel soldiers from afar and flinging them off of ledges, down to their deaths is an almost disconcertingly-gratifying experience.  Holding NPCs over chasms and hearing them beg for mercy while they stretch out their arms to grab hold of something, tormenting them with your power would appeal to anyone who pulled legs from a spider's body in their younger days.  Even if you still do it, in fact, you'll certainly enjoy this game. 

The bread-and-butter NPCs, you feel great picking them off one by one, or in groups, or whatever, but as you advance through the game, you get stormtroopers who are impervious to certain Force powers, some Force-adept creatures and so on, all of which challenge you to use different combinations to despatch them quickly.   There is much to be said about how truly awesome it is to lift an NPC from the ground, shoot them with a little Force lightning and then sending them hurtling into a crowd of other angry-looking NPCs.  Bringing down an AT-ST is fun as well, as is killing a rancor, but the pièce de résistance is definitely bringing down a Star Destroyer, though it does take a while and the controls are a bit finnicky.

Which brings us neatly to my gripe about the interface.  It is clumsy and unintuitive to the point of being frustration. 
"No, I don't want to pick up the box, I want to pick up the rodian...  No, that's the box.  ...still the box.  Box.  Box.  Box.  Piece of scap metal.  Box."  The interface would certainly have benefitted from some kind of target scrolling feature so you could actually grip what you want and not whatever's in front of you.  Darth Vader never had that problem, I don't see why his apprentice would either.

And so onto boss battles, where each area-end boss had their own little quirks you had to exploit.  That's fair enough, but my god, just how tiresome are those button-pressing sequences.  Ooh, you're floating in the air - press circle NOW!  Well done!  Now you've jumped onto a ledge, press X NOW!  Oh, I'm sorry, you didn't quite make that in time and now, you're going to repeat exactly the same actions again, until you GET IT RIGHT.  And they happen for every AT-ST you care you fight, every rancor that crosses your path and it's just a bit uninspired.

The storyline was quite interesting, full of twists and turns and it's always nice to see that Jimmy Schmitt is still being kept off the streets by the odd offer of work and the voice acting is unremarkable, except that Darth Vader sounds a bit dodgy since James Earl Jones isn't in the chair, while the Emperor sounds distinctly un-Emperory, but it's all close enough, I suppose.  The lightsabre action is a bit hack-and-slash, presumably in order to push you to use the Force more, but to be honest, the game is so short that you've reached the end before you've truly started mixing up your styles and combos.  I completed the game in around six hours and for a full-price game, that's just not good enough.  I'm waiting the downloadable content that's been mentioned, but the way things are going for DLC , I'm not going to be holding my breath over it.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is beautiful, canon and above all fun, but it's also short, suffers from control issues and a few graphical glitches here and there.  I would advise you rent it - unless you're a fan - but either way, you'll be done on the same day.

As much as I love Star Wars, I'm going to give this a rather meager
63%
Could do better.