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submitted by Robert Falcon
posted September 18, 2008
While not the ultimate Jedi thrill ride, The Force Unleashed manages to avoid the suck.
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submitted by ctrlerposted September 30, 2008To a Star Wars fan, this game is hard to resist: you get the chance to play as Darth Vader's apprentice and lay down some serious carnage with your "unleashed" (non-canonical) Force powers. You also get an interesting and surprising story that fills in some of the gaps between Episode 3 and 4 AND the chance to play out classic scenes from the films.
Unfortunately, the game itself is disappointing. It has its moments, but for the most part the gameplay is a repetitive button-mashing affair interupted by easy boss fights and simplistic quick time events. There are a few challenging spots but at no time does this game feel difficult. The camera is clunky and though I don't agree that it is "broken", it's quite frequently irritating. Perhaps the most annoying things to me are the frequent load pauses, UMD spins, and jarring cut scene transitions - they give the game an unpolished, unprofessional feel.
The first few chapteres of the story mode were entertaining but by the end I was only playing to see the plot conclusion. I found the historic missions, 1-on-1 (and 1-on-2) force duels, and other extra scenarios quite fun, moreso than the story mode, but only for a few hours. The multiplayer seems like a great idea but it is only Ad-hoc so there's not much opportunity to use it. Ultimately, I think the value of this game comes down to the franchise: if you are a Star Wars fan it's probably worth picking up, but if not there are better games out there.
