- For our first review I decided to take on the Darkside and do a one hour review of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed from Lucas Arts. So, in great anticipation I popped the game in and was amazed in the following manner:
After loading the game and doing the normal pressing start, create a profile, etc the clock began ticking. It honestly took 3 minutes to actually get to the point where I could play the game, due to a cut scene that I couldn’t skip out of… apparently the developers of the game put something important in there that I shouldn’t miss. Since the scene wasn’t anything I was at all interested in, I made a “samich” while I waited for the scene to end. No time wasted for the hour.
Finally the pain of sitting through a cut scene, that frankly should have never left the cutting room floor I was amazed by the classic Xbox graphics. No, not a classic display of graphics on the 360… xbox classic graphics. The rendered characters reminded me much of The classic xbox’s Lord of the Ring’s Return of the King’s graphics. George… heads ought to roll if you read this. You guys can do so much better, I’ve seen it.
I played on the default level for this review, We started out with Darth Vader kicking some butt. The game play is pretty much beat the tar out of stuff with your saber (X), use the force (B) to knock stuff down, Jumping (A), and using the force to demolish obstacles (Hold B and release). Game play was pretty predictable; “walk down the path” press B to blow stuff up. After the first 5 minutes of laughing at storm troopers flying through the air, It wasn’t a challenge at all. Pretty much hit B all the time on the intro mission, which is a pain in the hind quarters to aim since you don’t use the right stick to look or aim.. The thing that I couldn’t fathom is why the rebels ever even won!? Darth Vader was a supreme bad a$$ and basically couldn’t die on this first mission, because the wookies were no match at all for him.
The one upside was after 30 minutes of play I had 30 more Gamerscore points. So, I took that opportunity to look at some of the achievements. Secret, Secret, Secret, Secret. I hate secret achievements! Sure, they won’t be secret for long, especially if you to the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed achievements page at achieve360points.com. But seriously, the Secret achievements were cool once… but now they are not only old, but if I pay $60 for your game (cut scenes included) don’t you think I deserve to be let in on the secret? The other achievements were more of the same stuff we’ve seen before; Kill 100 of A with B weapon, kill 500 of A with B weapon, Beat the game on easy, Beat the game on hard, beat the game on… wait a minute!
Developers out there: no matter what you think about your game… no matter how cool it is… no matter how much Mountain Dew you consumed at 3am coding to meet a deadline… YOUR GAME IS ALMOST NEVER GOOD ENOUGH TO PLAY THROUGH 5 TIMES! Stop , already with the insanity of playing your game multiple times, as gamers, we’re sick of it.
SO, ticked off I went back to the game… Then came another freaking cut scene… you guessed it– gotta watch this crap some more and you’re right you can’t skip it. Then finally I get to play again and… no Vader! Now I’m Vader’s apprentice! What? Seriously? You guys expect me to keep track of a ho hum story line all the while? I hate that, but not worse than not being able to skip cut scenes. Worse yet, when I first played this I thought this character was a member of the rebel alliance! Why on earth would he be killing storm troopers if he works for vader– an even better question is why would the storm troopers be trying to killing him!?!?
So I fight some more. Still kicking butt and you can’t die it seems. (Note, you probably can if you walk off the ledge but why tempt fate… unless that’s one of those secret achievements? hrmmmm….) Then after much fighting, really not paying attention to where I’m going because the game simply guides you through the script— there is no option but to follow the right path. I finally come to a hanger with some action. So I fight, fight fight and kill all the bad guys. I almost died here. Not because of my skills– though that’s possible. No, because it looks like you can go under this spaceship that’s in the hanger and you can’t, turns out despite the ship being tall enough underneath to walk under– and being able to walk around it — you can’t go underneath it because there is an invisible wall.
They teach you stuff along the way. Here you learn to use the force to grip stuff (right trigger) and throw it (the two sticks). This little trick is about as easy to aim as the using the force to blow stuff up. Plush it’s not that original– it doesn’t work near as good, or feel as original, as it did in Half-life II.
Just by chance I learned that you need to throw stuff into the Tie Fighter and destroy them here– no doubt some sort of trigger for a secret achievement, like destroy all the hidden objects in the game since it didn’t give me an achievement when I got 5/5. Finally, just trying to get out of this God forsaken hell that is the hanger, you go around the ship and see a hole under it. Nope. Can’t go down there. Your right on the edge… you can see it looks interesting and you just know there is cooler stuff down there… but you can’t go down it.
Travel back to where you came in and you find a door, where you have to use the grip skill to open a couple doors. Then…
Fight, Fight, Fight. Press B some more. fight, fight fight. I still half expect to have to pick up Lego pieces after I kill these guys. Find hidden orbs, that aren’t all that hidden. Fight Fight, Fight… right in the middle of a fight, you should level up and you have to pick skills you spend your Orbs on. So, you do that and you’re back in the fight you apparently didn’t finish. What is this the freaking matrix?!?! Guys, not even a Jedi can stop the fight to go shopping. Yes, Jedi’s can beat up Pirates… and Ninjas too… but they DON’T go shopping in the middle of a fight!
The main goal after getting out of the hanger is to go to the second floor, I find a elevator up and I do that… fight, fight fight, fight, fight fight some more. Fight, fight fight, fight, fight fight, fight, fight fight. Press A then A again in the air to jump across blown up bridges… commando, Konami style. Then I’m told that the goal is to reach the second level… wait. I just rode up a lift fighting three guys and now it tells me my goal is to reach the second level, again?? I though this was the second level.
Another cut scene. ARGH!!!! Then I’m greeted with an escape the containment room mission. IN this room there is a force field that glows. You can touch it with out is completely killing you, but the guys in there with you die instantly when they touch it… you guessed it. Use B to blow them into it. On to the next room….
The guys in this room have what looks like a cross between a Gatling gun, a laser, and a BFG from doom. Died finally. At least, now we know it is possible. No secret achievements for dying.
Next I run into a room where you use your force to slide out a block. Clearly you need to jump on the block– at least that’s what you do in Tomb Raider. Sure enough that’s what you do! Only problem is the way the controls are it’s hard as heck to get up there because of the perspective and once I do make it up there it teaches me something… press A then A again while in the air to jump really high. Thanks I already figured that out guys… OH! Thank God, my hours up!
I’m not sure what’s after this… more cut scenes no doubt. But the short version of the review is:
1 hour - 45 Gamerscore points
This game is a toss up, I’ll never get that hour of my life back and I’ll always have the 45 points it gave me… but was it worth it?? If your a fan of Star Wars, you might like it… but don’t expect Republic Commando. It’s way different. I’d say rent it first from blockbuster or sign up for gamefly to give it a shot.
The game play is, frankly, broken and the controls seem cumbersome, possibly one could get past it and get a knack for it but it didn’t seem worth it to this reviewer to try.
Tags: Lucas Arts, Review, sci-fi, scifi, star wars, third person shooter, xbox360