Leisher 
Top 3%, yo.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 26651
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 28 2010,12:33 |
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The edition reviewed here is not the new "Sith" version of the game.
The events in this game occur between Episodes III and IV.
This third person shooter puts you in the shoes of a Sith whose master happens to be Darth Vader.
Not much more to say about the story without spoilers, but it is well done. I can honestly say that when it began I was bored immediately thinking "Well, I know that doesn't happen...", but found myself quite surprised at how vital they made this story to the Star Wars mythology by the end of the game.
Truth be told, it doesn't fit like a glove. There was a little bit of bending to fit the story into SW lore, but it works.
My biggest complain about the story, and this really applies to all the SW games that have featured Jedi, is how bad they're all making Luke look. This game doesn't do it quite as bad because here you have a Sith training since birth and Luke essentially trains during one flight with Ben and a few days with Yoda. So this Sith being much better with the Force makes sense. But the other games, specifically Jedi Knight, make Luke look like a lucky country bumpkin who won despite his ignorance and lack of ability. This never bugged me until the final chapter of this game. I won't say whose asses you kick, essentially at the same time, but you're probably figuring it out while reading this, and if so, aren't I right? It tarnishes the mythology as a whole slightly.
This is easily corrected though. Lucas simply needs to come out with episode VII (make it a cartoon or CGI it), and showcase Luke as a legit Jedi Knight whose powers dwarf the Jedi that came before him.
As for the gameplay, the game is quite linear. There is one path through each level, and there are only a handful of environments (you play through a couple more than once). The levels tend to be big though taking some time to play through. Playing as a Sith is quite fun, and the powers are decent. Still, this is no Jedi Knight. In that series the powers were easy to use and it felt like you were a Jedi or Sith. Here you feel sort of like a cheap copy.
Four reasons why:
1. The visual effects of the Force powers in the Jedi Knight series seemed more impressive.
2. Force lightning is the solution to everything. I can't stress this enough. Once I had this power, I pretty much killed everything in the game with it. Force pushing things off a cliff/ledge was a distant second.
3. Combos. I bought a Stars Wars third person action game, not Mortal Kombat 24. I have ZERO desire to hit X 4 times, then hold Y to perform a move. (I beat the game without using these stupid things.) I mean there were seriously combos that looked like 7-10 key buttons to perform them. Fuck that shit. Also, I read a few reviews and these same combos were getting bashed by other reviewers because once you started them you were stuck in the animation, and thus, vulnerable. What makes this even worse is that as the game progresses, you meet enemies that are essentially wait to be hit with these combos, so they're a bit less vulnerable to lightning or force pushes.
4. Your character is apparently very underpowered or the developers were too stupid to obey the laws of the SW universe. Force lightning that isn't powerful enough to take out robots (because electronics thrives when random massive surges of power flood its circuits). Massive boulders force thrown at AT-STs that not only can't knock them down, but also barely dent them. Force pushes that don't move stormtroopers because they turned on a personal force field? WTF? And your bad ass lightsaber, which takes multiple hits to kill most enemies in the game. Apparently, you got a bad one that doesn't cut through flesh, bone, and metal like butter.
The other afront to the SW universe is the pussifying of the Rancor. You mow down a dozen or so in this game, and the solution to beating them is quite simple: Hit them with lightning, stay out of reach until it recharges, repeat.
Bonus! The developers didn't think Rancors were pussified enough in their game, so they went an extra step in the trailer for The Force Unleashed 2. View it here. (The trailer is pretty good, although the talk behind it is that nobody understands it...can't say more without spoiling the story here.)
So by now you think you know combat in the game, but there's a twist! Boss fights are the exact opposite of the rest of the game. Instead of heavy lightning with slight lightsaber whacks, you want to use lightning to knock down a boss, then whack the hell out of it with the saber. Repeat. That's exactly how I beat every boss.
For a third wrinkle, and I saved this for last because it's the stupidest thing in the game, while fighting normal enemies you'll sometimes fight an AT-ST or a Rancor and instead of punishing it until it blows up or dies, you are required to play a mini game by responding to prompts on the screen in time to perform some moves that eliminates the enemy. This is the stupidest shit in gaming history. First of all, if you fail, you simply get shoved off the creature/machine and then you have to do whatever to begin the sequence again, and it's the same sequence (not for everything, but it stays the same if you try multiple times to kill one thing). Secondly, why did you create this really cool scene when the player CAN'T EVEN WATCH IT BECAUSE THEY'RE TOO BUSY WATCHING THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN FOR THE NEXT PROMPT!!!!! Morons. Third, and this was the most frustrating thing, you gain health when you kill things, and the bigger it is, the more health you get. Well, I died numerous times in the game because while I had kicked the shit out of the AT-ST, I couldn't finish it off as the game wouldn't allow me to start up the sequence to kill the enemy. Or worse, it'd start it without me even seeing the first prompt, and the second one would come so fast, I'd fail multiple times in a row. Just a horrible, horrible game design choice.
Look, the game is fun despite being linear as linear can be, reducing your fights to pretty much the same because the combos are stupid, and the no fun minigame button mash. It's still Star Wars and you're a freaking Sith, but it could have been a LOT better. A LOT BETTER! Here's hoping they get it right with the sequel.
Purchase it once it hits $20 if you're a SW fan. But I'd recommend it more as a rental. It'll only take a couple of days to beat.
5 out of 10. (Too many bad design decisions to give it higher than that despite it being fun.)
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