Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

I picked up my copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Xbox 360. I played it for a few hours last night and wanted to share my initial impressions.

In terms of story, the game fills in the gap between Episode III and Episode IV. (That means it takes place between the last "new" movie and the very first original Star Wars movie.) The developers worked so closely with George Lucas that the game's story is considered Star Wars cannon. As I understand it, events of this game set the stage to lead right into Episode IV.

You play as Darth Vader's secret apprentice, and you can use the Dark Side of the Force in very amazing, primal, and destructive ways. The entire game is all about you using the Force to utterly destroy all enemies and obstacles in your path.

I haven't played all of the game yet, but from what I've seen so far, I agree with the reviews posted at Gamespot and IGN. They've already written very informative reviews and I'm not going to reinvent the wheel (since I agree with them.)

However, I must stress that this game is so fun to play. I admit that I was skeptical at first because the list of powers and abilities seemed limited. You have a light saber, lightning, force push, and force grab. Force push pushes things away from you at high velocity. Force grab allows you to grab and move objects and enemies. Considering this short list of powers, I thought the game would get boring very early.

I was wrong. You can upgrade these powers unlock combinations of powers. You can use basic powers in conjunction with the environment. There are hundreds – maybe thousands – of ways to destroy your enemies, and once you get used to the controls and combos, it all flows as smoothly as a choreographed fight scene in a movie. I'll give you an example:

A mixed group of enemies attacked me. I had melee fighters swarming on me while guys with laser cannons were raining fire down on my head. I grabbed the leading melee fighter with Force Grab, charged him up with lightning, and threw him at the gunners. He exploded on impact and took most of them out. By then his melee friends were all over me. I jumped into the air as they converged on me, and as I fell, I slammed my lightsaber into the ground, causing a shock wave that knocked the closest enemies off their feet. I tossed one of these guys at the gunners, but my aim was off and I only knocked them off their feet as well. As the gunners regained their footing, I closed the distance. The first one up started firing at me again, but he was close to a ledge, so I used Force Push to just knock him into the abyss. The next one came up and I was still some distance away, so I threw my lightsaber at him and cut him in half. The saber returned to me like a boomerang, and then I found myself flanked by two gunners, both of which were too tough to kill with a simple lightsaber strike. I attacked the one on the left, using a combo that strikes three times, uses a Force pulse to knock them in the air, and then I jump up with a spiral attack and cut them in midair. That killed him. His buddy started shooting while I was still in mid-jump and couldn't dodge, so I hit him with lightning to stun him while I was falling. Then I picked him up with Force Grab and flung him into the wave of melee fighters that was charging up behind me. He hit them like a bowling ball, and they fell over like pins. I hit the survivors with lightning to stun them and then waded in with my lightsaber, using Force Push to knock away any of them that threatened to flank me while I charged my lightsaber with lightning to give my attacks extra kick.

All in all, the entire fight lasted about 30 seconds. It was so much fun that I couldn't wait to get to the next fight. I get kinda tingly inside when I consider that I haven't unlocked half of the remaining way to kick ass. In this play-through of the game, I'm trying to unlock every combo and at least a weak version of every Force power, so I can see which I like best. Then I'm going to increase the difficulty level and play through again, focusing on the techniques I like best.

This game is a BLAST.