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Review by badbadleroybrown
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Hype is a funny thing. There’s a good kind and a bad kind. The good kind can come from many different places, such as a game coming out of nowhere to sell oodles of copies because of word of mouth or fantastic reviews (Sins of a Solar Empire comes to mind). Then there’s the bad kind: the artificial hype shoveled into our senses by marketing guru’s and company heads clamoring a game as a insert-best-game-in-the-genre-here killer and the second coming of the messiah. For every one game that can actually manage to live up to these ridiculous expectations like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Grand Theft Auto 4, there’s five like Fable, Killzone, DOOM 3, and, most recently, Spore. And, unfortunately for these games, bad hype also has a tendency to make games seem worse then they already are. For example, when Peter Molinuex gets on stage and tells me that Fable will be “The greatest RPG ever created”, you better be bringing the heat, because even though Fable turned out to be a pretty good game, it was by no means the greatest RPG ever created, and thus it is remembered as a disappointment of Titanic proportions, and not the solid RPG that it actually was.
The latest “worst game EVARRR” to fall victim to the hype machine is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: the first in house developed Lucasarts title since 2005’s underappreciated Star Wars: Republic Commando, and apparently the last. It’s been lauded for years now about its revolutionary physics and interactivity, and it’s one of the first big titles of what is sure to be another over crowded holiday season. Like numerous other over hyped games, there’s a lot of awesome things to love, but the game is crushed under the weight of its own ambitions.
The game takes place between Episodes III and IV, and you play as Starkiller (an ode to the name that Luke Skywalker was originally going to be called by). Darth Vader, after killing your father right in front of you when you were young child, senses that the force is strong with you, and decided to make you his secret apprentice in hopes that together, you can overthrow the Emperor. Fast forward about ten years, and Vader has taught you the ways of the dark side, has made you into an all around bad mofo, and unleashes you upon the galaxy to do his dirty work.
The story is easily the best part of the game. Simply put, this isn’t just a good videogame story, but this is one of the best pieces of Star Wars fiction in years. Like Knights of the Old Republic before it, It’s way more compelling then anything to come out of the prequel trilogy, and it’s tale will be lauded by Star Wars fans as one of the best stories in the extended fiction since the Thrawn Trilogy (If you know what that is, congratulations. You’re a huge nerd!). There’s some great twists thrown in, some big decisions to be made, some new and interesting characters (and loads of familiar ones) and the two endings are completely different and both very satisfying. Unfortunately it’s just about the only thing the game does exceedingly well.
I will admit that the game gives a great first impression. The first level consists of you playing Vader himself landing on a war engulfed Kasshyk (or Wookie world for the non fans out there) in search for a Jedi. Vader plays basically like what Starkiller would play if he was at level 99 with fully maxed out stats. Your force push decimates buildings, your lightning can take out 8 wookies at once, you can force choke anyone who gets in your way, and you can toss around your furry buddies like rag dolls half way across a planet. In short, it’s awesome. You feel like an evil super being of nearly godlike proportions, and it feels good.
The problem is that it takes way too long to get to that point again. After that, you’re Starkiller in a Tie Fighter construction facility. You no longer have your lighting, you can’t choke anyone, your force push can do 20% of what Vader’s could, you don’t have half of the light saber moves you had the first level, and for some reason a dark lord of the Sith is having trouble taking out storm troopers. It’s a strange feeling. You feel like a fish out of water even after doing the first level because you learn to rely on moves you no longer have, and the switch is quite jarring. It takes about 2/3 of the way through the game until you become that badass again, and it’s during that 2/3 when all of the faults’ really rear their ugly heads.
The core mechanics of the game work well enough. I was surprised by how intuitive the controls are considering the massive amount of moves and powers at your disposal, and the game does a good job of explaining how to use those powers. Other then the force powers, you have your standard melee combat using your light saber, which is serviceable, but not what you would call complex. You’ve got some basic combo’s, and you can combine your force powers with your strikes to unleash a galactic can of whoop ass on your foes. It’s not the caliber of something like Ninja Gaiden, but it’s not really trying to be. One of the worst parts of the game is the targeting system. Instead of using the camera to focus on something, you have to position Starkiller to face your target, which is much more difficult, as your characters movements are much more finicky then the camera. Imagine trying to pick up a giant rock, but instead pick up a piece of scrap metal, and Frustration ensues. Maybe this is a good thing, as the camera isn’t the best in the world, and is a royal pain in tight quarters. Also, the game uses the now way overused Quick Time Events made famous in Shenmue. They’re okay, but not done nearly as well as in games like God Of War or The Bourne Conspiracy, and if you hate them (as most people do), then they’re not going to change your mind.
The most lauded part of the game is the tech behind it. The engine that powers Force Unleashed is actually a combination of 3 different engines: The Euphoria engine (used for GTA IV) powers the graphics, the Havok Physics engine (used for everything) powers the physics, and the Digital Molecular Matter engine powers the destructibility. The fact that they got these engines to work properly and coexist is an achievement in of itself, and should be commended. The DMM technology is the most impressive. You’re not going to see many canned animations in this game, as it simulates the force behind…well…The Force and breaks things accordingly. Metal bends, things explode, wood splinters all to impressive effect.
The problem is that not everything is destructible. How come I can destroy this wall, but not that one? How come I can decimate this tree, but this one stays stationary? The same thing happens with the Physics. One of your most important moves is the Force Grip. You can pick up things around you and throw them at your enemies to do some massive damage, but like the DMM tech, how come I can pick up this rock, but not that one? The problem is that this one actually hinders gameplay. Imagine you’re fighting a Rancor on Felucia, and you throw a boulder at his face to take some green off of that health bar. That seems to work pretty well, so you see another one. Well, you can’t pick that one up for some reason, and while trying to pick it up, the Rancor finds his own boulder and crushes you dead. The Force Unleashed is filled with frustrating moments like this that will consistently hinder your enjoyment of the title.
The graphics are good, but not great. There’s some really fantastic looking set pieces, and the backgrounds are very impressive. The problem is that once you get really close up, you’ll see some pretty ugly textures, the lighting and shadows are pretty shoddy, the character models aren’t very detailed, and there’s some screen tearing throughout. The culprit of this might be the tech itself. Because of the sheer processing power needed to simulate the world around you, the graphics had to take a hit so the game could keep a stable framerate, which it fortunately does. This might be the first example of the limitations on current generation systems for these consoles’ life cycles hindering the final product, and I would love to maybe see an enhanced PC version down the road that, if you had the super computer necessary, could really turn everything up to eleven and see the true potential of this tech come out.
Then there’s the glitches. The game crashed on me 3 times during its campaign, there’s clipping all over the place, in game cinemas have trouble showing what they actually want to show, Starkiller got stuck in a few walls during my playtime, and once my character somehow fell through the floor into oblivion. Also, at one point in the game, Starkiller has the option to change light saber colors, but no matter what color you choose, the cut scenes will always show one color, so it’s a little jarring to play the game with a red saber, then watch the cut scenes with a blue saber.
Then there’s the now infamous Star Destroyer sequence. Remember that teaser trailer a couple of years back when they first announced the game where Starkiller pulls a Star Destroyer out of the sky and throws it into a city? Well you actually get to do that. Sounds awesome, right? Well it should be, but it isn’t. In fact, it’s the most long winded and frustrating part in the entire game. I had to try it about 10 times before I got it to work because of sheer luck. It’s just flat out broken. This is most frustrating because, if it worked properly, this would’ve been the highlight of the entire game, and one of the coolest moments in recent gaming history! This is a classic example of a game not quite done shoved out the door to make sure it didn’t miss yet another holiday season.
Star Wars has always been famous for it’s sound design, and that’s what you get here. You like all those classic Ben Burtt sound effects? You got ‘em. You like John Williams? You got ‘em. Don’t get me wrong: The John Williams score from Star Wars is a landmark in cinema history, but you’ve heard it 7 bajillion times by now. There is some original music thrown in, but there’s not a lot, and it’s not orchestrated, so it really sticks out after hearing the London Symphonic Orchestra blast through your speakers. The voice work is very well done, with Battlestar Galatica and Dexter star Sam Witwer doing a great job as Starkiller, and Jimmy Smits reprises his role as Bail Organa. However the biggest treat was hearing Chad Vader himself: Aaron Yonda as Darth Vader. He does a great impression, and it’s great to see everyone’s favorite day shift manager do a role of this magnitude. Kudos to Lucasarts for such an inspired casting.
The last nail in the coffin is that it’s short. The game consists of 10 levels (3 of which are repeat levels from previous worlds with a new coat of paint). You can earn extra costumes and play through it again with your now powerful character if you wish, but there’s no multiplayer to speak of, and there really isn’t a reason to go back and play through it again. Now, with all that said, it should be noted that when everything is working properly, the game can be quite fun. The force powers feel great, the destructibility of the environments (well most of it) is very impressive. Also, shooting lightning out of your fingertips is always fun. I do think it’s worth playing, especially if you are a Star Wars fan, but it’s the definition of a rental: Get it on Friday, return it on Sunday, move on. Whatever you do, don’t spend $60 on it.
Sam Eff on 11/10/2008
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