It is a time of fear and unrest in the galaxy. The evil Galactic Empire rules with tyranny and oppression crushing any opposition with incredible force. Darth Vader, evil underling of Emperor Palapatine continues the execution of Order 66 exterminating the handful of Jedi that live in exile. It is on one of these missions he finds the young son of a Jedi, a boy with powerful natural force abilities. Taking the boy as he leaves the planet he begins to train him in the dark side of the force.
After years of being attacked by a hologram projecting droid named PROXY under Vader’s orders the young boy has grown into a powerful Sith assassin codenamed Starkiller. Taking control of Starkiller you must eradicate the remaining Jedi using the full power of the dark side. This is the Force Unleashed you don’t push enemies over or into a door, you blast them straight through. Using the environment to your advantage you can hurl anything from a barrel to a TIE fighter at your enemies. Even the lightning once upgraded is a powerful storm that spreads to nearby enemies and surrounds them in crippling electricity.
A lot of the environments are destructible, its not full destruction as in Mercenaries or the first Red Faction. But still platforms can be torn from the walls, glass windows can be shattered creating a vortex that sucks anything nearby into the void of space until a shutter comes down. Beams can be twisted and manipulated to destroy passing TIE fighters on some planets entire buildings can be brought down crushing the occupants, giant sheets of metal can be pulled over a walkway to be a shield from falling debris and doors can be blown apart. There is so much in each area and so many combos using all the powers that on each play through you’ll see something different.
As you play through you’ll receive power-up spheres from killing enough enemies to level up or by collecting Jedi holocrons, Pale cubes that are spread across each area, sometimes in very difficult places to get to. Using these spheres you can upgrade Starkiller’s force powers, resilience, health and buy new combo’s. Creating a very powerful Sith apprentice.
As you hack and blast through the levels you’ll meet more powerful adversaries such as AT-ST’s, the fearsome Rancour’s and of course Jedi. Once these powerful enemies have been weakened sufficiently you will be able to perform a finishing move. To complete this you must press specific buttons on your controller as they flash onscreen, similar to the God of War games and the more recent Tomb Raider games. If you successfully pull of the finishing move you will be rewarded with points to go towards levelling up. Failure results in you having to repeat the procedure and losing the points. These finishing moves do look really good but unfortunately you will spend too much time focusing on pressing the right button combo that you can’t really appreciate them.
The scenery looks beautiful as you go through the jungle planet of Kashyyyk, a TIE fighter construction facility above Nar Shaddaa, the colossal junkyard of Raxus Prime, the colourful heavily vegetated planet of Felucia, Cloud City the list goes on and on and I don’t want to reveal too much. The soundtrack is beautiful as well with the classic theme tune we all love as well as some new pieces that really add to the mood.
Unfortunately nothing is perfect and this game does have its flaws. There are occasional visual glitches, with Stormtroopers armour appearing very distorted especially once they’ve fallen. Control errors, especially with targeting. The automatic lock on will quite commonly favour locking onto a barrel then on the machine gun turret that is shooting you. Ok, the barrel can be thrown at the machine gun but it is frustrating if you want to try something different, like throw your lightsaber through the turret and hit the gunner. One particular problem, it is the scene that was given so much hype preceding the release, the video that was in every advert for the game. Pulling a massive Star Destroyer from the sky and slamming it into the ground. This should feel incredible, like you have fully mastered the force and anything is possible but with the touchy controls and TIE fighters shooting you whenever things start to look good it feels like it was just left in because of the hype. A lot more could have been done to make it feel like a greater achievement once the ship is down.
Another frustration is collecting the Jedi holocrons, I can think of three areas in particular where I can see it, I just can’t get to it. I am a fan of the Tomb Raider games and collecting secrets and solving puzzles is nothing new to me, but try as I do I can’t work out how to get to these cubes. Trying so hard ruins the flow of the game to the point I just give up and go back to what it should be about. Killing enemies and unleashing the force. Also littered through the levels are power ups, ranging from invincibility to damage increased and unlimited force power. But these never really feel useful. I played the game through on Sith Lord, a hard level after playing the demo so much I felt ready and didn’t need them. I have played through on Sith Master, the hardest level and while it was challenging and I had to rethink my approach I still did not really need to use the power ups. They only last for a short period so by the time enough enemies are around you to make it worthwhile the power up has run out.
I love this game, I do but it’s really for fans of the Star Wars series. Telling the unknown story of the events between episodes III and IV this fills the gap in a very entertaining way. But with the amount of back story the occasional glitches and temperamental targeting it can be quite annoying for an outsider of the franchise. If you love Star Wars then I do urge you to play and follow the journey of Starkiller. Embrace the dark side and may the force be with you.
