Force Unleashed was announced at E3 (probably, what the fuck isn't?) some time ago (no, not in a galaxy far far away. Fuck you.) with its main appeal being the ability to control the lightsaber to the inch with the Wiimote, while being able to unleash the Force with the Nunchuk attachment. I was wowed. Seriously, it sounded fucking awesome. You're the secret apprentice of Darth Vader, and you kill EVERYONE completely manually. It was a geek's dream come true.

However, The Force Unleashed slowly loses steam as I move onto other games, and I lose memory of it for a bit. Then, my friend and colleague at DCN, Quinn, reminded me. Once again, I hopped back onto the band wagon of following this game to the death. Then, once agan, my attention slacked off it, about the time it was announced that, in fact, the lightsaber wouldn't follow the Wiimote exactly, which eliminated what I wanted to do the most (Chop my own head off. Repeatedly.) Never the less, three days before launch, I saw some 360 gameplay and decided I needed this game. Spontaneously, I chose the Wii, and here I am.

You open this game playing as Lord Vader himself, basically killing the fuck out of Wookies, sent by the Emperor to kill a rogue Jedi leading the Wookies against the Imperial forces. You get used to the controls, kill some walking carpets, and finally fight against this Jedi. Its a tough fight, considering he's 3-5 times faster then you, but eventually, you beat him down and Force Choke him in front of his son. Sensing the son has enormous Force potential, you kill a squadron of clone troopers and escort the newly-orphaned Starkiller to your ship in secret

Fast forward a couple years, and Lord Vader sends Starkiller off to kill a Jedi Master who's attacking an Imperial shipyard. On your way to the hanger, you meet your soon-to-be-girlfriend, Juno Eclipse. Oh, and PROXY, a droid that puts C-3P0 to shame in levels of awesome. Long story short, you kick some ass, take some names, and then kill those names before they escape.

This is how the story progresses. Vader demands you head to Planet X, you go to Planet X, you kill everyone in a largely dramatic fashion, and finally kill the Jedi located there. Awesomely. The first Jedi gets thrown across a room with Force Lightning, then kicked through a reinforced window into motherfuckin' space.

The game's specialty is cutscenes. More specifically, making whoever you're killing die in a hilariously over the top fashion. Wanna kill a Stormtrooper? You've got two options:
  1) Slice him with your lightsaber. Simple, yet effective.
  2) Slice him with your lightsaber, then pull a TIE Fighter from space onto the surface of the planet, straight on top of him, use the TIE Fighter to incase his surely dead body, explode it, then use the wings to beat up his entire family. Editor's note: Clones don't have families, remember?

These things fucking hurt!

Unfortunately, this game has two glaring flaws. The camera is pretty bad, which depresses me. There's no way to adjust it, so your stuck with how it is. Which is bad, because we all know that when the game is given free reign over the camera, it spends its time looking at you through the back of your head. This is disorienting during boss fights, where you fight Jedi Masters that could snuff out your life in a matter of seconds. And often do.

The second flaw is the graphics. I'm usually not one to complain about graphics, in fact, I spend most of my time wishing that games had worse graphics, but better gameplay. Well, I somewhat got that. Force Unleashed looks like a game for the Xbox. The original Xbox. More specifically, Episode Three for the Xbox.

The one on the left is Force Unleashed, the one on the right is the official game for Revenge of the Sith for the Xbox. They aren't the greatest pictures, but I think they'll suffice.

Anyway, I going to wrap this up. The Force Unleashed is a fun game. But it gets repetitive, and honestly, for the parts that aren't moving around the Wiimote or Nunchuk, it just feels like a movie game. You know, those games that are like, 6 out of 10's everywhere. However, this is clearly different, and its got some good replay value (Duel Mode, costumes, etc) that I can't rate it low.
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The game starts off with you playing as Darth Vader. You fight your way through countless numbers of Wookiees on Kashyyyk trying out your newly discovered powers. The Wookies don’t put up much of a fight, but I guess that’s because it’s level one. You find a rogue Jedi, kill him, and then discover that his son has abilities with the Force. His name is Galen, but he will soon become one of the most powerful Sith apprentices ever, under the name Starkiller. Fast-forward many years. You now play as Starkiller and are sent by Lord Vader to kill the Jedi that survived Order 66. As you play through the game, you realize you may be fighting for the wrong side. Starkiller is forced to choose between the side of the Force that raised him, or the side that he believes may be morally right. The story may get a little repetitive at times, but it’s still fun, there are just so many ways to kill people. Plus, since they’re clones, they never stop coming, so you’re always ensured an endless supply of victims.

Let me just say that the controls in the Wii version of this game are amazing. Each Force move has a unique way to use it. Button-mashers and Arm-flailers may or may not have fun with this. You move around with the Nunchuk, and can jump with B. You can use Force push just by swinging the Nunchuk down, you can grab people by hitting Z, then if you turn the Nunchuk upside down, then you can choke them (I feel like Julius Caesar!) You can electrocute with C, and if you double tap C, you use your double handed electrocution move, which is totally awesome. You swing your lightsaber with the Wiimote (shocking, really), and if you hold in A while doing so, you will throw your lightsaber. There are more combinations for more attacks, but that’s just the basics of it.

As you kill opponents, you will gather glowing orbs called Force Points. These points can be used in the store to upgrade your Force abilities. You start out at level one, and can work your way up to level four. As you level up, the attacks get more powerful and as you complete levels, new abilities are unlocked to be used at your disposal.

There are some customizable elements in the game, like clothing, lightsaber handles, lightsaber color, and lightsaber power-ups. As you go through the story, you unlock clothing and combat crystals, and in the levels you may find color crystals and handles. Clothing changes the way you look in cut scenes and game play. The color crystals and handles do the same thing; they don’t affect ability, just appearance. Combat crystals however change the game play; they upgrade some ability that you have whether that be Force push, lightning, or damage done by the lightsaber. I have to admit that I spam lightning after gaining level four lightning and the lightning combat crystal.

Duel Mode is the versus mode in The Force Unleashed. It’s really fun playing with people having so many attacks to use. It takes a little bit of time to get used to the camera position, but not much. You unlock characters as you advance through the story, and there are many to choose from. I have yet to explore this mode to it’s fullest so far due to the fact that I am much better than my friends, but I assume two people who are really good at this game would have a great time together fighting. When you score enough hits on your opponent, you go into Force Unleashed, which makes you glow and at that point you aren’t invincible, you just have an unlimited amount of Force power for about 10 seconds. If you’re the opponent, it just means run.

And now we come to the saddest part of the review, the cons, first of which is the graphics. The Xbox 360 version may have better graphics (I don’t know seeing as I’ve never played it) but the Wii ones aren’t anything spectacular. I’m usually not one to yell at a game for bad graphics, and these definitely aren’t bad, but they aren’t going to blow your mind. They are pretty similar to the Star Wars games for the original Xbox; kind of sharp around the edges, stuff like that. The second con is the camera. Although there are ways to move the camera in this game, it gets annoying at some times. In most points of the game, the camera will move for you, but in others, it will stay in one direction where you don’t want it. If you’re in a fight, I suggest turning and using the Z button. This will make the game think you want to grab something, and it will turn the camera so you can see what you’re picking up. The way the game recommends is using the Up button on the D-Pad. This can be stressful in boss battles however because none of your fingers rest on it, so you have to move your hand from the A button to it. It then brings the screen to 1^st person and lets you pick your direction, but when you’re fighting enemies, you can’t necessarily stop to look around.

All-in-all, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a great game and a must have for all Star Wars fans. Though the Wii version may have less than desirable graphics, and the overall game has a poor camera, that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying this game. The pros definitely outweigh the cons. You have the amazing motion controls, customizable game elements, the level system, and duel mode. If you still aren’t convinced, go try it out at a rental store, I’m sure you’ll decide to buy it.

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