It's clear from the off that a lot of thought has gone into the plot, which is set in the time between Episode III and Episode IV. You're not just visiting unnamed planet X or generic space station Y. Everything in the game references something or other in the Star Wars universe.
In our travels, we stopped by the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, a TIE Fighter factory in orbit over the smuggler's moon of Nar Shaddaa (seen in Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight), the junk world of Raxus Prime and Felucia, the planet where the Twi'lek Jedi woman gets gunned down in Revenge of the Sith.
The nods to the lore are evident right from the start, where you assume the controls of Darth Vader himself. The dark lord has come to find something hiding among the Wookiees and nothing will stand his way.
Putting Vader in as a playable character is a brave choice for The Force Unleashed. Vader is iconic, after all. His actions have never been anything less than extraordinary. So to put him in a situation where the Sith Lord could be reduced to a clumsy oaf who accidentally walks off bridges or gets stuck on piece of terrain could grossly undermine him.
But restrictions and additions have been included to keep Vader himself. We breathed a sigh of relief when we discovered he can't run. It would have been an instant fail if we'd seen Lord Vader look like Benny Hill while chasing wookies around Kashyyyk.
As Vader you posses several Force powers right from the off, turning the prologue into a Wookiee-killing jolly. But as the combat tutorial takes place between the prologue and the first level, you're thrown in at the deep. And while having unlimited powers should feel empowering, in fact you're still trying to figure out how to play the game and turn your lightsaber on.
A slight shame, because once you know what you're doing the controls are intuitive. A and X provide different types of lightsaber attacks, Y activates a Force push and B makes Vader jump like a bunny. The right trigger controls Force Grab for when you feel like lobbing a Wookiee off a walkway.
The left trigger enhances other abilities such as jump and throwing your lightsaber with added Force power. For example, to toss your lightsaber like a boomerang instead of merely swinging it around, you hold down the left trigger and hit either 'A' or 'X'. It'll only take an experienced gamer about half a level to get the hang of it.
When you do, the game shines. Wave after wave of stupid Wookiees who run at you cry out to be killed in imaginative ways. Our reign of terror saw trees soar through the air, bodies thrown from mile-high tree houses and corpses rammed into live bodies like battering rams.
When you do, the game shines. Wave after wave of stupid Wookiees who run at you cry out to be killed in imaginative ways. Our reign of terror saw trees soar through the air, bodies thrown from mile-high tree houses and corpses rammed into live bodies like battering rams.
As anyone familiar with the last prequel movie should know, Kashyyyk has a lot going for anyone blessed with telekinesis and a desire for destruction. We battled across platforms hanging high in the treetops, fought Wookiees in Vietnam inspired huts and tore up the greenery just because we could.
At the end of our hike we found the Jedi we were looking for. After dispatching him with ease (you are Vader don't forget) and watching a twist in the plot, the story sets off in a direction that has similarities with both trilogies. It's obvious Unleashed is going to visit the same parent-offspring themes seen in all the films.
Fast forward a few years and instead of playing ultimate badass Vader, you now assume the role of The Apprentice. He can run (yes, run!) and is generally more agile than Vader, so the drudgery of the prologue dissipates and things speed up a little. But being the 'apprentice', you only have a few powers to abuse, which streamline the controls somewhat and give you a chance to learn the mechanics from the ground up.
Vader tasks you with hunting down a former Jedi and Clone Wars veteran, General Kota, who is making a nuisance of himself at a TIE Fighter factory. As Vader doesn't want the Emperor to find out about his bit on the (dark)side, his instructions also state that everyone must die. We eagerly agreed, a lot more gleefully than Secret Apprentice too. Seems a decade under the personal tutorage of Vader doesn't meld you into an ice-cold killer. It just makes you a bit moody...
So with orders to exterminate without prejudice, we flew with our companions (Sith need friends too, it seems) across to Nar Shaddaa. A rebel force, led by Kota, had infiltrated the station, giving us both imperial and rebel targets to vanquish.
Given the game essentially plays on the Force-power and lightsaber combo mechanic, LucasArts has thrown in a number of set-pieces to stagger the pace. Inside the factory, we had to bring down some AT-STs (the Emu-like vehicle Chewie steals on Endor in Return of the Jedi), deal with TIE Fighters and even manipulate laser machinery to take out a mass wave of soldiers. There's also plenty of optional objectives to completists busy.
Not surprisingly, the level ends in a lightsaber duel with General Kota. Boss-battles are distinctive things in The Force Unleashed, operating under slightly different rules to the rest of the game. The perspective, previously a third-person following cam, switches to a side view that zooms in and out of the action when necessary. It's slightly jarring at first, but does give a better view and ultimately serves you well. Lightsaber combat is not exactly a nuanced affair, but still feels solid. Koto follows specific combat patterns like any boss so your task is to work out when to block, when to attack and when to get the hell out of there.
The Force Unleashed also takes a cue from the page in the Prequel handbook that reads
lightsaber combat is boring onto itself. Each fight is spiced up by being set somewhere ridiculously over the top like on the roof of a ship crashing into a planet, or on a moon with low gravity, or in the nasal passage of a huge space slug. The fight with Koto is no different.
You start in a spherical control room perched high above the sprawl of the world below. Deciding early on that you're more powerful than him, he decides to rip the entire room off of the factory and send it plummeting to the heavily populated planet below. Jedi morals seem to get a bit lax when the council isn't watching its back, don't they? Still, it's a nice set piece.
Less impressive are the Quicktime events that end each boss battle. Instead of landing that hard-fought-for and so satisfying final blow, the game jumps to a cut scene when your foe is almost defeated. We think it's supposed to make the final moments of the hunted Jedi more dramatic, but we felt robbed of not being able to dispatch Koto our own way. And it's one of those Quicktime sequences that simply repeats itself until you get it right.
Next up we're dispatched to kill another Jedi. This time insectoid Kazdan Paratus is scheduled for the chopping block and we're more than happy to obey our master. Landing on the junk world that Paratus is hiding on, The Force Unleashed once again really illustrates that more than a game, it's a bridge between two very different time periods.
The copious amount of junk covering the planet's surface can be manipulated by the Force, either to be thrown at adversaries or even to proceed through the level. The puzzles hindering your path through the level are hardly Sudoku, but a few were challenging enough to make us stop and think for at least two minutes. It might seem trivial, but when you're an all powerful Sith that no one can stop, small set pieces like this prevent the game from becoming stale.
Another factor in keeping things compelling is the Force power skill tree. Unleashed employs a RPG-like levelling system whereby you choose what powers and abilities you gain as you move through the game. The amount on offer far outweighs how many you can actually earn in any one play through, so while there'll be some tough choices to be made, there's also a strong replayability factor. We were sacrificing certain powers so we could just get our hands on Force lightning.
Experience points are earned by killing opponents, finishing levels and completing side missions. On Raxus Prime for example, a number of skiffs (the thing that takes Luke to the Sarlacc Pit) fly above the planet's trash-covered surface, dropping combat droids off to attack you. Destroying five completes a secondary objective that gives you experience.
Skiffs aren't the only thing from Tatooine to make an appearance on Raxus Prime, either. As we made our way up from the surface towards the top of a tower where our Jedi target waited, the glowing eyes of Jawa's soon stared back at us.
Being Sith, we didn't give them much time to state whether they were friendly or not, but we suspect it's another Unleashed nod to wishlists of fans. Frankly, we don't know anyone who doesn't find butchering Jawa's amusing.
Reaching the top of the structure, we were actually surprised to find the Jedi Temple. It seems Jedi Kazdan couldn't handle the destruction of the order and decided to make a replica out of broken bits, including statues of the Jedi Masters.
To get Kazden's attention, we started to bash up the Yoda duplicate. He didn't take too kindly to our insensitivity and summoned what can only be described as a golem made out of spare droid parts and held together with the Force. It certainly raised our eyebrows and we imagine some Star Wars purists will get into a flutter over it.
Upon reaching the final planet in the preview build, we were pretty glad of our Force powers. Previous to Felucia, we'd been strolling through the locations like we were out for a stroll in the park, crushing enemies like flies.
Comparatively, Felucia had us running away from almost everything we encountered just to stay alive. We seriously hope there's still some balancing work to be done. The increased difficulty is welcome, but it's a little too much too soon.
Felucia itself is a plant-covered world ripped straight out of Revenge of the Sith. As well as having to fend off carnivorous vegetation, the natives on the planet are surprisingly tough. They attack in groups consisting of a few warriors and one shaman. While the warriors immediately go for your neck, the shaman will hold back.
His very presence makes the warriors rock hard so you need to go for him first. Even though the wily things have an annoying habit of teleporting. As with the droid monster from Raxus Prime, it bends the Star Wars feel slightly, but introduces variation in the enemies' attack patterns.
Coupled to this is the Rancor. Several of them, actually. To say there's a lot going on during Felucia is an understatement. In fact, we only got to the boss battle by using the old 'run past everyone towards the exit' technique. We felt dirty doing it and hope the level isn't so unrelenting in the final build.
The Force Unleashed looks like it might tick many of the right boxes come release. The opening three levels we played through certainly showed an entertaining Star Wars game that was a pleasure to play through. If the game can keep the set pieces flowing, the skill tree interesting and the storyline compelling, there's little reason LucasArts shouldn't be thinking about retaining a few of those staffers for a sequel.
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