Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Saturday, September 20th, 2008 by Nick Maunders

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, much has been said about this game. As soon as I heard about the game 2 months ago I immediately pre-ordered it. Even though there was so little about it released it still looked a good game. The excitement of playing a great star wars game on the Wii since the brilliant star wars battlefront II was massive. However around early September reviews from magazines such as ONM (Official Nintendo Magazine) started to change my mind about the game. They only gave it an 82% which I thought was quite low for a game. Considering they are generally right on most things I was wondering whether I had made a mistake in ordering it. It wouldn’t be the first time I had bought a rubbish game, Summer Athletics for an example.

But in my opinion ONM couldn’t be more wrong. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is one of the best games to come out on the Wii (I haven’t played it on any other console yet so I can’t say its better on it). The major downside on the Wii is the graphics are a lot worse than the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3’s graphics. On top of that from pictures taken they looked like they would be rubbish. I don’t where they took those pictures from but this game has the best graphics I have seen for any game on the Nintendo Wii. 10/10 for what the Wii is capable of.

So why buy the Nintendo Wii version if you have multiple consoles. I’ll tell you why because the game’s duel mode is exclusive to the wii. The only two player option of the game and it is only on the Nintendo Wii. You get to be well over 20 different characters which you will know from the 6 episodes (and some that aren’t in the episodes); there are characters such as Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Luke Skywalker and others such as Darth Vader. Each character has 4 “abilities”: Lightsaber power, Force Lightning, Force Grip and Force Push. Each character then has either very high, high, medium or low for each ability. So the secret apprentice for example has medium on all 4 abilities.

Is the game good? Yes! A lot of people say that the story is a bit short. So? Maybe it is shorter than other games but it still goes on for hours and hours. Besides you can replay the story again and again and again, well you will get bored eventually but repeating once or twice is fun. There is a very controversial part of this game. If you are a hardcore game you will not like it, if however you’re just playing the game to have fun then you won’t mind, and if you are rubbish at the game then you will think of it as a lifesaver. When you die you start when you died and everyone you had killed are still dead! This is a bit of a let down but it is very handy at times. So you could just go charging into a room wipe half of the people out, die and then go back in a kill everyone else. But what is the point in doing that, would you do in a game where if you die you start again? No, so pretend you do that and don’t take advantage of the games “It doesn’t matter if I die”.

On top of that you can pick up lightsaber colour crystals lightsaber technique crystals and lightsaber hilts in every mission. This is quite a challenge and as well as that you can find all of the holocrons scattered around each level. Although all the holocrons do is unlock concept art for the game it still isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. It’s quite fun trying to hunt for all the holocrons.

The game plot takes place between episodes 3 and 4 after order 66 has been given. You are Darth Vader’s secret apprentice and together you will defeat the emperor and rule the galaxy! Well that’s what Darth Vader wants anyway you however will get the choice to decide throughout the game. The games levels and storyline are truly excellent. I mean Star Wars Battlefront II was brilliant but I think this game might be even better.

If that isn’t enough already for you to get this game (if you don’t already have it) then all you have to do is think of the Wii Remote. You get to control your lightsaber in your right hand with the wii remote and the force in your left hand with the nunchuk. It is spectacular swinging your remote down and killing a stormtrooper and then turning around and electrocuting them with bolts of lightning. So as you may have guessed when you swing the wii remote down your lightsaber goes down etc. With the nunchuk you can control lightning by pressing “c”, choking by pressing “z” and you can even force push by simply pushing the nunchuk forward like you are actually doing it.

One of the most difficult things in the game is probably learning all of the cool new moves you can master when killing enemies. That is why one of the most handiest things in the game is having the tutorial for all the moves. In the tutorial you don’t just get told how to do the move, you actually do the move (and the game won’t move on unless you complete the move!).

I can’t believe that reviews such as IGN and ONM have rated the game so low than what it is actually worth to be honest; I’m giving it a rating of 9.5/10

Posted in Wii Reviews