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Force Unleashed - LA lost the ball yet again

BoBoZoBo

By BoBoZoBo
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BoBoZoBo Newbie

BoBoZoBo

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So the local Blockbuster released the Force Unleashed early for rental and I just had to get my hands on it to check it out, despite my sever disappointment that it would not be released on PC (and the subsequent ridiculous explanation). I was really looking forward to a potentially good story and game from LA, sorry to say I was left empty yet again.

 

My take... (no spoilers... at least story wise)

 

Admittedly, the story itself is VERY GOOD and will keep it interesting. Getting to play Vader is cool and the dialogue of characters is pretty solid. The cannon portion holds up.

But this IS a game and unfortunately the game play and mechanics itself simply... well for a lack of a better word... it leave much to be desired.

 

I ABSOLUTELY have to wonder if they even played this game themselves.

 

Off the bat. When playing the first level with Vader, I had to re-start the game TWICE due to gitches wich caused everything but my avatar and backgound to dissapear. I was running into invisible walls, getting hit by invisible enemies and walking on ivisible cliffs 100 feet in the air... HELLO! Twice. Technical issues are apparent off the bat.

 

Training - So you go through the first level and fight wookies and a skilled Jedi as the ever powerful DV. THEN you receive a mediocre training simulator in the beginning of your second level. Training AFTER you play. New concept, does not work and realy leaves you with a WTF moment. What the hell happened here?

 

What is up with the camera angles? You spend more time fighting the controls to see what is trying to kill you that you do fighting your digital enemies. Somewhat akin to Lego Star Wars, but somehow have seemed to regress. Its distracting and delivers a headache in about 30 minutes. It is nearly impossible to keep an even keel and the game simply tries to dictate views aside from your needs. In addition to this, the game has this auto-lock feature with a LOUSY prioritization of targets. Here you are with 20 storm troopers, ATSTs and who knows what, and the game keeps trying to target a cargo container. Yes, I get that I can pick up containers, I don’t need every single container to be highlighted. A little rudimentary.

 

The force IS cool and the speed of the character really does give a good feel for power, but unfortunately the novelty wears off after a few levels and really in the end, this game is pretty elementary. Nothing really too new or exciting. The DMM and Euphoria tricks do little to keep the game interesting throughout the episode and it is clear that LA was counting on these elements as opposed to true, well developed game mechanics to carry the game... it does not. Aside from the DMM & Euphoria, its flat and is little more than a room full of enemies to kill, rinse, repeat.

 

Lightsaber use/battles are another story. The argument has been made that this is a force game and not saber centered as the devs had said. Well, saying it does not make is a good decision. The fact is at the end of the day, you DO have a saber in the game and you use it quite often, sometimes more than your force powers or at least WITH your force powers. So its use should have been a pretty important part of development. Saber boss duels are pretty cool but most of them the camera zooms way too far for the battle to be interesting visually. Some are framed quite nicely however and will make up for it.

 

The cutting of the saber was an extreme disappointment as well. No matter the point contact or direction of the blade, any element that gets cut (which few even do), has a predetermined angle of incision. (i.e. Even if you slice a droid vertically, it falls apart at its horizontal precut) Where was the DMM here? Even KOTOR and LEGO had better saber use. Again so 1990’s and so very disappointing.

 

The art for the most part is (of course) is AMAZING. Unfortunately the cuts-scenes and large scale environments do not hold up. The renderings and shadings are weird, movement is awkward. And the backgrounds are composited in a fashion reminiscent of old NES games where the back was clearly a static image moving slightly slower than the foreground with bad color correction. Not at par with a company related to Lucas or other games in this day and age.

 

Level design is pretty but a confined rat race. Lego Star Wars was far more entertaining and unfortunately it seems like all they did was take Lego Star Wars and put lipstick on it. It is nearly identical in game play philosophy. Very disappointed in the level of development shown in actual gaming. In the end, the only motivation you have to play is to see where the story goes. At least they make up for the in-between hack and slash, excellent job with end scenes and the story is great.

 

Im sorry guys. I was really looking forward to this one and tried not to live up to the hype of the game so I would not be disappointed, but it seems like LA did not live up to the hype either. No wonder why they did not release it on PC. PC gamers ditched games like this over a decade ago.

 

Guess I’ll have to keep waiting.

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hellhawk Newbie

hellhawk

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um youve got to be kidding me? honeestly star wars has its classic games, like battlefront2 and lego star wars, but there are way more crappy ones. i thought this would make the classics, but from your review, looks like we just got another good-on-paper idea. i guess ill have to rent it for myself and see, but this sounds really bad.

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Darth_Pete Newbie

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The lightsaber combat in this game is pathethic. When you are hitting enemies it's like using baseball bat and at the finishing blow they fly away from you sometimes quite far. Lightsaber is suppose to cut through things yet you can't cut anything!

 

Force powers and sounds are nicely done and thats about it.

 

Edit: Oh yeah... about the "you would need 4000$ computer to run this" BS. http://www.gametrailers.com/player/39990.html

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Astor Newbie

Astor

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The lightsaber combat in this game is pathethic. When you are hitting enemies it's like using baseball bat and at the finishing blow they fly away from you sometimes quite far. Lightsaber is suppose to cut through things yet you can't cut anything!

 

Force powers and sounds are nicely done and thats about it.

 

Edit: Oh yeah... about the "you would need 4000$ computer to run this" BS. http://www.gametrailers.com/player/39990.html

 

If the game were titled 'Lightsaber Unleashed', i'd agree with you. But it's the 'Force Unleashed'.

 

Ergo, it's going to be focusing on the force powers as opposed to lightsabers. The devs have made that abundantly clear for ages now.

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BoBoZoBo Newbie

BoBoZoBo

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Well, isnt the lightsaber an extension of the Jedi and used with the harmony of the force? The lightsaber should have given MUCH love.. I mean come on, admit it, its the most iconic element of the jedi and is the one thing you really wanted when you were a kid (right next to the ghostbuster proton pack).

 

Totally agreed, there should have been more attention to detail in the cutting/fighting of the saber.

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Astor Newbie

Astor

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Well, isnt the lightsaber an extension of the Jedi and used with the harmony of the force? The lightsaber should have given MUCH love.. I mean come on, admit it, its the most iconic element of the jedi and is the one thing you really wanted when you were a kid (right next to the ghostbuster proton pack).[/Quote]

 

I didn't say it wasn't. But it MUST take a backseat in a game specifically about force powers.

 

And actually, I wanted a phaser rifle as a kid. :xp:

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M@RS Newbie

M@RS

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The one thing that made me mad was no PC... I mean come on my computer is in about the middle, it's not the best and not the worst and it runs Crysis just fine... So the whole thing with the computers not being able to handle the graphics is crap...

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Darth_Pete Newbie

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If the game were titled 'Lightsaber Unleashed', i'd agree with you. But it's the 'Force Unleashed'.

 

Ergo, it's going to be focusing on the force powers as opposed to lightsabers. The devs have made that abundantly clear for ages now.

 

So they just consentrated on what the tittle says and copy everything else from some cheap asian grindfest game? Poor excuse and lazyness IMHO.

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Astor Newbie

Astor

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So they just consentrated on what the tittle says and copy everything else from some cheap asian grindfest game? Poor excuse and lazyness IMHO.

 

No, they SPECIFICALLY stated the game will revolve around Force powers, NOT lightsaber duelling, they said that when they started production[/Quote]

 

There's your answer.

 

And you do realise all the time spent in development, the two missed release dates, and the new engines they built specifically for this game?

 

Hardly laziness, and it's not a poor excuse.

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Darth_Pete Newbie

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Darth_Pete, your argument has officially failed. If you don't like it, don't play it.

 

It didn't fail. My opinion is this game focused too much on the force powers (and went little over the top with them. No wait.. way too over the top) and **** on all else that is star wars. All they needed to do is add object/bodypart slicing, make the moving little more smooth and make the lightsaber more powerfull than baseball bat since they had all those uber fysics-engines etc.

 

But it's not all bad so I'll give it 6½/10

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Rabish Bini Newbie

Rabish Bini

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It didn't fail. My opinion is this game focused too much on the force powers (and went little over the top with them. No wait.. way too over the top) and **** on all else that is star wars. All they needed to do is add object/bodypart slicing, make the moving little more smooth and make the lightsaber more powerfull than baseball bat since they had all those uber fysics-engines etc.

 

But it's not all bad so I'll give it 6½/10

Yes, it did fail, they specifically stated it was gonna revolve around force powers, and very little lightsaber combat, it may be your opinion that it's focused too much on force, but your argument fails because we can prove that the game was focused around the force, and our proof isn't just the title of the game.

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Darth_Pete Newbie

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Yes, it did fail, they specifically stated it was gonna revolve around force powers, and very little lightsaber combat, it may be your opinion that it's focused too much on force, but your argument fails because we can prove that the game was focused around the force, and our proof isn't just the title of the game.

 

My argument/opinion was that lightsaber combat in this game sucks and thats a fact. So why/how did it fail?

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Rabish Bini Newbie

Rabish Bini

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My argument/opinion was that lightsaber combat in this game sucks and thats a fact. So why/how did it fail?

If that was your argument, why'd you keep blabbing on about how much the game revolves around the Force, oh, and I'm assuming you're one of those who just kept smashing the one button to swing, instead of using the combos listed, maybe that'll make it more enjoyable.

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