'Star Wars: The Force Unleashed' - Game review

8 out of 10

I don't have particularly strong views on Star Wars. I neither love nor hate it. I only decided to play this out of technical curiosity. This game has long been talked about as a showcase for Pixelux's Digital Molecular Matter. It turns out that the technology is largely irrelevant and not noticeably different to any other physics-based game. However, the game itself is the first decent Star Wars thing for a very long time.

The story takes place between episodes III and IV. It's much more interesting and better told than the 3 prequel films, probably because it is not written or directed by George Lucas. It still has some issues that don't really make sense but generally it's pretty good.

The game start slowly and does not give a good first impression. Your under-powered character is not a great deal of fun. If you stick with it, by the end the combat has become very deep, with lots of combat options and a genuine feeling of skill when you defeat tough enemies. I played on Hard and I would recommend everybody else does the same in order to get sufficient enjoyment out of it. It's generally a pretty easy game and Hard is like Normal in other games.

The thing I loved most is that by the end it has got truly epic. There's one boss in particular that is exactly the kind of thing you want in an epic sci-fi tale. Your actions feel big and important.

It's certainly not perfect. Some of the levels are great and some are not. Graphically, it varies between beautiful and fairly horrible. There's nothing particularly clever or original in here. It's totally linear. There's no multiplayer, if you care about that kind of thing.

I've been looking for a decent scrolling beat-em-up and I've finally found one. It's exactly the type of thing I wanted to play, so I'm probably over-praising it. If you think you'd be at all interested in being a Force-powered killing machine flinging Stormtroopers to their doom in the Death Star, then you should check this game out.