We all have those games that we miss the first time around. With the busy release schedule of modern gaming, no one has time to play everything. That is why we at WingDamage present to you “Fashionably Late Reviews“. This is our series on games from the current generation of consoles that we may have missed on their initial release, but have gone back to experience now.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is one of those titles that I missed the first time around. I think a lot of it had to do with being burned out on Star Wars in general. There has certainly been an over-saturation of the franchise leading up to, and ever since, the prequel movies.

However, I am a long time fan of the original trilogy, as well as many of the “expanded universe” novels. It was always my plan to go back to The Force Unleashed and the Ultimate Sith Edition was the perfect excuse to do so.

The story of The Force Unleashed is exactly the kind of thing that gets my nerd juices flowing. Darth Vader is the evil and unpredictable menace that we all grew up loving. Instead of running around telling everyone how much he hates sand, he has enlisted a secret apprentice whom he found as a child, Starkiller. He is the son of a Jedi Knight and has an extremely strong connection to the force.

Under the leadership of Vader, he has become a formidable Sith warrior, and Vader plans to one day use him to kill the Emperor. This leads to some fun twists and turns in the plot that I will not spoil for you here. What I will say is that it takes you to some very fun and very fitting locales that any Star Wars geek will get a kick out of.

The Force Unleashed is a third person action game where you combine lightsaber combos with force powers to wreak havoc on your enemies. As you progress, you will level up, gaining points that can be spent on increasing your number of force powers, their potency, and unlocking new combos with your lightsaber. You can also use the right trigger to grab and throw objects from the environment as well as enemies.

As you can imagine, a lone Stormtrooper won’t do much against a trained Sith, so the game is good at throwing lots of enemies at you at a time. To make things more interesting, you will also face some of the best armed Stormtroopers in Emperor Palpatine’s army. Some have been given sniper rifles, some jetpacks, others shields that can block force attacks. If the ones in the movies had been this well equipped, the Rebel Alliance wouldn’t have stood a chance. Thank the force for budget cuts.

There are several types of mini-bosses that you will come across during the adventure, from AT-ST’s to Rancors. These are fought mostly with your normal moves, but can be finished off via QTE’s (Quick Time Events) that are used to give the game a cinematic feel. Bad QTE’s can ruin an otherwise good game. Thankfully the ones in Unleashed are fairly forgiving.

Since much of the game revolves around tracking down remnants of the Jedi, you will fight several of them as bosses throughout the story. While some of these battles can be pretty tough, they are a lot of fun. They often require using the environment and a variety of force powers to keep from being knocked on your ass by a well placed Force Push.

The biggest issue I had with the game was the jumping mechanic. While it does allow for a double jump and a dash forward on top of that, it is really hard to tell where you are going to land. It also seems a little too fast, making it feel rushed and awkward. I was very glad that there were no major platforming sections or the bad jumping could have ruined the experience.

A big draw for the completionists out there are all the hidden Jedi and Sith Holocrons, as well as secondary missions. Sith Holocrons give you temporary power-ups, while the ones of the Jedi variety give you bonus points to spend on your levels, new lightsaber colors, and lightsaber power-ups.

The Ultimate Sith Edition comes with all the currently available DLC. This includes a bunch of costumes for your character (including C3P0, which can lead to hilarious results), and three bonus levels.

The first level has Starkiller going to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, where he is looking for information on his father. This level was included on the Wii and PS2 and PSP versions of the game, but was originally cut from the 360 and PS3 editions. It has some interesting new areas to explore, but is slowed down by a section where you must undergo various Jedi trials. One has you using the force to move a ball along a line, and if you vary too far from that line, you have to start over. That really doesn’t do anything for me. Level design, guys!

Second is Tatooine in which Starkiller, now the Emporer’s right hand in an interesting “What If?” scenario, goes in search of R2D2 and C3p0 to find the missing Death Star plans. You will fight your way through Jaba’s palace, face Boba Fett, and a massively powered-up version of Ben Kenobi. The boss fights alone made this one my favorite of the three bonus stages.

The final bonus stage is the battle of Hoth, because it hasn’t quite been in enough video games. This time you are on the side of evil, trying to hunt down Luke Skywalker rather than flying around in a snow speeder trying to trip up AT-AT’s. Here you end up fighting a lot of Wampas, some automated defense, and most deadly of all, a platforming sequence. The platforming section in this bonus level solidified my opinion that if there had been any of these in the game proper, it would have really dragged down the over-all experience for me. The battle with Luke at the end was fun, though, even though they gave him a “farmboy Luke” level of whininess in his voice.

Star Wars the Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition is a good little package. The DLC levels and skins are fun, but had they not come packed in, I couldn’t see myself paying for them at their current price. This is coming from a guy that is in no way anti-DLC, as is the popular stance of many gamers. When it is worth it, I am all for it, but $10 a pop for those extra levels would not be worth it to me.

For the Star Wars or action fan in your life, Star Wars The Force Unleashed is an easy recommendation. While it is not without its flaws, it is a lot of fun. The fresh take on familiar set pieces from one of my favorite franchises is hard to beat. But honestly, I hope they do beat it with the upcoming sequel.

This review is based on a the Xbox 360 version of Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition, purchased by the reviewer.

Tags: action, alternate universe, Darth Vader, dlc, expanded universe, Fashionably Late Reviews, lightsabers, Lucasarts, PC, ps3, Star Wars, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Starkiller, third person, Ultimate Sith Edition, Xbox 360

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.