The Force Unleashed First Impressions (SPOILERS)

First impressions of the first five or so levels of The Force Unleashed (Kashyyk, Nar Shaddaa shipyard, Jedi Temple #1, Raxus Prime, Jedi Temple #2) reveal a game that is a lot less deserving of the noise it’s been receiving.

From a technical point of view, the controls take a bit of getting used to and, surprisingly, are at their most clunky when fighting other Force users. From the point of view of someone with doubts about the storyline however, the report is much more favourable.

To address the problems with TFU as a game first, its biggest drawback is that it isn’t Knights of the Old Republic. I knew the system wasn’t going to be turn-based when I rented the game but still, hope springs eternal. There’s a lot of focus on Force use and every item in your field of vision is highlighted for potential use by Force powers however this gets old very quickly. In terms of regular destructible scenery there is nothing alas. Save for the lightbulbs in Nar Shaddaa and the Jedi Temple, most objects – especially those designed for use with Force powers – are strangely resistant to lightsabre blows.

The Secret Apprentice, strangely expressionless as his character is, proves to be a lot more suited to the game’s controls than Darth Vader. Where the Apprentice dashes and leaps, Vader resolutely stomps about being generally invincible, which is all well and good but makes for a very boring opening level. It’s frustrating that his ‘underskirt’ is constantly flowing forwards making him look silly and, whilst he can’t jump high, he can strike a ‘Force repel’ pose that you know has been styled for the Apprentice.

The controls aren’t awful but, at the very least, I was hoping for something more akin to Lego Star Wars Battlefront II.

The most tiresome aspect of TFU is, as mentioned above, battles with Jedi. It’s a surprise that a Star Wars game can make such an important aspect of the game so tedious and dull. At the end of the day, these confrontations are reduced to simply hitting your enemy until the right symbol flashes up (I can already see how this would play on Nintendo’s Wii) and then hammering the buttons in sequences. Whilst these ‘Quick Timer Events’ are of supreme importance in a game like Shenmue, here they just seem like a lazy way to finish a boss battle.

But the game does have some amazing moments, the most significant being a battle with a rebel controlled AT-ST which makes use of the QTE function and, at the same time, makes you feel involved in the gameplay.

Things are a bit more optimistic with the storyline. Whilst there’s a lot of unnecessary ‘darkness’, the Secret Apprentice is bland but likable, as are his two companions, pilot Juno Eclipse and the droid, PROXY.

The Apprentice’s accent is a little strange as I could have sworn he was English in the first scene but later he becomes completely American. Vader also suffers from an accent problem with actor Matt Sloan doing his best at impersonating James Earl Jones but not really living up to him.

I must confess to getting a little excited when the game shifted to Raxus Prime as I seriously thought it was Malachor V from KOTOR II. I was soon disavowed of this hope by a quick glance at Wookieepedia.

In regards to that sacred cow of Star Wars fandom, continuity, I have to wonder how this balances with Karen Traviss’ two short stories, In His Image and A Two-Edged Sword as the portrayal of Vader and his relationship with the Stormtroopers is very much at odds with Traviss’ work. In fact, I actually quite like Traviss’ two stories and feel that this game could have benefited by taking them into consideration. Yet it’s quite obvious they haven’t thus, with Vader’s casual instructions to the Apprentice about killing both General Rahm Kota’s rebel forces and Imperial forces alike and his first action on Kashyyk being to choke a Stormtrooper commander to death, I can’t help but feel that certain works are going to go missing soon.

However, if this story of the Apprentice eliminates all these absurd Dark Jedi that Vader was supposed to have trained then maybe it’s a fair trade.

In terms of the game’s overall story, it’s only when the world of Felucia crops up, along with Shaak Ti (looking a lot less cute than in her Clone Wars cartoon incarnation) and 80s Goth Jedi, Maris Brood that the storyline lost my interest. Aside from that, TFU is possibly better than I originally thought…but it is by no means the definitive Star Wars game, in terms of gameplay or story.

More thoughts later.