TFU + CW S01E01 – 02 (SPOILERS)

"It's just a flesh wound!"

This has been gnawing away at me for a while now (beware Force Unleashed spoilers): as much as I like the Secret Apprentice, despite his SSJ4-like power levels, I find it hard to accept that, prior to ANH, Vader could take such a beating that he can be standing on the Death Star with nothing of his helmet left save for his harmonica whereas in ESB, he can’t leave his chamber without the helmet and in RotJ, getting electrocuted and pulling the masque off does him for good. I don’t see how the two events can co-exist…

…and speaking of breaking continuity, I realise I haven’t mentioned the first two Clone Wars episodes yet. ^^

To sum up, I really loved Ambush, but wasn’t so keen on Rising Malevolence.

Ambush is the kind of story that I already think of as ‘a good Clone Wars story’ – the focus was on military and political aspects of the war and it showed both Yoda and the clones in a fashion that made use of their strengths and characters. The two cartoon series also seem to be the only medium in which gymnastic!Yoda works, his fight sequences coming across as an extension of his character rather than a cheap attempt to throw in more CGI (as his duel in AotC appeared).

Rising Malevolence, whilst featuring Yularen and having an interesting focus on Mister Grievous was, for the most part, slightly less entertaining. Perhaps it’s because the majority of the important parts already played out in the Preview’s Sneak Peak segment.

I really like the clone veteran officer characters and it’s nice to see one of them make an appearance during this episode but for the most part, I couldn’t warm to Plo Koon and I found Ahsoka to be unusually subdued.

But as this is a multi-part storyline, there’s still hope ~ hopefully tomorrow morning’s episode will improve on the groundwork laid in this episode.

More on the series later!

The Force Unleashed Ending Review (MAJOR SPOILERS)

After about eight hours, I finally put The Force Unleashed to rest and, I’m very sad to say, the promise of the early storyline during the first five hours dipped considerably during the latter half. This had mostly to do with the game’s intent manifesto to include the requisite Star Wars cameos that would make fans of the films, not just the Expanded Universe, more comfortable with the set up. Sadly, the issue is not helped by the fact that, despite the scope of the universe, the second half of the game mostly focuses on return visits to earlier worlds for subsequently different reasons (Kashyyk, Felucia and the Jedi Temple being the three that spring readily to mind).

The gameplay continues as usual; all serious confrontations ending solely with QTEs and the earlier AT-ST confrontation being repeated with such regularity that it quickly loses its initial appeal. The real injustice in the game however is not the gameplay, but the way in which the storyline is quickly reduced to incoherent nonsense.

Following the Apprentice’s mission to defeat Shaak Ti on Felucia, he returns to his master who chides him for being followed by the Emperor’s spies. Palpatine himself then turns up and instructs Vader to finish the Apprentice which, to all purposes and intents, he does – throwing the young boy out of an airlock, only to swiftly rescue him later.

Vader heals the Apprentice and again reiterates than no one must know of their connection yet, at the same time, in order for them to complete their destiny as almost ‘father and son’, the Apprentice must fashion an army with which to challenge Palpatine’s power. The Apprentice then heads off for a final training mission in the Jedi Temple, killing all Imperial forces as he has on two separate occasions before (yet strangely, despite the significance of the location, Palpatine never noticed his guards being killed on a regular basis) and then heads off to set up the Rebel Alliance, rescuing Princess Leia along the way, fighting random Mandalorians and hanging out with Lobot until finally meeting up with Garm Bel Iblis (who certainly doesn’t look like I imagined him).

Vader then betrays the Apprentice, kidnaps all of the ‘Alliance leaders’ and takes them off to the Death Star to be interrogated and executed by Palpatine himself. So off sets the Secret Apprentice to rescue his new friends and completely mess up some of the most significant events of A New Hope.

In all honesty, I’m surprised that the Apprentice wasn’t *another* person suddenly made canonically responsible for stealing the Death Star plans…but apparently he just single-handedly started the Alliance instead.

The illusion of choice in the gameplay is quickly dispelled early amongst the game’s new turn of events. It is impossible to kill apprentice-turned-Dark Side adept, Maris Brood on Felucia when she kidnaps Bail Organa. Likewise it is impossible to kill all the Alliance members on the Death Star. The only choice is to fight Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine which…is not what I wanted at all.

All in all, the impression is one of exceeding disappointment, resulting in a restrictive game that neither allows you to fully explore the universe in which you have been placed nor interact with the storyline. I can’t help but feel a little cheated, especially after how the opening actually succeeded in winning me over to the Secret Apprentice’s plight.

Hopefully, Soul Calibur IV will prove more sensible (and yes, I really do realise how silly that sounds).

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.