Monday 06 Oct 2008

OK, this review is going to be a bit different. While no review can ever be truly objective, it is the goal of professional game enthusiast writers to provide a ‘product guide’, of sorts, detailing a given game with no bias and simply providing the bare facts. It is the aim of this particular Star Wars: The Force Unleashed review to be as subjective as possible. The ‘reviewer’s fourth wall’ is going to be broken. Why is this?

Well, mainly because I simply did not enjoy Force Unleashed and I’m of the opinion that I may indeed be in the minority, but I cannot provide a normal review of the game without sounding like I hate it. This is not the case. I’m simply a little astounded that a game such as this, with all the money, backing and talent of LucasArts, as well as input from George Lucas himself, feels so rough, frustrating and mismatched. Let’s begin.

The first question I have to ask myself is; “Why didn’t I enjoy The Force Unleashed?”

I’ve been trying to put my finger on the exact reason, and the closest I can come to is that it may stem from the fact that The Force Unleashed gives you so much potential to fill the role of a nimble, Force-wielding action hero but consistently frustrates your attempts to use the move-set and abilities at your disposal. The potential is just out of reach and, as you push forward, you’re always reminded that, in fact, no - you’re not an action hero. You’re a videogame character limited by polygons and button presses.

A case in point would be how physical movement of the main character, Darth Vader’s secret apprentice Starkiller, doesn’t match the physical layout of the levels. Jumping around as this able bodied youngster feels like you’re controlling a box, floating around from platform to platform. The game moves from a horizontal runner to a vertical platformer from one minute to the next and you simply aren’t given the correct tools to navigate the terrain. Sure, you can double-jump (something I was told only an hour or two in) and you’ve got significant air-control, but when the environments feel like they should have been grander (or wider), as opposed to small ledges and intricate jumps that would appear in a slow-paced action-adventure game, there are problems.

The Force Unleashed doesn’t know which it wants to be; the slower, more deliberate action game - allowing you to wade into the action and carve your way through enemies - or the fast-paced action game - forcing you to constantly jump and dart back and forth while performing speedy, fly-by attack runs at enemies. While this may not be a problem and is even welcome to mix up the pace of any given game, you’re only given the tools to be quick and agile, not plodding and methodical.

Something that accentuates this feeling is the inability to ‘cancel’ your attacks - if you input a series of button-presses, usually more than necessary due to the split-second delay in registering the input, that series of button-presses will be carried out in-game to the last. What happens then is that you may happen to be fighting enemies near a particularly small precipice. After you’ve inputted the attack sequence, your avatar will faithfully recreate your button presses, even if you’re a little too close to the edge of the abyss. You fall. This is a problem because it once again shatters the illusion that you are an all-powerful fighting machine. You find yourself feeling more and more conservative, especially around ledges, so you don’t fall and have to climb your way back up or, worse, die. I don’t want to be constrained in this way. Allow me to swing and hack and slash to my heart’s content… and I don’t want to fall, either.

Yet another element that highlights your character’s apparent ineptitude is the way in which enemies attack you. We always make fun of action movies where you can see bad guys hanging around in the background, ‘waiting their turn’ to try to lay a punch on the hero and we make the same observations when games do the same thing. The Force Unleashed, while still retaining this laughable element, allows enemies to attack you with consecutive strikes, that is, if you are smacked to the ground, not only do you take an inordinate amount of time to get back up, but as you do so, it’s possible you’ll just get smacked down again, maybe even before you manage to climb to your feet. While the reverse may be laughable, the converse leads to anger… anger leads to hate… and we all know what happens then. Once again, I want to feel like these fools in my way are no more than a few lightsaber slashes away from getting out of my way. I don’t want to feel like a weakling by getting beaten down again and again, without the recourse to return to my feet. I can wield the Force, for goodness sake!

Another area in which I may feel some frustration is in the inability to easily follow-up on attacks and carry out combinations that may seem logical, as well as the stop-start combat. I’ll include the schizophrenic Force lock-on and pick-up system here, that being the ability to lock-on to physical objects in the world, pick them up with the Force and hurl them around the place - only, if there are a few objects lying around, the lock-on part gets a bit confused and you may end up picking up objects that aren’t even on the screen. Combined, these two cumbersome areas create a feeling of impotence when fighting - I might be trying to throw a large object into a group of enemies to break them up, Force push stragglers, throw some lighting down and dash at anyone left to mop them up, all in one, nice, fluid motion… but no. Such a scenario never played out. Manipulating objects with the Force is an unwieldy affair, providing a massive obstacle in any effort to effectively throw a combo together comprising your available talents. You’re better off using the lightsaber on its own.

Other rough edges that could be mentioned would be the twitchy (and sometimes convulsing) physics objects that never seem to settle, an unfortunate victim of the developers’ ambition, relying on their implementation of Havok to take care of seemingly weightless, ADD-riddled crates, junk, walkways, archways, suspension bridges, tanks… everything that can move in the physical space, basically, including enemies. Cutscenes barge in on gameplay, with no smooth transitions from one to the other, while lifts are just as rude, using the old trigger method - the split-second you’re on a moving platform, it whooshes up to your destination, which can be disorienting when some lifts don’t even look like lifts, but simply appear to be a continuation of the floor. Special boxes suspiciously placed in your environments will boost your experience points, a system by which you can upgrade yourself and your abilities, only the whole system feels vague, inconsistent and tacked-on. The quick-time events, sections of the game in which you are required to input specific button-presses in time with on-screen indicators, similarly feels decidedly ‘added at the last minute’, appearing at unexpected times. Sometimes sound doesn’t play in accordance to on-screen antics, not only during cutscenes or showcase animations, but during in-game action as well. One last pick (which I wouldn’t call a ‘nit’) would be how certain menus require a load screen (with ill-timed reading material) to get in and out. When you’re being encouraged to spend your experience points in order to become more powerful and more proficient, this is a major discouragement and another obstacle on the road to becoming an effective user of the Force.

Why, then, do these things frustrate me so? Is it because these kinds of mistakes have already been solved in other games? Am I expecting too much from the game? One of the reasons may be that you are given the perception that you are extremely powerful. The opening Darth Vader level instils you with a feeling of enormous power as he plods his way through a Wookie village, seemingly setting the player up for an experience even more grand, giving you a glimpse at just what the Force is capable up - a glimpse at an image that never materialises. The scope of the game seems larger than in reality, and the developers don’t do a good job of masking the game’s weaknesses while bringing out its strengths - and The Force Unleashed does indeed have a few strengths.

Graphically, The Force Unleashed is up there with the big boys, at times surprising you with the attention to detail and effective lighting. The environments, while a little bland to begin with, start becoming more and more grand, providing palpable atmosphere and a real sense of history to any given area. While the menus may be cumbersome to deal with, the ability to customise yourself and your abilities, essentially determining the way you play, adds to the replayability. Players are rewarded for what seems like relatively little effort, with tons of explosions, as well as flying bodies and hunks of debris, to add impact and intensity to your actions. Even despite my misgiving with the system overall, there are times when you get a glimmer of an ‘all-powerful’ feeling, destroying things, throwing things with your mind and generally wreaking havoc (which is then interrupted with any of the aforementioned misgivings).

Lastly, the story and characters written for The Force Unleashed are extremely entertaining and engaging, all of which could easily have been injected into any Star Wars movie without anyone blinking. As far as the story goes, this addition to the cannon will please any Star Wars fan and could even be recommended based solely on the fact that it truly does feel like a continuation of the series, providing the much-talked about interim lore between Episodes 3 and 4.

So why didn’t I enjoy Star Wars: The Force Unleashed?

I think, ultimately, it came down to the fact that I felt constrained within a game where the sky was seemingly the limit, but it turns out, the ceiling was much lower than that. Being unable to perform moves with confidence and ease is not what this game promises - it gives you the tools and the know-how, but doesn’t allow you to follow through with what should be natural, effortless combat. Other hindrances simply sealed the experience of being tempted with what was possible. What saves this game from mediocrity in my mind, then, would be the successful use of the Star Wars franchise, the moments of awe looking at areas that could have been used as movie sets and the fleeting moments of clarity and power - these are the reasons to play through the game and get wrapped up in it. While I may have had a bit of a frustrating time with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and I didn’t appreciate how rough the game is overall, that doesn’t mean everybody will feel the same way - just read El33tonline’s Xbox 360 review to see a different opinion on a version of the game that is practically identical in every way to the PS3 version - but I do see anger and frustration in your future if you decide to pick it up.

Even though this review didn’t really turn out the way I wanted it, lacking the intelligent discussion and subjectivity I desired (after spending a significant amount of time struggling with just why I felt the way I did and trying to effectively put it into words), it’s at least a little analogous to the game - the reality didn’t really live up to the initial promise. Sorry.

Pros: See above

Cons: See above

Rating:
Contributor:	Oliver

Purchase: