The Game Druid

With just 15 odd days to go, The Game Druid and team looks through Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and takes you through what to expect.

Let’s get rolling…as described earlier, the game will allow, players will be able to take control of the most famous Sith Lord of them all–Darth Vader–in the opening level of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Yes, it will feature John Williams Star Wars theme AND the scrolling text.

The Force Unleashed will fill in a lost chapter in the Star Wars saga: basically, what happens between Episode III and Episode IV (i think) This is a period when the Jedi were scattered and hunted down, the Galactic Empire consolidated its hold on the galaxy, and apparently Darth Vader was secretly grooming an apprentice to help him one day overthrow the Emperor. You’ll play as that apprentice and go on missions for Lord Vader, but your existence must be kept a secret, so this will give you an opportunity to battle rebels, Jedis, and any unlucky Imperials who happen to get a glimpse of you. The developers consulted heavily with George Lucas on the story and characters, to the point that what happens in The Force Unleashed is now considered Star Wars canon.

So coming back, you’ll basically get to play Darth Vader’s secret apprentice and from what it looks like, you’ll be a Jedi Killer! Yay! The first level shown to us has the apprentice running through a TIE Fighter assembly station, which a rogue Jedi has taken over. The apprentice let loose with a variety of powerful Force powers and lightsaber moves to dispatch the enemy. Force push doesn’t just knock an enemy back; it can hurl a group of enemies through the air, as if they’ve been hit by an explosion.

One of the ideas in the game is to let you be as creative as possible when it comes to combat. You’re not just slashing at enemies and toying with them using your Force powers. There’s a fair amount of environmental interaction in the game. Most levels will have a mechanism of some sort that will provide you with a steady supply of objects that you can manipulate. For instance, in the TIE Fighter factory, fresh TIE Fighters come off of the assembly line. You can then use your Force powers to grab them and hurl them in someone’s faces; or, even cooler, use grip to hurl someone into the path of an oncoming TIE Fighter. On a junkyard world, magnetic lanes keep a steady supply of junk flying overhead. On that same level, you might need to use lightning to power up engine turbines, which will then fly off and smash into objects. Execute a cool kill and the game will switch to a payoff camera that gives you a cinematic view of the action.

Although it sounds as if you’re going to be a complete and total badass throughout the game, the designers say that the theme of The Force Unleashed is that of redemption. Does that mean the secret apprentice will discover the error of his ways and change sides? We’ll see. It’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out, and how his relationships with the other characters in the game change.

The Force Unleashed will ship for the PS3 and Xbox 360, but other versions are also planned for the Wii, PSP, Nintendo DS, and PS2. No PC…yet. Though the underlying stories will be the same across all platforms, there will be differences between most of them, as well as unique content designed for the platform. The PSP version will feature historical battles from the movies, whereas the Wii version will have some levels that aren’t in the Xbox 360 or PS3 versions. In the Wii version, we saw a Jedi temple level, but more importantly, LucasArts demonstrated how the Wii Remote is used for lightsaber attacks while the Nunchuk is used for Force powers.

All in all, I can’t wait for this game!! Just 15 days to go and well…can’t wait! Stay tuned here for a full review!

Drool on this in the meantime:

This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 11:55 am and is filed under upcoming games. 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.