STAR WARS The Force Unleashed II

STAR WARS The Force Unleashed II: LucasArts

After months of it's debut teaser trailer back in December 2009's VGA, TFU2 has been on mine and any other STAR WARS fans mind. But finally after much patience on October 29th we finally got our hands on it! From what I've seen there have been mixed reviews. It appears to be a love or hate game and this is what I thought of it...

Story
Set in a short time after the first game we find our hero Starkiller (or Galen Marek for us nerds) is haunted by visions of his past due to him being a clone of the original Starkiller who died in TFU1. But instead of following Darth Vader's commands, Starkiller sets off on a mission of his own to find his love interest from the prequel Juno Eclipse. Along the way he finds General Kota the blind Jedi from the first game who is fighting for the Rebellion just like Juno. But Starkiller's question of who he is or helping the Rebellion comes second to his blind desire of finding Juno in these events leading to Episode IV. But this isn't going to be so easy for Starkiller when Vader hires Boba Fett's services to find Juno and bring her to him so that Starkiller will follow.

One of the most loved by fans SW character, Boba Fett makes a brief cameo.

 
Design
On your path through the game your objectives will mostly consist of escape, acts of sabotage and rescue attempts whilst engaging many battles in narrow hallways and catwalks. Occasionally you endure transit rides and awesome free fall events to break up the gameplay so it doesn't become bleak and repetitive. Amongst the waves of enemies you encounter there is some light platforming, puzzles and environmental hazards to deal with also. You take the game on room by room and in most the next is not accessible until you've wiped out the Stormtroopers, AT-MPs, Droids and later weak Sith guards. Because of Starkillers amazing powers these enemies would not be a threat by themselves which is why they mostly attack in large numbers turning a command deck into a slaughter house. Boss fights are different from the first game due to them going from a button bashing fight in one room to a multiple level fight where the fight consists of you climbing up to face the boss after he's run away after you've depleted some of his onion layered life bar. One boss even includes a free falling finale which I thought was one of the best moments in the game. Once you've fought your way through to the ending and you want to hone your Jedi Master skills some more, there is a Challenge Mode filled with 10 small levels that test your endurance and speed and reward you with a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum medal depending on how well you perform.

Gameplay
Starkiller's powers are needless to say over the top and awesome. Lightning attacks, throwing enemies around using the Force and this time wielding 2 Lightsabers that he throw like boomerangs. With a quick refilling Force bar, these powers make taking on the Empire a bit easy not to mention the use of checkpoints for when the vast numbers of enemies get that lucky shot. With every enemy you destroy you gain experience points which you can use to power up your Lightsaber or Force skills. These can be kept even as you play through on the hardest difficulty making it not so hard to beat. Some of the combos you can pull off are pretty slick and cool and you can even use Jedi Mind Tricks to make enemies fight for you or make them commit suicide. The quick time feature returns for the larger enemies only this time they are more easier to pull off with only 1 button to press sometimes rather than 4 or 5.

Free falling I think is one of the coolest features in the game.

Presentation
If I look at The Force Unleashed 2 from a gamers perspective I can see that the game is very short, repetitive and more of a chore than an expanding game. But as a STAR WARS fan the only one of those that bothered me was how incredibly short it is. It was great to get hyped about cameos such as Yoda and Boba Fett appearing in the story but their involvement was very small. This didn't bother me either because when it comes to expanding the canon of such a great saga as SW you can't mess about too much with characters already set in stone. Again there are 2 possible endings to choose from decided by walking the path of the Dark Side or the Light Side of the Force. Both endings are left open for a sequel although one more than the other is more for a new game where as Downloadable Content is already covering the other ending (Which I cannot wait for!). People complained it didn't feel like a SW game but I beg to differ. The use of John Williams classic score with a few new tunes made it feel very authentic because as we all know, SW would not be as good without it's epic score. The dialogue of Darth Vader was played very true to the Dark Lords presence in the movies and I wish that we could play as him like we did in the first installment. The story when I first heard about it I thought was unnecessary about Starkiller being a clone but as the game unfolded there were more questions than answers which is more reason for a sequel to be made.

I will just state that one of the reasons for it being so short is because it's technically an unfinished game. The Creative Director Haden Blackman walked out of the project half way through due to the new president of LucasArts: Paul Meegan letting go of some people and scrapping the idea of a 3rd Force Unleashed game (the guy sounds like a right douche if you ask me). BUT... Haden Blackman has formed his own studio called 'Fearless' with the lead engineer of TFU, Cedrick Collomb. Hopefully we will be able to see a Force Unleashed 3 from them with LucasArts approval.

I LOVED The Force Unleashed 2 and straight away it made it's way into the number 1 spot of my top 10 games of 2010 (I know, biased) and it's up to either Call of Duty: Black Ops or Assassins Creed Brotherhood to knock it off the top spot.

I give it (yup, you guessed it) 10/10. May the Force be with us... always.