Full Game Review
Genres: Science Fiction, Adventure, Action
Plot Summary
The Force Unleashed features a young man by the name of Galen Marek (codenamed "Starkiller"), the secret Sith apprentice of Darth Vader. Marek is dispatched by Vader to eliminate several Jedi who survived Order 66. With the help of his new pilot, Juno Eclipse, and his personal droid, Proxy, they venture across the galaxy to do Darth Vader's bidding.
Original Opinion
While watching someone play the demo for the second game, I decided to see if the first one was available for a system that I had. Seeing it for sale during one of GameStops promotion sales, I decided to buy it along with a verity of other games. I knew a little of what to expect already, but I wasn't sure how entertaining the game would be. I put it in and hoped for the best.
Graphics
I would have to say that the scenery is really well done. The details in some of the areas are just amazing, and the characters are not too bad. For the PS2, the graphics are top notch, but I'll admit that the game looked lacking compared to the sequel. Which is understandable. The special effects are really cool and make fighting quite entertaining. I enjoyed the fact that they made the characters that are from the movies actually look like the actors in the movies.
Sound & Music
There's not a lot of music. They tend to use the same five songs throughout the entire game. It's the same music from the movies, so it got dull pretty fast. The sound effects and voices were great. The only thing I didn't like was that they would randomly have Darth Vader's breathing, even when he wasn't around.
Storyline
I'm not an expert on Star Wars, but from my limited knowledge the plot doesn't conflict with any of the movies. It shines light on how the Rebel Alliance began, which is real nice. It also makes sense that Darth Vader would have an apprentice that no one would know about. Who else would help him rule the galaxy after he killed the Emperor?
Battle System
It's your basic adventure game. You run around slashing people up. Pressing buttons to do different moves. There's quite a few things that you can do with the force, and at first it's kinda confusing. There's only so many buttons and they seem to pick the same three to do everything. Once you get the hang of it, it's not that bad. Button mashing also works. Eventually you do something really cool and get yourself out of a sticky situation. Only time button mashing doesn't work is during boss fights. You actually have quite a few moments when you have to press the button that appears on the screen.
Costumes
A lot of the costumes you unlock throughout the game are quite lame. However, they have a cheat code section where you can input different codes to unlock different costumes. Once I beat the game, I had a lot of fun with this section. The outfits range from every main character in the game to bonus characters such as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Darth Maul, and even basic Storm Trooper outfits. My personal favorite is walking around as Darth Vader.
Final Opinion
The game isn't very long. Only took a day to beat. I'm guessing it's a total of 10 hours, if you include the time it took to run around looking for bonus items. Still, it's a very entertaining game with an interesting storyline. I enjoyed it and look forward to playing the sequel when I get a chance. I recommend this game to anyone who is a Star Wars fan and/or anyone who loves adventure type games.