Star Wars, Abortions Unleashed

In theory, the thought of weilding the force is is every nerds wet dream. In practice however, the force unleashed (demo) is a mix of boredem and compromise. The biggest disappointment has to be the compromises that took place in the game’s big selling feature, the technology. The combination of Havok, Euphoria and DMM that earned the game some buzz last year just doesn’t add anything to the gameplay. Yeah, it’s pretty sad when a game’s selling point is tech but Star Wars the Force Unleashed gets worse.

if only it were 10% that cool

Of course, it’s been close to a decade since a Star Wars game had really compelling gameplay (the Jedi Knight games being a possible exception). Force Unleashed’s gameplay is a combination of poorly immitated God of War combat, force powers lifted from the JK games and god awful quick time events. That in itself isn’t a problem because I will excuse a game for not having awe inspiring gameplay when it offers me god-like superpowers. No, it’s the fact that not a single feature has been giving any attention to detail that disappoints above all. Everything about it feels last minute and underdeveloped. The Force Unleashed might make an action packed movie, (the story sucks too) but as a game it fails to engage on even the most basic level. I suggest anyone looking for a good Star Wars game play Rebel Assault 2.

Reminder to self: remove all instances of (demo) next week.

Updated: The Force Unleashed is so bad I can’t continue. Even if I wanted to keep playing it there are two things preventing me: the refresh rate/frame rate is so broken it makes my eyes vomit and the audio levels peak so often that my receiver might be dead. Man I feel awful for the talent that spent years bringing someone’s over ambitious abortion to life only to get canned. Hey LucasArts staff, was there a guy in your meetings who made dissenting remarks like “we don’t have space for 200 more staff.. ..wait a minute!” or “2010 has a nice ring to it” or “can we really get this done in time?”. Remember that guy? He was a good guy, wasn’t he. The Force Unleashed’s painfully ugly achievement icons now serve as a permanent reminder (jerks scarred my gamertag) that LucasArts is going right back to Game Jail. Though I can’t erase the embarrassing proof that I actually played it, I certainly won’t spend another minute with Star Wars the Force Unleashed.

Remember a good star wars game? [youtube]