Secondary Fire Podcast - October 1st 2008

Back from a month-long hiatus, Jon and Amrit catch up on times gone by. In this podcast, EB Games Misdimeanor planning, Force Unleashed Mouth Dickery, Miley Cyrus Throwbacks, Family Gaming, Dead Space, Baja, Creepy Chinese Shops in Markham’s Pacific Mall, inconsiderate video watching while you listen, and some of the most offensive comments you’ll hear on air … but we don’t mean it, we swear!

In the spirit of the show, we’ve decided to rename our show the Oddcast, so here it is, The Secondary Fire Oddcast - Episode 1, October 1st 2008. Enjoy!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed First Impressions

With Amrit off on his Caribbean escapades these next weeks, I realized we won’t be getting the chance to podcast for some time. I wanted to save my reactions of the demo for Amrit and the podcast so I could really rant and rave and have my ideas challenged… but it doesn’t seem that I’ll have that opportunity.

I played through the demo several times, the first couple of times just to get a feel for the controls. Then when I was comfortable, I tried to get fancy. I discovered a few combos on my own, and made more than a few attempts to string together my force throws and grips and electrocutions. On the 360, the target-lock button is assigned to the Right Bumper, which is right above Force Throw, the Right Trigger, making locking onto an item and then throwing it with the Force is incredibly awkward.

I was impressed, however, by the aesthetic design of the TIE Fighter Facility, the demo’s only level. Combat areas were large, open rooms with plenty of stuff to throw around and manipulate, even parts of the actual structure, like support beams. I did find though, that because the areas were so vast, they were somewhat boring. I’m hoping that the other levels will be variant from what the demo’s shown so far.

Another small gripe I had was the demo’s mini-boss, which was an AT-ST Walker which could be force pushed to stumble, electrocuted to stun … and … that’s about it. To defeat the Walker, I had to bring it health down to under a quarter, then initiate a quick-time button sequence to destroy the walker, which rewarded me with a canned animation. While I feel the quick-time button sequence is an archaic form of input, I might be able to forgive it if I’ll be able to choose some of those buttons in the final game. What I mean is: I hope that it’s a matter of timing, and I’ll have the option of which attack to use to finish off the mini-bosses. I can already foresee the Rancor and other larger enemies using this input method; and I don’t like it.

What I did like about the demo was what everyone expected to like: You’re a badass Sith Apprentice with destruction powers, and nothing is sacred. Force pushing Stormtroopers, gripping TIE fighters and throwing them into a group of rebels, I felt so powerful, and the game really does give you a sense of omnipotence, brief as it may be.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Info

So I have, in my virtual hand, the Force Unleashed fact sheet. I’ll post the facts in bold, and my inferences in plain text.

The game takes place between Episode III and IV.
The apprentice, codenamed Starkiller, seems to be a ‘foster-son’ to Darth Vader. We know he doesn’t work out, or at the very least, we know he doesn’t remain in the big picture, given that there are no allusions to any dark apprentice, Starkiller, or Jacob Nion (I believe that’s his real name), in the original movie series.

There are four core force powers: Push, Grip, Repulse, and Lightning.
Unlike the Jedi Knight series of games, there will a limited number of force powers at your disposal. However, These should be off the scale compared to any other Star Wars game. The underlying theme of this game seems to be destruction, so I would imagine being able to pick up a TIE Fighter and throwing through a wall. Or being able to chain lighting several fuel tanks. Or combining these powers, force gripping a person, electrocuting him and then throwing him into a fuel tank.

Locations include the Wookie homeplanet of Kashyyyk, Felucia (a floral planet, I’m sure we’ve seen it in trailers and screens), a junk planet called Raxas Prime, and a TIE Fighter construction facility.
I think the point here is that the dark apprentice goes from planet to planet hunting down Jedi. However, these locations seem to be created specifically for the game, so as not to disturb the actual lore built up in books, comics, and cartoons.

Decisions made by players will alter the path of the game’s story, and multiple endings will “Rock the Star Wars continuity as they know it.”
Sounds like media hype to me.

I know this fact sheet was released quite a while ago - actually, the sheet has the game slated for a Spring 2008 release, so I’m sure they’re a bit late on this one. Anyway, no sign of any stances, I think it’s a different dev team altogether. From the looks of it, this stuff is going to be very force heavy anyway, so the focus lies there. I’ve scoured the intarweb for a force powers demo, and managed to find one courtesy of IGN.com. My favourite part is at 0:48. I get the feeling I’ll be doing that. A lot.