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.