The Force Unleashed

For those of you who don’t know, I am a Star Wars fan and quite a gamer (those who know me will know that I can get quite hardcore at times). So when The Force Unleashed was released 3 days ago, I finally grabbed a copy after months of waiting. Non-gamers, this post may bore you so feel free to pass Go and Collect $200. Uh... forget about that last part.

The Force Unleashed is a 3rd-person Action game which takes place in between the events of Episode III and IV. You play as Starkiller, Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, and are tasked to mop up the Jedi leftovers of Order 66. For those of you who don’t understand a thing I just said, here is the layman-nutshell version: In Star Wars: Episode III, a bad guy called the Emperor has plans to rule the galaxy. In order to do this, he must first remove the Jedi, a group of peace-keeping good guys. He achieves this by passing a decree called Order 66 which involves a Jedi holocaust. Another bad guy called Darth Vader dispatches his secret apprentice, Starkiller, to seek out and kill the remaining Jedi who managed to escape Order 66. With the Jedi out of the way, the Emperor establishes the Galactic Empire, an evil totalitarian faction, and eventually rules most of the galaxy with an iron fist. These turn of events give rise to another faction – the Rebel Alliance (i.e. the good guys) – who oppose the Galactic Empire and aim to bring an end to the tyranny, which brings us to Star Wars: Episode IV, where war between the two factions is already taking place. The game’s story is pretty straightforward for the beginning, but takes a twist towards the end and ultimately, it serves as a fitting filler between the two episodes.

What is thy bidding, my Master?

As the name implies, The Force Unleashed allows you to harness and unleash the power of the Force, except that it’s magnified 10 times, on Steroids, Stimulants and Red Bull. When they said ‘unleashed’, they weren’t joking. If you’ve watched the Star Wars movies, you may have seen Obi-Wan or any of the other Jedi using the Force to lift and push objects or foes away. In The Force Unleashed, you don’t just push things away – you push them as if they were hit by a giant invisible punching glove going at hypersonic speed. An ability called Force Push in the game allows you to pick up any objects lying around (e.g. rocks, giant boulders, steel frames, wall panels or even trees) and use them as ammo to throw at your foes. A giant boulder flying at you is not very nice. No ammo? No problem. Force Push also allows you to pick up enemy soldiers (e.g. Stormtroopers) and fling them towards their squad mates. Talk about teamwork.

Need a push?

One thing worth mentioning is the game's physics engine, which allows objects being thrown to  really fly like rigid bodies and act accordingly to the surroundings (objects fall to the ground after hitting a wall, or roll down slopes). Like objects, enemies also exhibit similar behaviour to the surroundings, especially when they are being flung across a room like ragdolls. To illustrate this, let me introduce you to another ability called Maelstrom. When activated, any nearby foes and/or objects will start to levitate and float around Starkiller, who gathers power before emitting an invisible shockwave explosion which causes everyone and everything to be forcefully flung outwards at breakneck speed. Ouch.

Maelstrom - the calm before the storm

Besides Force Push and Maelstrom, there are other abilities which range from nifty-looking Lightsaber combos to sizzling Force Lightning attacks. With the large variety of abilities, raw power on hand, plus the fun and de-stressing factor (one of my favourite antics involves using Force Push to fling enemies off Cloud City, a floating city in the clouds), I’ve been really enjoying myself. There are certain points in the game where I just went, "Wow." after seeing moves which I didn't think possible. It's also funny to be flaunting your Force powers here and there while a hapless Stormtrooper standing nearby says in a resigned (Singlish: sian) voice, "How the hell are we supposed to defend against that?". Other than that, there are some certain issues and gripes in the game which I thought could have been done better, but hey, nothing’s perfect right?