As Unleashed As They Wanna Be

This probably says something about the quality of my character and perhaps even my upbringing, but whenever I hear someone say “Luke Skywalker,” I instead think of “Luke Skyywalker,” also known as Luther Campbell, the Miami mastermind behind the 2 Live Crew. Eventually, George Lucas would step in and say “hey, no.” So he eventually just became known as Luke, or, on occasion, Uncle Luke.

Hang on, what were we talking about? Oh, right, Force Unleashed for the Wii. I got a chance to play it at a Nintendo event last week, though only the game’s multiplayer fighting mode was being shown. Two players can duke it out while running freely around the arena, popping off Force powers while occasionally getting up close for some swinging of the light saber, which is done by moving the Wii Remote. Aside from unleashing your crazy lightning hands, you can lift up various objects WITH YOUR MIND and telekinetically fling them in your opponent’s direction and engage in other Force-related activities.

But that stuff, that’s all totally leashed. When you fill up your power gauge, you can, just like it says on the sign out front, totally unleash the force. This raises the potency of each of your attacks.

The game’s single-player story takes place in the gap between Episode III and Star Wars, giving it a bit of flavor from the trilogy that matters, hopefully without getting too bogged down by the trilogy that doesn’t. To that end, one of the characters is named Young Luke Skyywalker… er… Skywalker. But seriously, if a young Luther Campbell was in this game, it would be the greatest game ever produced. Uncle Luke’s got a force choke like you’ve never seen, trust me.

They could put Fresh Kid Ice in there, but his arm would have to be in a sling. Man, then they could put the Pac Jam Teen Disco in there as a playable level, too. Look, don’t mind me, just look for The Force Unleashed to release this summer, OK?