I'm not really sure how I should start this blog, so I will just get to the point. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has problems. It is very unfortunate because a lot of the game is an absolute blast, and the game looks great as well, but these problems have hampered my overall impressions of the game. You may have heard of the infamous Star Destroyer portion of the game, and that is by far the biggest frustration in the game. This occurs in the second to the last level of the game, on the planet Raxus Prime. Up until this point in the game (and even after that part), I was having an absolute blast. I never got tired of throwing Stormtroopers around, electrocuting dudes with force lighting, or cutting up fools with my lightsaber. In fact, I'm still not tired of what people call "repititious gameplay" and I'm currently on my second playthrough.

Anyway, on to the Star Destroyer. What you are supposed to do is used your force grip power to pull the Star Destroyer to the ground from planetary orbit. As you are trying to do this, there is wave, after wave, after wave, after wave of TIE Fighters that you have to destroy before you can continue to pull in the Star Destroyer. The longer you take to destroy the TIE Fighters, the more the Star Destroyer will veer off the path you need it to be on. When you pull it in, it has to be coming at you straight on, the front of it has to be aimed at you. While you're dealing with the TIE Fighters it will want to go back to its original position (either to the far left or right). So the idea is to destroy the TIE Fighters as quickly as possible before the Destroyer veers off too far, because if it does you have to waste time readjusting it before you can even pull it in towards you.

Unfortunately the lock on system is so broken that it is very hard to quickly destroy the TIE Fighters and 9 times out of 10 the Star Destroyer will end up in its original position by the time you are done with the fighters. On top of that, the process of moving the Destroyer into position so that you can pull it in is completely broken. There are icons on the screen telling you which directions to push the left and right sticks in so that you get the thing aligned correctly. What usually happens is that you follow the directions up until a certain point where the ship should be in the correct position to pull down, but the game doesn't recognize it. The icons on screen go back to the "neutral" position and you think you can finally pull down the damned thing, but no. By now the next wave of TIE Fighters has started and you have to waste all your work to go fight these things off while the ship drifts off to its original position to the left or right. Luckily it saves your progress if you manage to pull the ship down towards the planet even a little bit and you won't have to redo the whole thing when it was way off in orbit.

I was having a hell of a time with this part of the game, and I was getting extremely frustrated. At first I thought "oh hey, this is that star destroyer part of the game everyone's been talking about" and I didn't see what the big deal was. It took me awhile to figure out what I was supposed to do, but I didn't have any real problems right away. I was able to pull in the destroyer quite aways before the anger and frustration set in. It seemed like every fucking time I tried to move that star destroyer into the "straight on" position, the game wouldn't recognize it and give me the "ok time to reel it in" animation like it had been at first. I would get to the point where the ship should be, and then nothing would happen. I'd sit there fiddling with the damned sticks and not a single God damned thing would happen. Then the fucking TIE Fighters would roll in and I'd have to let go and deal with those little bastards. Meanwhile the ship just veers off so I can redo the whole damned thing again and again and again. I was redoing it over and over for maybe 30 minutes and I had reached my limit. I said to myself "fuck this bullshit" and I threw the 360 controller on the ground. I didn't just drop it, I threw the damned thing.

I picked up the controller and noticed the grey covering at the bottom had come off on the left side. I tried the controller to see if it still worked, and yes it did, no problems there. Then I tried snapping the grey piece back in place, but it wouldn't go. I tried again and I ended up using too much force and the grey part snapped in half. I was able to snap the broken piece back into place and I continued playing the game. As far as I know, everything on the controller still works. I'm not quite sure about the rumble (turned that off halfway through the star destroyer "boss") and I'm not positive the connector for the headset still works as I haven't tried that. The buttons work fine though, that's for sure.

I eventually got the star destroyer to the ground and finished the level, but not without one semi-broken 360 controller. I found the best way to move the destroyer is to move it until the light on the screen changes from red to green, then just let go of the sticks and the "time to reel it in" animation should start. You'll have to move it farther than you think it should be, so it will be facing up more than right at you. But just watch for the light to change green and it should work fine.

Besides the star destroyer, and some issues with the targeting system, I really do like the game. I absolutely love throwing stormtroopers around, electrocuting dudes with force lightning and cutting up fools with my lightsaber. I haven't had this much fun with a Star Wars game since the original Knights of the Old Republic (not the sequel). The story is fantastic as well, I just wish it was longer.

If you need a reason to purchase this game, you may have just received it. Today it was announced that there will be Downloadable Content in the form of a new level, and 4 new player skins to choose from. The new level is the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and the characters are Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Kit Fisto, and Ki-Adi-Mundi. The new level ties in directly to the story where you get to learn some more details about the past of the main character. Personally I can't wait for this DLC to be released. I really, really like Luke Skywalker and I feel like he has mostly been ignored in recent years and all the attention has been on Anakin, who quite frankly, I'm f-ing sick of.