Mashing X: The Game
I found myself repeatedly mashing the ‘X’ button, mindlessly slashing my way through countless waves of Stormtroopers. The action would be abruptly interrupted by an incoming cinematic, a signal of poor design. A game of hallways and pointless collectibles always awaited me every time I booted up the 2008 software, reminding me of an archaic design that may not be too appealing in the world eight years later. Freaky faces always took precedence over a respectable art style that would have stood the test of time today, but then I would always see a silver lining. Moments where the game shined way more than one would expect from the impression you get after briefly seeing this galaxy far, far away in action.
The Force Unleashed was initially conceptualized before the release of Revenge of the Sith. For at least a year, there was nothing particularly concrete about LucasArts’ next AAA Star Wars game, as the beginning work was generally just constantly working artwork. Surfacing from that concept art was a particular image depicting the power of the Force, a major plot device within the world of Star Wars. This is where the entire basis of the game would derive from, physics-based mechanics utilizing the Force. This technology was by far the greatest hurdle Lucasarts’ development team had to deal with, especially considering it was releasing many different versions for literally every platform from the era (even the N-Gage). The primary editions for the Xbox 360 and PS3 would be released in September of 2008, with the PC version coming more than a full year later in 2009.
A long time ago in a...you know the rest, this is the world of Star Wars after all. In between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, lies the golden years of the Empire’s reign. Darth Vader is the Emperor’s apprentice, and just everybody in the universe hates the current state of affairs. The Jedi are running extinct, and there’s little hope left for any outliers. You will visit various locations of the Star Wars universe, whether it be as prolific as the Death Star or as underwhelming as a planet that literally got a ten second scene in Revenge of the Sith. These locations are admittedly a bit random, and I’m still amazed they managed to avoid shoehorning a Hoth level in there (save that for the DLC), but the world itself actually isn’t a highlight of The Force Unleashed; it’s the story.
Meet Starkiller, Vader’s secret apprentice with whom he encountered as a child after killing his Jedi father before his eyes back on the planet of Kashyyyk. Starkiller is trained in the dark side of the Force by Vader, and once he’s done growing up, he’s instructed to eliminate the remaining Jedi. Vader hopes to eventually use him in hopes to overthrow the Emperor, but once Starkiller starts to proceed with these commands, he gains a conscience towards his actions. Now questioning his previous allegiance for the dark side, he sets out to make things right with the only people he knows he can trust. You’ll find no twists and turns or significant revelation within the plot outline of The Force Unleashed, but it’s probably the most memorable part of its entire experience. It’s a tale of redemption and overcoming the odds against you. but what makes it work so well are its likable characters and competent pacing. One wouldn’t even be too off to make a claim saying the story’s better than any that came out of the prequels (or even The Force Awakens now, because even though it was good, its story is a complete copy). The Force Unleashed was great about filling in the gaps between the films’ chronology, even if it’s ultimately a redundant one in the grand scope of things.
Do you like God of War? The Force Unleashed is that kind of game, a 3-D hack-and-slash title (though many people like to call the genre “Character Action,” which I’ve never particularly liked myself). You’re looking at completely linear hallways for each level, brutally annoying quick-time events, and a “mash this button to win” mentality. However, leaving it at that would be admittedly underselling the package. In addition to launching forward with your lightsaber in hand, The Force Unleashed has an entire physics-based Force mechanic. While this is definitely the most fun you’ll have actually playing the game, it’s not necessarily more effective than simply slashing. You can fuse several different moves within this system to gain combos, but again, simply mashing ‘X’ is usually just as useful. It’s cool that they added all these different strategies to play, but it doesn’t significantly alter the gameplay enough to truly matter.
What The Force Unleashed suffers from the most is inconsistency. Sometimes you can breeze through level encounters without getting hit, while others you have to literally pull a Star Destroyer out of the sky. These specific moments revealed absolute frustration for me, as the difficulty spikes were always unpredictable. What makes this so strange is that these spikes were never during boss encounters, but rather just normal scripted enemy waves. The boss fights themselves were underwhelming, usually limiting itself to damaging it until a certain health percentage, always followed by an obnoxious quick-time event. If The Force Unleashed could have balanced its gameplay sections better, than maybe the overall game could have been a better one.
Along with the main game, there are three main DLC levels. These are the Jedi Temple, Hoth, and Tatooine respectively. Are they worth buying? On PS3 and 360, no. On PC, the Steam version comes with it as a part of the Ultimate Sith Edition, so why not? The levels are extremely short, and overall just “okay.” While the Jedi Temple is a slight expansion to Starkiller’s overall narrative, Hoth and Tatooine follow a “what-if” formula. I can’t say that the story portions themselves were engaging, but I will say this: you fight a ghost Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker turns to the darkside.
Nearly seven years have passed since The Force Unleashed saw its initial release on the PC, and even though my current PC is obviously overpowered for this aging title, this port is by all means atrocious. It’s filled with glitches, sometimes audio would completely cut out, and the interface is laughably bad. I understand that these are not as prevalent issues on the console editions, but this goes without saying that the PC’s technical mess is just the result being a horribly optimized product.
Has The Force Unleashed aged well as a whole from a technical perspective? Well, that answer’s more complicated than I assumed it would be. On the one hand, the art direction isn’t stylized enough to hold itself up, and the graphics just don’t look that great in 2016. On the other hand, the John Williams-inspired soundtrack is awesome and the voice-acting is still impressive. Graphics can be forgiven considering it’s an old game, so aside from the unfortunate amount of glitches and poorly designs aspects of the PC version (though I still can’t fully say the console versions are flawless), the game is surprising fairly competent in its technical quality.
I admittedly had to force myself through the beginning portions of The Force Unleashed, but I ended up enjoying it way more than I expected, even if it’s still a heavily flawed game. At the end of the day, it was the story that I was left thinking about the most. Its characters were decent and the plot didn’t try to tackle anything too ambitious for its own good. I only wish that the difficulty spikes were ironed out and the technical issues were improved, because the underlying game here is genuinely competent. The Force Unleashed could be described as a “turn your brain off” kind of game, a title that never tries anything too hard to grasp and knows exactly what its audience desires. Maybe The Force Unleashed II fixed a lot of the problems I had, but I’m still surprised this game has as much merit as it gave me.
