Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Wii)

...being a bit of a Star Wars fan I thought the idea of swinging your Wii remote about like a light sabre and throwing people about with the force was too good to resist.

'''The Game Story'''

When this film starts off if you're a Star Wars fan it's sheer bliss. At first you get the usual crawl of text summing up what's going on in the galaxy. You then step off a ship as Darth Vader! Your imperial troops are having problems. ...
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If you're a Star Wars fan you'll love it. No Hayden Christensen, no stupid Gungans or Ewoks. Just all the stuff you love. You come upon many various Jedi and dark Jedi, all with different techniques and different light sabre variants. Each mission is usually on a different and often familiar planet or star ship. At times you're fighting the rebels, at others you're fighting the imperial storm troopers; in amongst droids and miscellaneous ... more

Currently I only have a Wii, I'm not a big video-game playing person but being a bit of a Star Wars fan I thought the idea of swinging your Wii remote about like a light sabre and throwing people about with the force was too good to resist.

The Game Story

When this film starts off if you're a Star Wars fan it's sheer bliss. At first you get the usual crawl of text summing up what's going on in the galaxy. You then step off a ship as Darth Vader! Your imperial troops are having problems. "Leave it to me" says Vader as he's about to embark on some ass-kicking. The best way to enjoy this mission is to just walk very slowly around as if nothing is really bothering you and casually slice and knock the wookies about. Being the first level it doubles up as a tutorial of sorts and you're constantly getting messages on your screen of how to execute certain force tricks. Eventually you come upon a rogue Jedi and after duelling him you kill him and steal his infant son. Then the story starts proper a few years later on. The boy has grown up and Vader has taken him on as a secret apprentice and sends him on various missions to hunt out and kill different rebel Jedis and their armies and to on other missions to undermine the Emperor's control of the Empire so that Vader can rule with you at his side. This story starts to twist and turn and I don't want to give anything away as I thought it was absolutely fantastic and it's not really until the end that true intentions are revealed. The game's story is set in the years between the 3rd and 4th films and is intended to bring the two trilogies together and George Lucas had a hand in the story. If I wasn't so terrified that they'd make a mess of it and get Hayden Christensen in again along with Natalie Portman blathering on and on I'd say I think this could make a good film to some extent but it's just not worth the risk.

If you're a Star Wars fan you'll love it. No Hayden Christensen, no stupid Gungans or Ewoks. Just all the stuff you love. You come upon many various Jedi and dark Jedi, all with different techniques and different light sabre variants. Each mission is usually on a different and often familiar planet or star ship. At times you're fighting the rebels, at others you're fighting the imperial storm troopers; in amongst droids and miscellaneous criminals and alien species. Lots of stuff is inspired by the films but there's a few original planets and species as well. One planet was a bit of joke though. It was all flowery with big plants and the Jedis on it look like faeries. The main enemies here were plant people and it was just a bit stupid looking.

The Game Play

Using the Wii controller you could swish it about to use your light sabre and also pick people up into the air and then wave your controller about to knock them against things. There were quite a few things you could do.

During the game when you killed enemies you would gain experience points from the orbs of light they left behind. These experience points you could cash in to learn various combos and to increase the effects of these combos. Upon completing certain levels certain new combos would be unlocked. Using the force in this game was brilliant. You could pick your enemies up and throw them against walls or as I preferred to do throw them at other enemies. You could walk into a massive group and then use maelstrom which unleashed a massive surge of force energy all round you. You could lift your enemies and choke them Vader style or alternatively lift them into the air and then impale them on your sword or just throw them at things. All these moves were relatively easy to learn. I've played games like Tekken and Soul Calibre where you have lots of available moves and all you have to do is remember the right button sequence. I usually just ended mashing the buttons blindly hoping something good would happen but here the controls were surprisingly easy to remember. Perhaps it was because they gradually became available so generally after you'd come to grips with one then another would be have to be learned and so it all came one at a time. I definitely made sure to learn every move. It's one of the funniest games to play thanks to these moves and the fact that with the Wii you're actually contributing to them by moving the controllers made it so much better.

When fighting the bosses and various bigger enemies in the game the opportunity to do various counter-attacks and killing moves would come up. To do these you would have to do the motion prompted on the screen. This would usually involve shaking the left controller and then the right and so on. What you were doing would look really good on the screen but it was really easy. Also there wasn't a lot of variation in it. For instance there was one killing move against an AT-ST and no matter what AT-ST you fought the exact same thing would happen.

In between the different missions you had an opportunity to have a look at all the stuff you've unlocked. In the game there are 200 of these cube things hidden and for everyone you find a new picture us unlocked which you can look at. Not a very interesting feature I thought. You could upgrade your force skills. You could change costume; costumes are unlocked as you complete parts of the game. Lastly, you can customise your light sabre also using items you find whilst playing the game.

The Wii's graphics aren't as good as that of the PS3's but I have to say I've tried the PS3 version and although it's got better graphics I prefer to use the Wii controls. They are very different games but it's a lot more fun when you actually feel like you're doing some of the ass-kicking you're seeing.

The Wii controller also makes all the cool light-sabre noises and bullet deflecting noises in your hand. You can buy light sabre attachments for the wii controller that glow and stuff but it seems like a pointless expense to me.

The games is very similar, I found, to the Lord of the Ring games that came out for the PS2 after each film. With the sword wielding and the gaining experience points to buy new combos in between levels. If you liked those games I imagine you'd enjoy this.

Disadvantages

There are some slight disadvantages however. Each level was very arcade like in that you would go about following a very linear map beating up minor bad guys until at the end you came up against that level's boss (usually a Jedi). It was still fun despite this because you were learning new moves all along and each level you had new stuff to try out but if it weren't for this and say you knew all the moves from the beginning I think it would become quite repetitive and a bit boring. Now I've unlocked all the moves I couldn't really imagine myself going through all the missions again because there's not really much point. It's also very easy. I bought this a week ago and wanted to enjoy on my two weeks break after my exams but after about say 6 hours game play (and I like to ass about a lot in the game) I've completed it. Then after that you have the opportunity to play it all over again but with all your new moves etc unlocked. This sounds good but the thing is once you've completed and you go to play it again you can't just pick any level to play again you have to actually start from the beginning and trog your way through mission by mission. This is made worse by the fact that you can't skip the short videos in the game and have to watch them all over again.

Multiplayer

I only have the one controller so I haven't tried this yet but I'm getting another controller soon so I shall add to this. Throughout the game you're always unlocking new characters to play with in multiplayer.

Overall

Despite its flaws it is a really brilliant game. I was addicted. It's exactly what you want from a Star Wars game. Lots of force powers and lots of enemies to try them out on and a good story that relates to the films. For the enjoyment you get out of playing single player that first time I give it 4 stars. I was happy enough and imagine a lot of people would enjoy it. 

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