The Force is Strong With This One… Everything Else is on the Fritz.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Star Wars. Admit it, if you clear your mind and say those two words, delusions of grandeur fill your mind. Then you quickly remember Jar Jar and start looking forward to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movie. Have faith though! The fine folks at Lucas Arts have unleashed the Force in the form of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Force Unleashed takes place between Episodes III and IV of the Star Wars saga. You play as Darth Vader's secret apprentice, a Sith that goes by the alias "Starkiller." As Starkiller, you jet about the galaxy with your femme fatale pilot, Juno Eclipse and your holodroid Proxy. Without spoiling too much of the story, suffice it to say that your primary objective is to wipe out the remaining Jedi while secretly helping Darth Vader pull off a military coup d’état behind the Emperor's back.

This brings me to my first point. The story in the Force Unleashed is the best thing to happen to Star Wars in a very long time. Compared to the new trilogy, the Force Unleashed (and SpongeBob) is a Shakespearian masterpiece. That being said, I was delighted to enjoy a Star Wars story this much.

Let’s jump into gameplay. Armed with your lightsaber, the Force, and a pocketful of wit, you trek across the galaxy doing thy master’s bidding… and it feels pretty good. Saber combos are aplenty and there is a lot you can do with the force (push, pull, throw, shoot lightning, etc). Some things in the game work better than others though, so let’s break them down.

Starting with the lightsaber, there are a decent number of combos to be unlocked throughout the game and most of them are fun to pull off. Combos can further be infused with Force techniques such as ending with a Force Push, or enveloping your saber with Force Lightning. It’s no God of War, but it’s solid nonetheless. Speaking of God of War, quick time events are a nerd’s dream in TFU. Once any boss like characters health is near empty, a button sequence will pop up on screen. Pressing them correctly results in super stylish kills with all kinds of Matrix style action sequences. Nice. Plus things get more interesting when you further explore the Force.

From a marketing standpoint, the use of the Force in TFU seemed to be the key selling point, and rightfully so. Your left analog stick moves objects and enemies left to right, front and back; the right stick moves things up and down. This gives you a full X,Y, and Z axis through which to move things and it is swanky. Using both sticks at once allows you to throw a Jawa to the right and into the air (or any desired direction) at the same time. What could be more fun? (I know it would be more entertaining to throw Ewoks, but sadly their presence in the game is naught.)

Another important point regarding the Force is the in game physics engine. TFU uses the critically acclaimed Euphoria Game Engine from Grand Theft Auto IV for extremely realistic (Star Wars) physics. For example, if you pick up a Stormtrooper with the Force and he is near a crate, he will grab onto the crate and try to pull himself back to the ground. While you can still manipulate the Stormtrooper and the crate together, it changes up the dynamic. The weight ratio is shifted and will handle differently than either object by itself. It’s an impressive system and well implemented into the game.

Force techniques and lightsaber combos are further developed through the use of an RPG style level up system. You earn experience for killing enemies and will earn greater amounts by killing them stylishly ala Devil May Cry. The system works well and does a good job of rewarding you regularly for hard work. At the same time, to adjust your levels and acquire new skills, you have to access an upgrade menu via the select button. This is my biggest problem with the game. Accessing the upgrade menu and any submenu therein requires you to sit through a load screen. This may not seem like much, but it can quickly lead to four separate load screens between accessing the menu, changing sabers, upgrading Force skills, and exiting the menu. It may sound like a trite complaint, but it’s annoying to deal with and really takes you out of the action.

One more quick complaint involves environmental issues. I’ll stay away from global warming at the moment and focus on programming bugs. Some boundaries in the environment are not clearly defined and are easy to get stuck in. Several times I found myself trapped between the wall and any number of random objects. At other points, objects in the environment seemed to have no definition. Some platforms I had to jump on to obtain Jedi holocrons (cubes that unlock new abilities) would leave me bewildered as I would pass right through them. It felt like I had to jump on the right square inch of certain platforms not to slide off or otherwise fall right through it. Likewise, once after killing a Rancor, my character was left stuck in mid-air. These events may be rare, but getting stuck in place often means restarting the game.

Moving on to the issue of time, The Force Unleashed is a fairly short game. Not that that’s a bad thing. It took me a smidge over ten hours to complete it the first time at a little over an hour a day. In that sense, it’s a great game for someone who has to study a lot, or kids to entertain, etc. You can play it for a short while everyday and still make progress. At the same time, I died a lot. Sometimes due to a lack of skill and other times due to the level design. Starkiller falls faster than Mega Man, so an hour of play may lead up to twenty minutes of trying to jump a pit. Also, the later game bosses offer a decent level of difficulty and it will take you a couple of times to figure out what attacks work against each one. This is an enjoyable challenge and will leave you feeling like a pimp, so go on brush your shoulders off.

The Game: 7/10

The game is almost a polar opposite of the new film trilogy. Episode I-III looked amazing, but the stories were weak. The Force Unleashed has a great, almost refreshing story, looks amazing, but suffers from a few technical issues.

I feel that if the game had been delayed to a Christmas release, Lucas Arts could have produced a much more polished product. Taking that with a grain of salt, TFU still stimulates a lot of childhood/fanboy nerves. The use of the force is better than any Star Wars game out there, and the combat is intense and challenging. The game is fun and worth a play through.

The Time: 8/10

At the end of my ten hour run, I felt like I was done with the story. Its length almost guarantees the game to be on my ‘to rent only’ list for a while. In my first time through, I managed to unlock a majority of the combos, force techniques, and lightsaber colors/attributes. The nerd in me wants to one hundred percent the game, but the one life gamer in me just wants to move on to different waters. It is a fun and enjoyable game I just don’t know how often I would like to revisit it.

The Verdict:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a good game. It’s fun for what it is, and it’s the best story Star Wars has seen on a screen since Empire. That’s enough reason to play it alone. However, feeling complete with it after a ten hour play through, really keeps me from wanting to purchase it. If you own every Star Wars movie / game, sure go out and buy it. You’ll have a great time. For anyone else, go rent it. It doesn’t take to a huge investment to beat, and you’ll get a tiny bit of your soul back from that scruffy nerf herder Lucas.

Coming Soon!

First off, thanks to everyone who has visited and critiqued the site. I'm working slowly but surely to make it flow. As of right now, the only reviews I have up are for games on the PS3 and PSP systems, but that is about to change. In the coming weeks, you will see reviews and news for Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, PC, Cell Phones, and Web Based games. It's been a long time coming, but please continue to check in regularly. Also, if you or someone you know would like to submit reviews or news articles, please e-mail me at theadamballard@gmail.com.



There's a lot of games to review and news to cover, but here's to things to come!

Adam

For Those Who Wish Cloud had Sexy Black Hair

Crisis Core:
Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy. With every iteration, they become final-er, and much more fantastical. For those who may not be familiar with the franchise, let me break it down: save the world, look sexy, fight monsters, level up, laugh, cry, cross dress (looking at you Cloud), and push systems to their brink.

To summarize, they’re everything you want from an epic adventure novel polished into a video game. Final Fantasy games have appeared in several flavors across the board from console, to pc, to handheld, to card game. FF’s done it all and always maintained a top notch production value, and Crisis Core has style to spare.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is the story of Zack Fair, an elite member of the military group SOLDIER. The events that transpire in the game provide a clearer picture of events before the blockbuster game, Final Fantasy VII. The story covers everything from Zack’s ascension in the ranks of SOLDIER, Sephiroth’s downward spiral into madness, and Cloud’s inspiration to fight.

Long time VII fans will no doubt rejoice at hearing Sephiroth’s leitmotif “One Winged Angel” again, while newcomers can experience the story from a more canonically linear take. But where does Crisis Core fit into the busy lives of busy gamers?

Make no mistake, while Crisis Core falls into the handheld category, it offers up a console sized experience. Apart from the main story, there are three hundred side missions to keep you busy and the missions are what give the game legs. In a nutshell, the missions are short. While main story events can take upwards of an hour to complete, the missions accessed at save points can typically be completed anywhere from five to fifteen minutes. And with hundreds of missions to choose from, that’s pretty swanky.

The game also boasts some heavy customization. Equipment will help you boost stats, counter ailments, and learn new abilities. And what iteration of VII could be complete without its trademark materia? Equipping materia allows you to learn new spells, increase your stats, and acquire new moves. But that’s not all! In Crisis Core you also have the option of Materia Fusion, which allows you to fuse two materia together to create new or more powerful materia. Throw in fusion items for better results and you’ll jump from having 9,999 HP to 99,999 in no time! And how do you get the awesome equipment and materia? By playing the hundreds of short and sweet missions!

Sorry to sound like a car commercial, but if you’re into RPGs at all, it’s addictive. For Final Fantasy fans it’s almost mandatory to get the best equipment and max out your stats, and to do that in Crisis Core, it’ll cost you around a hundred hours. So how does a game this demanding amount of time stack up to one life standards?

Quite well.

The Game: 8.5 / 10 (Fantastic)
Easily the most beautiful game on PSP, Square-Enix pulls no punches in the graphics department. The controls are simple, but refined. The missions can be somewhat repetitive though. Oh yeah, and the story is Square-Enix caliber: incredibly epic and unnervingly sweet.

The Time: 9 / 10 (Top Notch)
But you said 100 hours?! That’s 100 hours of story and hundreds of side quests. While the game is every bit a Final Fantasy, the fact that you can pick up your PSP at any moment and bust out a five minute quest (and be rewarded for it) makes it a dream for the busy gamer on the go.

The Verdict:
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is everything a rushed gamer wants. If you want to sit down for hours, you’re good to go; if you only have five minutes to stifle your gamer jonesing, you’re set. It’s really an amazing little package.

That being said, I have two chief complaints, and only one of them is a pressing matter. For starters, the missions can be repetitive. There are maybe ten different maps all in all, and each mission uses different areas of the map, or the same areas with different monsters. If you find a clear afternoon where you can spend more than two hours on missions, you may find yourself getting bored. On the flipside, if you've got that kind of time you can always further yourself into the story and see a lot more diverse areas with a truly engaging story.

My second and much less serious of a complaint is the reference to a play within the game called LOVELESS. Without spoiling too much, this character named Genesis is constantly quoting from the fictional play in an attempt to foreshadow. Now I love a good Final Fantasy mysticism as much as the next nerd, but there's only so much, "The Wings of the Goddess will spread into the fruit of the farfignuegen, yada, yada, yada," that I can take. Seriously, the cat can ramble. I know it's meant to sound cool and mysterious, and he's sexy because he can recite poetry, but this crap is far from Macbeth. He just throws out these mystique-laden terms that get nerds antsy. He might as well be saying, "Trench coats, vampires, Neo, explosions, boobs, ninjas." It's almost that ridiculous.
Sigh... Now that that's out of my system, allow me to say that the game is great. It's beautiful visually, it has a sweet story, the action is intense, and a universe that you know and love feels a little warmer in your soul. While you might feel bad knowing how things end up, it's still charming to take the ride with so many familiar faces. In closing, it's games of this quality that make you glad there will never be a true, final fantasy.