You will spend the game fighting mostly the same enemy types over and over again, because the second half of the game has you revisiting the same planets you played through in the first half. Some of the enemies have light Force powers of their own, which makes them interesting, but still - for every one one of these more interesting enemies you'll have fifty stormtroopers or other cannon fodder to plough through.
These are the game's biggest problems: repetition and frustration.
It does get frustrating - very frustrating. Most of the time you're breezing through, killing without a problem in the world. Then you come up against one guy who kills you by some really cheap tactic. A bigger cause of this problem is the controls. The layout is fine but they just aren't very responsive. As soon as you start a combo you can't do anything until Starkiller has finished the animation, so basically if you started hitting someone you can't jump out of the way of that rocket heading towards you.
It really ruins how much fun the game could have been, and it would make me feel even more like a Force wielder if I were able to react with Jedi-like reflexes; instead I have a character with the reflexes of, well... me.
I always imagined that being a powerful Force user would allow me to feel in total control. But this game instead makes everything feel chaotic. You can argue that I'm not meant to be a perfectly straight-up Jedi, but rather a bad-ass Sith; however, look at Vader - he never went around causing chaos and destruction in his battles. He took his time (even in the level you play as him, he doesn't run, he just strides). He was in control, powerful and totally merciless. Whereas the gameplay here often feels like just your typical action game wearing a Star Wars frock.
But what a beautiful frock it is! Besides the gameplay (I know they wanted a teen rating, but if a lightsaber doesn't occasionally cut things off, then it's not Star Wars), everything else in this game reeks of a galaxy far far away. The environments all look really impressive, the sound as always is amazing and the characters all fit in perfectly - even the new ones. The story is a bit darker than most Star Wars tales, but that certainly isn't a bad thing in this case.
There is some pretty impressive technology behind this game too. Euphoria gives the AI real life reactions to occurrences. For example when you Force grip a Stormtrooper, he may actually try to grab onto something (or another Stormtrooper) so that you can't throw him around. This technology was also in Grand Theft Auto IV, although to be honest, I noticed it more there. Occasionally I spotted enemies diving out of the way of things, but it just never felt like a cool reaction to something I was doing. I can't put my finger on why, but somehow it's not as cool here as it was in Grand Theft Auto IV.
The other bit of tech is Digital Molecular Matter (DMM), which basically gives all textures in the world real world physics. So wood splinters, glass shatters, and spongy fungus plants do whatever it is spongy fungus plants do when things are thrown at them.
During certain parts of the game all this technology comes together for some fantastic looking effects. But for the most part I didn't notice a huge difference between the glass shattering in this game and glass shattering in other games that do not use DMM. The fact that it shatters differently every time is of little relevance in this game because it all happens too quickly to even notice.
So what will keep you playing after you finish Force Unleashed? If you're anything like me, this will take about seven hours, and there's not a lot afterwards. There are two endings (light side and dark side of course – both are very cool endings by the way!) but you don't have to play through the entire game in order to see both of them, as you can simply repeat the final stage. There's also a bunch of different costumes you can both unlock and find during the game, as well as different lightsaber colours and upgrades, but nothing too spectacular.
As I said earlier, I did find the game more fun the second time through because of how much more powerful my character was. I also found you get through the levels much faster too. Playing through the first time began to feel a bit like a chore towards the end.
The Force Unleashed will not be a lasting experience. It's fun, but you can't help but feel a tingle of disappointment when thinking of what it could, and should, have been. It also may be a somewhat frustrating experience at times. But if you like Star Wars, you will put up with it.
Why you ask? Because of the story. A game with a great story is a rare and beautiful thing but a great Star Wars story? Now that is a truly epic achievement.
