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Review: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

After months of waiting, for the game to be released, I’ve finally got my grubby little mitts on a copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Wii. I chose to buy it for the Wii purely because of the unique control system. The idea of wielding a lightsaber, and slamming people around the place really appealed to me more than the Xbox 360 version, yes I know it has far nicer graphics, but c’mon people, you get to wield a frickin’ lightsaber!

Well as you may of guessed, I was really looking forward to the game, and in some aspects my dark side’s thirst was quenched, but overall i was quite disappointed.

The control system for the Wii, at first, is enjoyable. Using the nunchuck for movement, and force powers is efficient, however the thrusting forward of the nunchuck to open the countless barriers on your missions gets very old, very fast. The Wiimote functions as your lightsaber, which is something that should have been immensely enjoyable;, however there is no skill involved, you just shake it around and the game does everything for you. It takes away from the fun quite considerably, and has ruined the game for me.

The missions themselves are extremely linear, there is nothing that particularly stands out, and the storyline is pretty average. Multiplayer is not much better. When you expect greatness – lightsaber duels with your mates – its hard to not be critical. I played a few games various different characters, of which there is no difference. After a few trials it would appear that all the development team has done is overlayed a different skin over the basic framework rather than provide the character with plus and negative points. The levels themselves got pretty boring after about ten games, and I have no desire to re-visit them.

I want to play the game on the Xbox360, more to see how the controls differ than anything else, but i’m a bit annoyed about wasting £35. I love Star Wars, but i think the franchise needs to stop churning out games that are pretty average compared to the marketing departments hype.

My Score Card for Star Wars: Force Unleashed

Gameplay: 5
Graphics: 6
Storyline: 6
Multiplayer: 4

Overall: 6/10

Tags: Gaming, Star Wars, wii