Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Review

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was released in Semptember of '08. It was undoubtedly an ambitious project, meant to give every gamer the experience of being a Sith. Unfortunately, it fell short of what it could have been.

The story of the game takes you through the life and times of the adult known as "Starkiller," a man taken under the wing of Darth Vader as a boy after his jedi father was killed by the Dark Lord. Starkiller is trained in secret by Vader to become a full-fledged jedi in order to help Vader take down Emperor Palpatine. But there's more to this mission than meets the eye at first, but I'll stop now to prevent spoilage of the story.

Gameplay is not exactly great. The levels are flatout repetitive. Most take the form of slashing, choking, zapping, or tossing soldiers of various stripes for about twenty minutes, fighting a boss, killing more soldiers, and facing the final boss (usually a jedi). The only variation in this basic scheme is in the form of more or less bosses.

Aside from this is the overly easy gameplay. An average to experienced gamer would only die about seven times thanks in part to the abundant health packs throughout the game's areas, and most of those deaths will probably be met facing the early bosses, when the player is new to the game. But even these battles are made fairly easy by regenerating health packs in the area of the fight.

There is a basic customozation feature in the game in the form of changing outfits, upgrading your lightsaber with crystals, changing your hilt, and changing the color of your lightsaber blade.

As far as graphics go, they seem to be the average of the video game system whose version you buy. To see what I am talking about, look at some screenshots for the 360 (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/823/823667/imgs_1.html), the PS3 (http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/823668/star-wars-the-force-unleashed/images/star-wars-the-force-unleashed-20080815041745836.html), the PS2 (http://ps2.ign.com/dor/objects/885370/star-wars-the-force-unleashed/images/pre-e3-2008-star-wars-the-force-unleashed-hands-on-20080703021742715.html , the PSP (http://psp.ign.com/dor/objects/885369/star-wars-the-force-unleashed/images/star-wars-the-force-unleashed-20080630022432817.html), or the Wii (http://wii.ign.com/dor/objects/885367/star-wars-the-force-unleashed/images/star-wars-the-force-unleashed-20080702024824160.html).

In summary, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is something that could have been more, but fell short. On a scale of 1-10, a 5.

By the way, since this is my first review of anything, I welcome any constructive criticism that may help me write better reviews in the future.