I Have a Good Feeling About This

Believe it or not, next year marks a decade since The Phantom Menace came out...and probably about a decade since you started questioning your once-sacred love for Star Wars. It does for me, anyway. The six-year release cycle of the prequel trilogy and its attendant in-your-face marketing barrage did a good job of making me forget how much I liked the original movies--and, by association, some of the games based on them. TIE Fighter and the first Dark Forces in particular are among my favorite games ever (ever), and that's largely because they're so evocative of the look and feel of the old, beloved Star Wars I grew up with. Hey, even those side-scrolling Super NES games were pretty cool in their day. Episode I: Racer? Not so much.

Last week I got to play the first two levels of LucasArts' new internally developed Jedi extravaganza The Force Unleashed, and I was honestly surprised how much it reminded me of those old Star Wars games, to the nearly complete exclusion of the prequel films. I was thrilled to see the game open with shots of honest-to-goodness Star Destroyers and TIE Fighters flying around in space. All the other ships and level designs I saw had that appropriately grungy, industrial, used look that's characteristic of old Star Wars. (No racing stripes or classical architecture here.) The stormtroopers look like, well, actual stormtroopers. Heck, I even played through the entire first level--where you take control of Darth freakin' Vader and slaughter a bunch of wookiees with your savage Force powers--without once looking at that suit and picturing whiny Hayden Christensen stuffed in there. I call that progress.

The premise here sees Darth Vader continuing his dark errand, eradicating the noble Jedi in the roughly 20-year span between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. That first level is set not long after Sith ends, and has you tracking down a Jedi Master hiding out on the wookiee planet Kashyyyk. Vanquishing him at the end of this intro level pretty believably sets up the real main character, Vader's secret Sith apprentice Starkiller, by introducing him as a young Jedi-in-training whom Vader takes under his cloak and trains in secret, to act as a stealth operative and, one day, help Vader defeat the Emperor. After the first level, the game jumps forward a good dozen years so you can pick up with the apprentice in ass-kicking adult form.

But nevermind all that--this game is about tearing it up with gnarly Force powers, which that intro level on Kashyyyk offers in spades. The designers pull a classic abilitease here: you get to go nuts with some of the fully upgraded powers, via Vader's Force mastery, before you're busted back down to the apprentice's rudimentary attacks at the start of the second level. But it's pretty sweet while it lasts. There's the classic Force-choke, where Vader lifts enemies up in midair before tossing them aside with a grisly snap; a lightsaber-throw move that lets you impale enemies from afar; and a Force push that lets you charge up and unleash a wave of kinetic energy that demolishes enemies and scenery in its path. I was a little disappointed that standard melee attacks aren't one-hit-one-kill (come on, it's a lightsaber), but it was obviously important to bend the rules there in favor of challenging gameplay.

In the past, LucasArts talked a big game about The Force Unleashed and its extensive middleware, the main focus of which was materials simulation. Wood was supposed to splinter realistically, metal would dent, glass would shatter, and so on. The nearly finished game does indeed boast a lot of destructibility in its environments. Don't expect every inch of every level to explode in a satisfying way, though; you can walk into a new area and see what's going to break and what's just static level. But enough of the two stages I played (Kashyyyk and an orbital TIE Fighter factory) came apart under assault of Force powers and lightsaber that it seems like the developers' investment in the new technology might give a satisfying payoff. LucasArts reps tipped me off to one impressive illustration of this: one blast of Vader's concentrated Force push was enough to completely blow apart Kashyyyk's broad wooden walkways (and toss any hapless wookiees violently off the side).

One of the most basic Force powers, the grab, also seemed like the most important to the gameplay. You can lift up any regular-size enemy and a lot of inanimate objects, and then use the two analog sticks to move them around in full 3D. The controls for this are a little awkward at first, but after I got the hang of it, it started to be a lot of fun picking up one enemy and hurling him into two others, or grabbing an exploding barrel from a distance and launching it at a bunch of troops hiding behind cover. One of the nice things about being Vader's secret protege is that nobody--not the rebels nor the Empire--is supposed to know you exist, so you get to destroy everyone without prejudice, and can thus go totally nuts with powers like this. The Force grab also comes in handy in puzzle-solving situations, since you can use it to flip switches you can't physically reach, or manipulate other machinery, like a laser emitter in the TIE facility that you could aim with the analog stick.

Not surprisingly, The Force Unleashed borrows a lot of terminology from the lexicon of modern third-person action established by God of War, Devil May Cry, and the like. That means you'll be collecting experience orbs from enemies that you can cash in on a very lengthy list of new abilities. Those are broken down into attack combos, new Force powers like lightning, and passive buffs like a faster recharge for your Force meter. There are other unlocks that aren't as useful in gameplay but tickled my nerdy Star Wars-fan sensibilities. There are lightsaber crystals you can find to change the color of your blade, for instance, as well as a bunch of unlockable costumes (and perhaps characters?) to play with.

There are also Force-flavored interactive cutscenes a la God of War in here, where you hit specific buttons as prompted to drive an otherwise non-interactive but flashy-looking attack cutscene. An especially impressive one of these followed the TIE facility boss fight, which had Starkiller and his Jedi opponent fighting it out on an orbital platform that was rapidly falling toward the planet below. Another one earlier on had the apprentice squaring off against a two-legged AT-ST walker--another heartwarming nod to the familiar enemies of the old trilogy.

The deciding factor for me is where the story goes and how the designers use the Star Wars fiction here, since it's thankfully the fiction you care about that's on full display. Is the Emperor the last boss? Do you end up recognizing the error of your Sith ways and fighting Darth Vader? Is there (wait for it) a Hoth level in there somewhere? The jury will remain out until The Force Unleashed is, um, unleashed in September, but for now, I'm impressed enough with the action that I'm excited to play more.

Also, Ryan insists I mention that Darth Vader in this game is voiced by the guy who plays his younger brother Chad Vader around the Internet. I have to agree, that's pretty awesome.