Ever since seeing the Force Unleashed first presented and through following its development I was quite excited by the game itself. I am not die hard SW fan, and would not give up any bodily parts just to speak to George Lucas but I always enjoyed the story as well as good Star Wars games (story for the Original Trilogy and games are the SW:KOTOR by BioWare). Nevertheless, I rented the game and played through it, and although it was fun, it grew old on me and I really do not see a reason behind a second playtrough, unless its achievements.
Presentation: 7.8
The game is fairly well packaged and is a part of a living and breathing Star Wars universe. The cutscenes work great and its a good sign that they actually motion captured the actors, although the facial expression can look somewhat shaky sometimes, with improbably elastic mouth or eye stretches. Other than that they are quite spot on. The story is actually the biggest ace of the game. It is engaging and it is better than the latest three movies, plus there is no Haiden or Jar Jar and if that's not a plus I do not know what is. The upgrade options are nice, and the menus are well organized, although perhaps at times to simple. The fact that it has to be loaded every time takes something away from the game though. The levels are good, linear although perhaps sometimes too much.
Graphics: 7.2
The game looks good, although not as good as can be. The environments although somewhat detailed are repetitive and generic in a lot of places. While star killer looks great some enemies not so much. My xbox also suffered a number of times from the framerate issues, and that was frustrating. The force powers look like I would imagine they'd look, and the environments as mentioned above are up to par although more potentiall can be seen.
Sound: 8.5
It's a Star Wars game and as that the sound is up to par, very much so. The music fits, the effects sound like you'd expect them to sound, saber clashes are great on the ears. Voice acting is even better. Everyone seemed to come out and the sound contributes to the script and the story very well. They sound believable and the script is well written. The battle sounds good, although during the larger scoped encounters it does feel slightly muffled as if afraid to overwhelm your speakers.
Gameplay: 7.8
This is pretty much the creme of FU, yet just like that delicious pastry you just ate, once you ate it its gone. To say the least, it is repetitive. I loved using the force and having Havoc and Euphoria deliver the experience was great, but that being the meat of the game, eventually you meet force resistant enemies and the fun gets drained into the recycled play of force repell, kill stuneed, repeat. It seems that the developers desided that even though they gave us the fun experience at first they needed to come back to the good old hack'n'slash, which is a terrible approach in this case. Just give me more Storm Troopers to fling around. The boss fights feel generic and usually turn to the same recylcled style of action where you hide and block and then turn to attack once you figured out the pattern. After that, it doesn't necessarily present a challenge. Not to spoil to much but for one of the final boss fights it just feels like a routine battle. The difficulty level also flails around, where sometimes you feel like you're facing incredibly impossible enemies and then right after you're walking through central park with a chainsaw and the police called in sick. The level design is sometimes tedious to figure out as well.
Replay Value: 6.0
There is very little here, unless you are an achievement whore. In that case you will want the holocrons, both endings and all suits. It feels like they just went for a quick breeze that was hardly 8 hours to enjoy yourself and only about an hour or two made you feel as this powerful Jedi, while the rest just made you a middle of the line apprentice hacking through groups of enemies just as insignificant.
Summary: 7.4
If you're a Star Wars fan you probably already have it and I am not on a mission to dissuade from your decision, if you're on the fence, its a rental, nothing more than that. Most peopel are not dedicated achievement fanatics, although I know some are. There isn't much here in length and there is even less here that will make you want to come back to this time and time again for playthroughs, not with Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 coming out in October.
