I am a big fan of the first Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game and pre-ordered the sequel as soon as it was up on Amazon. The game arrived a few days after launch and it took all of 6 hours to complete. The game is just as fun as the first one, but Lucas Arts definitely rushed this game to market before it was ready. There are several bugs in the game and I even encountered a situation where I almost had to reset the system to get out of it.
One of the major complaints of the first SWTFU was the targeting system for using your Force powers. Thankfully, they fixed this and now the targeted character has a white outline around them. While this is great, you still cannot move Starkiller while using your Force powers, making for awkward scenarios where you have to throw objects into areas where you cannot see.
They also simplified the internal marketplace for upgrading your Force powers and lightsabers. The new system is a big improvement from the clutter of the original. The fact that you start with powerful Force powers helps too.
The game’s cinemas are beautiful with one giant, I can’t believe they didn’t fix this before the game went gold flaw. When you fight the larger enemies and are close to defeating them, you have to press a specific button at a specific time to finish them off. For some reason, Lucas Arts did not delete the white outline from the targeting system, so all the high detail they put into these cinemas is ruined. This is especially true when you battle Darth Vader at the end. He is completely black, but with a huge white outline. It looks horrendous!
At one point in the game, the camera got stuck and was zoomed in on Starkiller’s back and head, taking up 80% of the screen. There was no way for me to escape this view and as I mentioned earlier, I almost had to reset the 360, but I backtracked a bit and it suddenly returned to normal. I have no explanation for this.
Rich has mentioned several times on the show that the character of Starkiller is out of place in the game because Lucas Arts tried to squeeze him into the Star Wars universe at a point in time where we already know the outcome (Darth Vader lives until much later in the series) and where characters have established skill sets. A perfect example of this is the final battle with Darth Vader. Vader was created in 1976 and in all of his lightsaber battles throughout the 6 Star Wars movies he has been a very stiff, plodding villain. He’s facing off against Starkiller, a character created a few years ago that moves like lightning and dishes out some serious dual-lightsaber combos. So when you attack Vader furiously, lightsabers are going in every direction, except for his, which stays in one position yet somehow manages to block all of your attacks. For the inevitable sequel, Starkiller needs to be warped into the future to fight some new characters that share his modern abilities.
Overall, the game is a lot of fun, but there are very few moments that blow you away. Game play clocks in at around 6 hours, which is not very much, but it is consistently enjoyable for a Star Wars fan. If you are thinking of buying this game, you might want to save some money and rent it.
PS. The commercials for this game are actually better than the game itself.
Also, if we’re talking about Starkiller’s skill vs Vader’s skill… How as Vader the Dark Lord of the Sith and the most powerful Jedi alive if Starkiller has abilities that Anakin or Vader could never do?!
Regarding the glitches: The first game had horrible glitches too, even ones during boss fights that made it impossible to win! The Jedi at the garbage dump jumped out of the boundaries of the map and was still able to attack me but I couldn’t touch him no matter what I did, then there was a time in the same fight where I air-dashed toward him and it made me fall through the floor and I couldn’t do anything but fall forever out of the level.