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XGD > Wii > Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
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 Information
Videos | Title | Views | Length | Date Added | | 680 | 6:23 | 9/18/2008 | | 675 | 6:31 | 9/18/2008 | | 1022 | 3:59 | 9/18/2008 |
| 846 | 7:10 | 9/18/2008 | | 685 | 6:04 | 9/18/2008 | | 943 | 1:51 | 9/18/2008 |
Reviews Force unleashed Wii Review, October 10, 2008 Rating: 10.0/10 By Indy83 By Indy83
I’m not a Star wars fan. Oh, I’ve seen all the movies, and while I like the first three, or should I say last three for the sake of Chronology, I don’t hate the ‘New’ movies to the extent of ranting about how much I hate George Lucas. I have the New Indiana Jones movie for that.
So, when I first saw the announcement force unleashed, the first thing that popped into my head was DMM (Digital Molecular matter) and Euphoria being used in game for the first time. When I first saw the game play I thought Advent rising; an old Xbox game with similar ‘force’ power abilities, which I really enjoyed.
The Wii version does not have DMM or Euphoria. The higher powered consoles had to tone them down considerably to get them running in this first real-time attempt, so it was simply out of the question for the Wii. However the Wii does manage to keep the advent rising powers game play. And that is the best part of the game, on any system.
The Wii game is a different build than the 360/ps3 games. Not just the graphics, but the level design, power up tree’s, and even the way the character stands are completely different. Developed by Crome studios, the Wii version is the top sku of the ‘other’ build, which includes the wii, ps2, and psp. These builds are all identical in cut scenes and level design. Character models and textures are from the wii build, and toned down for the ps2 and psp. The difference? Not much, the psp versions are lower poly models, and the ps2 version lacks the bump mapping from the wii version. Not that many can tell because the game rarely has the lighting and close-ups to show off the bump mapping.
More noteworthy is the different cut scenes in the wii/ps2 build. While the stories are the same, surprisingly the wii versions cut scenes are well, darker and meaner than the 360/ps3 counterparts. For example, in the wii version the apprentice force choke tortures a (pre)rebel soldier and then after getting the information, force snaps his neck. While in the intro level, rather than fighting in the rouge Jedi’s hut like the 360 version, Vader simply uses the force to crush the hut into a wad of rubble and bring it down to him for the fight.
The game play in the wii version is near flawless. And this is really what everyone wants to hear on the Wii side of things. Light saber controls are motion controlled, and respond to the direction the player moves. Swing left, the apprentice swings left, same with right up, or down or forward thrust. Combine these for combos. There is a catch though, and a clever one too. You can’t simply waggle for infinite combos, you have to be control. Timing is required; you have to make the next attack after the current one is finished. Common sense is also required; you cannot perform two left slashes in a row, because after the first slash your characters hand will be on the right hand side, so he can not go left to right again, you would have to do a right to left slash, or an up or down slash.
The force powers work almost equally well. The main one, the force grab is simply pressing the Z button to grab the highlighted object. This is the only problem area in the game… And it’s not so much a problem area as it could have been handled infinitely better very easily. The game automatically highlights the nearest object that can be manipulated the apprentice is facing, be it inanimate object or clone trooper. While this isn’t really a problem, as if you didn’t pick up the enemy you wanted, you could simply hurl the object you picked up at the enemy. It is however, a glaring omission to the complete lack of the wii’s ir use (You can only use the pointer to navigate menus). Having the character simply point at the object he wanted to force pick up would have been simply fantastic. Past that, force grab works like a charm, you pick up the highlighted object, move it left right away or towards with the analog stick, and control height by tilting the nun chuck up or down. Release the z button while holding a direction to throw the enemy that way, or slam down the nun chuck to slam them into the ground. Or hold the A button and swing the remote to impale them with your light saber. Very satisfying.
A simple thrust forward with the nun chuck will perform the force push, a simple fun and useful move.
Pressing the c-button will enable you to fry your foes with force lighting
Holding the z and b buttons and thrusting the remote and nun chuck together will perform the force repel, another simple fun and useful move.
And you will eventually unlock the force maelstrom, which requires the most complex button presses of the game Z+C+B+A buttons to be held simultaneously to charge power, and then thrust the remote and nun chuck together simultaneously to release the built up power. Sounds daunting, until you realize those are the four easiest buttons to push on the controllers, the ones your fingers are always on.
Force powers can be unlocked that combine force powers, such as using the lightning and then the force push for a lightning infused force push.
Or a two swing saber combo and then force lightning to infuse the saber with a mighty blast of force lightning.
The force powers can all be upgraded to a max of four slots, becoming more spectacular and destructive with each upgrade. Level 1 to level 4 is a big visual difference. And I really like that. For example, the force maelstrom stats off as a move that just draws in nearby enemies and tiny loose objects, But ends up when fully powered, sucking in tons of enemies, large debris, and ripping objects out of the ground or off walls to all orbit around the player. Very cool.
Of these many combo moves only one deserves a negative mention, that being the sith punt. While simple enough to pull off, two swing combo and force push, it simply pales in comparison to its equivalent on the 360/ps3 versions, which had a different animation for every enemy type. More importantly, it is the only move completely unusable in any boss fights. Boo.
The player upgrades their moves arsenal by spending force points, which are awarded by killing enemies or finding hidden bonus’s strewed throughout the levels, the more you get in a combo the higher the multiplier goes and the more force points you get awarded.
Dying takes away a small chunk of force points, but that’s the only penalty for dying. Good news for those who hate to be frustrated… Bad news for those who want the challenge of having to make it through without dying, or start the area over. Health can be replenished by finding health powerups placed in certain places throughout the level, or occasionally dropped by the enemy.
The level designs… Are not much. While most of the levels look fine, with the exception of Felucia The fungal jungle planet being by far the weakest visual offering… They all do the same thing, herd the player from point a to arena b, where he gets to use the force to slaughter peons, or fight a massive boss, or duel with a Jedi/sith. There are some secret areas to find, but it’s no Metroid/Zelda, so if you are looking to go exploring through the world of star wars… you are going to be left disappointed. If you are looking to use the force to crush storm troopers by the dozen… Well, you are in luck. That’s the part of the game it does best.
The Wii version has exclusive levels, in the form of the Jedi Temple. Fortunately, these are some of the most enjoyable levels in the game, featuring tons of fun stuff to rip apart and throw around at the hapless baddies, as well as being one of the most visually appealing levels.
Throughout the levels are hidden bonus’s, like Jedi Holocrons, which award concept art and Force point bonus’s, saber crystals, which will change the color of the light saber, and Saber hilts, which will allow you to change the hilt of your saber, if you say, want Obi’wons or Count Deku’s.
The boss fights are a mixed bag or two bags really. In bag one you have the massive bosses. Which look impressive, but are all fought the same way: run away, toss stuff at them, zap them, run/get slapped away, and repeat. My biggest gripe is that they are the standard feel no pain bosses I hate so much. You have these bone crushing moves that send storm troopers flying thousands of feet, but you can’t do more than make a rancor wince. You can’t slow them down at all. When I chuck a boulder the size of the rancor’s head at it, I expect to see him knocked on his colossal rancor butt. But no, they just wince and continue towards me until they once again deliver the rancor pimp slap sending me flying 50 feet. At certain times you will get put into a Quick time Event sequence, where you simply either waggle the remote or the nun chuck at the proper time, to say avoid being eaten by a rancor. If you win you do extra damage if you lose you take extra damage. Get the bosses health low enough and you can finish them off with a finisher Quick time event. Which all look pretty cool.
In Bag two, we have the Jedi Battles. This is the good bag. You can use all your Jedi powers, you can send your opponent hurtling hundreds of feet, you can pick em up and chuck em, pick em up and pummel them with nearby debris. Lots of fun. Of course, they can counter your force moves (As you can counter theirs the same way), but the weaker they get the less likely they are to do so. These battles are a lot of fun, and all end in cool looking quick time events. When you and your enemy perform the same move at the same time, you get in either a saber or force duel, where the player has to match the angle with the wiimote or nun chuck with the one on screen and then thrust it. System is responsive and works very well. Although the repeated cliché dialog exchanges said during duels can get old.
The game is a mixed bag visually, there are a lot of glitches, most in cut scenes, and the Apprentices textures are way to low res for some of the close ups they give him. Most of the game is bump mapped, but often isn’t given the lighting needed to make it really stand out. On the strange side of thing, some of the textures are really high res. Most of them being objects that can be thrown with the force, like statues in the Jedi temple. Not only are they high res but they are bump mapped. The problem is, the Wii only outputs at 480p max. You have to get those statues right into the screen to see the detail in those textures. It’s like they were given 360 assets and forgot to scale them down. However they appeared in the Wii exclusive level which is just a head scratcher. You can’t see how detailed the textures are unless you put them into the camera, so why didn’t they lower the res of those textures and their coinciding bump maps so they could increase the visuals and textures of the rest of the game?
Some characters look fantastic especially in close ups, like the red Jedi on Felucia, or the little dude with the robotic arms on Raxis prime. Others look average, to poor when in a close-up, like surprisingly, the apprentice.
The auto camera is way to slow, but is tolerable thanks to the manual controls and the option to speed up the camera rotation. Left or right on the d-pad pans the camera in that direction (Or you can choose to invert it) up centers the camera behind the apprentice, and down initiates camera lock. One thing the player should make sure they never do is use the camera lock feature. While this is supposed to help the player by keeping the camera locked on a giant boss, all it does is just make you miserable. With camera speed on fast you can have complete control over the camera and find where the bosses are should they end up off-screen in a split second.
The story is good. It’s not going to put any movie writers out of business of course, but it’s good. It’s considered canon, it’s not cringe inducing, the voice acting is fine, and you honestly will probably watch every scene the first time to see what happens, but yes, you can skip the story scenes if you want.
Finally, the Wii exclusive duel mode. This one is actually pretty fun. While there are a surprisingly large number of characters to choose from, they all play the same (Yes, including darth maul, no double saber stick for him, just a normal light saber like everyone else). They have different stats, but all the same moves. These play like the Jedi battles in the single player game. You have all the moves at your disposal. But every move has a counter.
You can jump out of a force push to avoid damage.
You can force push or throw your saber to break a force grab
You can tilt the wiimote to block force lighting
You can force repel to send objects that were thrown at you hurtling the other direction.
This makes the game potentially very deep if you have two players who know how to play.
When you perform the same moves at the same time, you go to the force or saber clash scene, where the players compete to match the wiimote/nunchuck angle correctly the fastest, the winner of which wins the duel scene.
There are also powerups that appear at random around the board, things like temporarily increased saber damage or unlimited force. Assist trophies that send in a platoon of infantry to harass your opponent.
By inflicting damage, receiving damage, and collecting power ups you will charge up your force unleashed meter, when charged up all the way your character will have unlimited force usage, increased force power damage, and the ability to move objects that were normally too large (Like large chunks of a downed AT AT).
In conclusion, it’s a good game. Fun game play with fantastic wii controls. Slightly frustrating big bosses and camera system. Forgettable level design. Levels recycled/revisited. Fantastic Jedi battles, decent graphics but with a lot of bugs. There is some replay value, as the game lets the player start a new game with all his powers and items from the last game in tact. Good game, but not quite good enough to be great. But it is fun to play.
7.5/10
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