STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED II
Developer & Publisher: LucasArts
Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii
Release Date: October 29th 2010
It was with mixed feelings that I booted up Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. I’d enjoyed the first game, but it had little replay value once you’d seen all the cinematics. Early reports were consistent that it was very much like the first game, but less engaging. Initially I was going to hold off on buying The Force Unleashed II until it dropped in price (especially as it dropped the same week as Rock Band 3 and Fable 3), but after reviewing the tie-in novel by Sean Williams (review here) I reconsidered in the hope that the game would be as action packed and thrilling as the novel.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is set months after the first game, and continues the story behind the formation of the Rebel Alliance before the start of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and continues the adventures of Starkiller, Darth Vader’s secret apprentice and protagonist of The Force Unleashed. Or is he?
When the game starts Starkiller (or his clone) is being trained by Vader on water world Kamino, he soon escapes, and tries to find his love interest from the first game, Juno Eclipse. Vader doesn’t take this lying down, and hired Boba Fett to lure Starkiller back to Kamino. Plenty of old favourites from the first game appear, including Jedi Master Rahm Kota, PROXY, and Princess Leia, and as you’ll have seen from the trailers Yoda and Boba Fett both make brief appearances.
After playing through the main story of The Force Unleashed II, I think my first idea was correct. There’s nothing bad about the game, but it lacks that certain something that would make it a must buy. For a Star Wars game especially it just seems a bit bland, I ended up playing it to see the cinematics, rather than enjoying the game. Environments and characters look very nice, some the vistas are amazing to look at, but it’s mainly an update of the first game, with added Force Powers (Mind Trick, and Force Fury), having Starkiller wield dual lightsabers, and improved fight animation, now when Starkiller wades into Stormtroopers you see limbs and heads go flying.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II makes excellent use of the Havok, Euphoria and DMM engines, and the game feels more robust and controllable than its predecessor, but it’s still more “Attack of the Clones” than “The Empire Strikes Back”. Enemies rarely pose a challenge on normal difficulty; even the huge Gorog is easily defeated and it’s the size of a small town. Many Quick Time Events end up as just the repeated tapping of a button, and I found myself using only a couple of combos to defeat wave after wave of Stormtroopers.
The cinematics look amazing as they always do in a Star Wars game, but seem brief, that’s probably because the same scenes were so much meatier in the novel. The Starkiller – Boba Fett chase through the Salvation was gripping and thrilling in the novel, but LucasArts somehow make this section of the game a bit dull and annoying. I get the feeling from the final canonical cinematic that “there is another” Force Unleashed game planned, maybe with a meatier role for Boba Fett, let’s hope LucasArts managed to salvage their reputation with The Force Unleashed III.
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