Force Unleashed

Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition
$39.99
I was one of those geeks that signed the online petition to have this game ported to the PC, hah-hah... and now it's here. There are sites out that that I read and trust, like gamespot and ign, etc., but I really must say that gamespot was way too hard on this port. Some of the gripes were about the system requirements, and to that end there was a patch that was just released that will let those of you with lower system specs play the game much better (optimizations to the game engine, and the addition of a lowered graphics quality setting in the game options, heretofore missing). The game itself is great, and they did a bang-up job of porting it to the PC. I didn't need the patch; my system may not be exactly high-end, but it's not rear-end either, yuk-yuk. Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3.00 gHz), 3 GB DDR2, GeForce 9800 GTX+.

The only console we have in my house is the Wii, and I did buy this game for it (very highly reviewed; some said it was the most fun of them all, between the 3 consoles), but I wanted to see and experience the game in its most polished, high-res form and this PC port does not disappoint. The gameplay is smooth, the story is amazing (I won't spoil it if you haven't played the game yet, but it contains one of the biggest 'gasp' moments of the entire Star Wars canon), and I have had exactly ZERO issues with this PC version. It is everything I hoped it would be. Full support for the XBox 360 controller if you want it (Resident Evil 4, another great port, demanded that you use it but it's not necessary for this game at all- mouse and keyboard are awesome for this game, like Jedi Academy). Highly recommended. The additional content (which for the sake of whatever assumes you took the dark side ending to the original game) are great, a very nice coda to the game.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
$19.99
I've been the market for a while for a awsome star wars game, I have seen lethal alliance; to kidish there is no challenge to it. Lego starwars was fun, but for a true star wars fan such as myself, it's non canonical therefore its not the one I'd be looking for.
Jedi alliance had a good storyline. But I'll let everyone out of the dark: Asoka is not real! Anikan had no apprentice (exept for starkiller of course) also nightsisters usualy have energy swords, which are lightsaber proof but defenately not lightsabers. Plus I don't believe nightsister's where powerfull enough to do such a thing to coruscant. So that one is not perfect either.
Of course it would take to long to discuss every star wars game for the d.s but those are the most popular.

For you non star wars gamers who just want some star wars authenticity just by this one for starters. It's the only star wars game that really stays in the ground rules (that I have played anyway) here on amazon you can buy it for only twenty dollars. Everywhere else is thirty five dollars so buy it here. Secondly it has great combos you can do to your enemy's for example you can push them into the sky and land on their friend's, or throw them into a ball of lightling. Plus the enemy's (yes even the stormtroopers) are hard to take down unless you do a really powerful attack on them. There are more than one bosses in each level and they come when you least expect it.
You can unlock costumes such as sith stalker armor or jedi adventurer robes. Your ship the rouge shadow has a nava computer, which enables you to find interesting facts about the planet your about to land on. I your journey you start out with the red lightsaber crystal and you must search for the rest and believe me they are not easy to find.
Now all this time I have only shown you the pro's now its time for the con's. The bosses are not too hard and the graphics are not all that good. But that's all, so I hope this review will be helpful to all who read it.

p.s May the force be with you always.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
$19.99
I'm a sucker for all things Star Wars, so I really wanted to love this game. I'd enjoyed Knights of the Old Republic and this was just going to be the same thing, only better, right? Nope.

This game is set in the Star Wars setting we all know and love, and the visual and audio effects for the lightsabers are fantastic, but the gameplay element of the game is absolutely atrocious. It's a bad game, with hideous camera and controls problems that suck all the fun out of playing. You spend more time wrestling the controls than you do slicing and dicing stormtroopers.

First off: targeting. Unbelievably, this game is worse at targeting than Zelda for the N64. Yes, it's that bad. You have no way to control what you are targeting other than facing towards it. No 'cycle through targets' button as is common in other games. This leads to the very common situation of you wanting to force grab or force choke an enemy right in front of you, but the game decides that really you wanted to pick up a box behind the stormtrooper on the complete opposite side of the room.

Dodging: Also worse than in Zelda. It's so bad that it's almost unmanageable. In order to dodge, you have to have an enemy targeted, much like Zelda. However, instead of simply 'locking on', you have to hold down R1 forever, as long as you want to have the enemy targeted. This quickly becomes unmanageable with the number of other buttons you have to hold down for lengths of time, such as R2 to grab. And you have to push the joystick, and L1, and still be holding R1 to dodge. Ridiculous.

And the game seems extremely sluggish and inconsistent in reacting to your commands. I had gotten used to the precision and speed with which the game reacted in Drake's Fortune or Assassin's creed. Here half the time, your 'double jump' command doesn't even execute the double jump. This is a shocking flaw, given that Super Smash Brothers for the Nintendo 64 managed the double jump flawlessly.

The platforming sections of this game are atrocious. It would have been much better if they had been left out entirely. Prince of Persia this is not. It's not even Drake's Fortune. It's just a clumsy, inelegant, imprecise mess. You can't have a platforming game without ledge grab, yet this is precisely what this game does. There are far too many 'one way slippery ledge to death' situations. Remember the sands of time in Prince of Persia which let you rewind? Yep, no such thing here. Instead, you get to start over at the nearest checkpoint. And it's usually not obvious which ledge you can safely land on and which one you cannot before you leap. Terrible design flaw. Especially given the fact just the merest nudge sends the character plummeting off to one side...in fact, just the forward momentum of executing lightsaber combos can send him hurtling off the edge. This is a terrible design decision. If you use attacks and get to close to the ledge in real platforming games, the character grabs on and doesn't fall. The platforming here is as bad as it was in the original 2D Prince of Persia, and that's saying a lot. The designers wanted to get cute with making you use your force powers to lower ledges you could jump onto, but the whole thing is terrible.

It's not made any better by the camera. They're trying to provide a nice cinematic experience, by zooming the camera out and putting it in a fixed position in many key scenes. Sometimes it works great. More often, it's an absolute mess. Frequently you cannot see your character at all, being hidden behind a protrusion or even by the body of the person you are fighting. It's like the tested half the fights to get the right camera angles and just made poor guesses for the other half. Having a triple A title like this with camera issues where you literally can't even see your character is unforgivable. The inability to easily see what is around you is also bad given the area of effect attacks several monsters launch, where a spot on the ground begins to glow and if you are standing near it after a set amount of time, it explodes and you take damage. It's entirely possible to be near enough one of these spots to be hit, but it doesn't show up in your field of vision. Indeed, the game seems to take delight in arranging the camera angle so this occurs.

Oh, and that leads us to another unforgivable omission, one I thought the games design industry had long ago accepted as standard (but Force Unleashed is a step back in so many ways). You cannot skip cutscenes. This is abominable, especially given how many cutscenes there are, often some right before a tricky platforming session or boss battle you must watch over and over again each time. The cutscenes are visually impressive, but I don't want to have to watch them half a dozen times. Speaking of cutscene failures, there are cases where a cutscene is split. There's a custcene, then you can control your character for a half second, including taking damage from foes, then it goes right back to the continuation of the cutscene. I can't believe this is intended, and it's a rather glaring flaw.

But the biggest flaw in the entire game is the abomination of Raxus Prime. This is literally one of the 5 worst levels I have ever played. The color palette is painful to the eyes, and the level design is insipid and uninspired. Raxus Prime is supposed to be the 'junk pile' world, so there' just random heaps of black and yellow debris everywhere, funneling you down a narrow linear path. The colors are atrocious, it looks like someone vomited over a pile of chewed up legos. Everything is just a kaledeiscope of yellow and black, near objects, distant objects, ledges you can hold onto, ledges that just send you to your death...there's no real discrimination or attempt to draw a visual contrast between important elements and the background. Moreover, this level is home to one of the absolute no-nos of gaming...a mini-boss battle without a save point afterwards. Combined with the aforementioned terrible platforming, compounded by the uniform black and yellow vomit pattern of Raxus Prime, it means you may have to repeat a boss battle two or even three times if the game's jumping engine betrays you.

Even navigating the menus is an exercise in tedium and frustration. Each and every click you make takes you to another 'loading' screen before the submenu shows up. I've never seen this before and it really slows things down and breaks up the flow of play.

In short, this game is a major, major disappointment. The visuals (aside from Raxus Prime) are superb, the soundtrack, blaster sounds, lightsaber hum, are all terrific. But the gameplay is severely lacking almost across the board. If, like me, you loved KOTOR and are looking for more of the same, don't bother. Watch the movies again instead. Or find a friend who has played the game already and get him to show you the unlocked cinematics. Don't waste your money or time on this one.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
$19.99
This game is very exciting, the graphics are amazing and the battles are incredible, lots of real time fighting and animation.