IGN looks forward to what Krome and LucasArts could do with future Wii titles, especially considering the awesome potential of Wii MotionPlus, but as far as Force Unleashed is concerned, the game is a fun but flawed action game, and nothing more. If you're looking for this type of game on Wii, give it a rental. If you're a big Star Wars fan, you'll enjoy it. If you want a polished, well-rounded effort overall, you won't find it here.
Presentation - 6.0
Graphics - 6.5
Sound - 7.0
Gameplay - 8.0
Lasting Appeal - 7.0
Overall -
Celebrate 16 years of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed! Dive into the thrilling story of Starkiller, wield epic Force powers, and explore this iconic LucasArts game.
force unleashed is a great game. Thankfully the 360 version is bc on the XBO/Series. It looks and plays even better than on original hardware.
A true classic. Recently I was experimenting with injecting ray tracing into this game using nvidia’s SSRTGI. The results were pretty slick!
Following Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's conquest, it's the prime time to resurrect the Force-fueled action of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
Coming soon on the UE4 Engine, preorder to guarantee access to the Force Stutter ability available exclusively on PC before it gets removed after the launch window.
I am not a Star Wars fan but I enjoyed the Force Unleashed and the sequel. Shadows of the Empire was another Star Wars game I also enjoyed.
I had Shadows of the Empire on N64 and I used to finish that game basically weekly. LOVED that game.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed took the Star Wars setting from a Space Opera to a Shonen anime, and did lasting damage to the franchise as a whole.
Then came Jedi: Fallen Order to revive it.
Jedi Survivor is truly amazing to experience, nothing better out there when it comes to Star Wars games.
That's a bit of a stretch. I loved the game, it was an amazing action filled pack and you could do so much weird shit (admittedly the sequel wasn't as great). However, under no point did I ever have any trouble separating it from Star Wars canon. The game has exagerated force powers because it's fun, everyone knows it's not lore-accurate. It's the same as the final boss of The Matrix game. The game almost ends as the movie, but then we get a message from the Wachowski sisters, explaingin how a the martyr ending works great for a movie... but a game should feel more epic, so instead you get to face a final mega Smith formed from all his clones. My point being, people can separate the epic exagerations of a game from the more grounded rules of canon/lore.
Edit: Just to add, that I aknowledge The Rise of Skywalker was a shitshow, but there were millions of other reasons for that, TFU is hardly to blame there...
Starkiller - the original Mary Sue (after Luke Skywalker bent a molten blaster bolt around a corner, and through a tiny hole in The Death Star, while flying an X-wing in space. And all despite having next to no training in how to use The Force.)
It did help ruin the franchise, but it was already ruined by silly novels and badly-thought-out comic book adaptations. The EU did enough damage to the universe that the trajectory was bound to hit “JEDI SUPERHERO WHO CAN WRESTLE STAR DESTROYERS OUT OF THE SKY” territory.
It’s part of why The Force Unleashed and The Last Jedi had such a negative backlash. The Force Unleashed copied and pasted the structure of A New Hope, which was enough for some people to buy, but I heard countless musings from people, whining that the characters were not as jumpy or powerful as Starkiller - with Starkiller being the one character mentioned for reference. The Last Jedi, for some people, is their favourite Star Wars film, for others, it wasn’t. What I didn’t like about TLJ’s backlash is how much people were moaning about it being different to the rest of the franchise, when it is about as derivative as The Force Awakens was.
"after Luke Skywalker bent a molten blaster bolt around a corner, and through a tiny hole in The Death Star, while flying an X-wing in space. And all despite having next to no training in how to use The Force."
Not to mention having next to no experience in piloting a fighter
Do I buy this subpar but somewhat fun game for $50 (that I'd rather spend on an excellent game) in hopes that there will be a sequel that more work is put into? A common attitude today toward the Wii is when a half-assed PS2 port "core" game doesn't sell it means that there's no market for "core" games of that genre.
And yet, if we gamers do buy this game in hopes that they'll do right next time around, why wouldn't the developers feel that they don't have to put more into it since the rushed effort did well? It's sad, but I think that a majority of our hopes lie in the form of The Conduit and Mad World, where Developers are actually putting their heart and soul into the games. That's one reason why I'm all for the hype surrounding those games. There needs to be more imo. Everyone needs to know about those games.
Don't get me wrong. I do feel that Krome Studios probably did the best they could with what they were given, and the time they had to do it in. But the problem is what they were given. A PS2 template, and budget. I'm done spending my money on that stuff. I mean, 6 hours??? This is a 6 hour game, it looks this subpar, and has that many issues?
What's happening in some corners of gaming these days? On 360 and PS3 we have a glitchy tech demo pretty much, and on Wii we have a PS2 port waggle fest. My personal bottom line truth regarding this game is that if it wasn't Star Wars, I would never have even considered it. Now that I have finished considering it... Nope. Sorry. Think what you want to think Lucas Arts.
I say don't buy it. Buying subpar games just lets the developers know that, "hey why dont we just half ass this game and we're still gonna get money!" For me i only buy games i'm sure i will like. Everything else can just stay in the discount games bin.
Presentation - 6.0
Graphics - 6.5
Sound - 7.0
Gameplay - 8.0
Lasting Appeal - 7.0
The average of those scores is 6.9 not 7.8 ... ???
...game reviews are completely subjective. I mean, since when do scores of 6, 6.5, 7, 8 and 7 round out to a score of 7.8. What, does the reviewer sit there and go...heck, it feels like a 7.8 even though my breakdown scores come in at 6.9?