Nowhere is the tech more obvious, however, than when we were plopped onto the spongy, giant mushroom-covered world of Felucia (a planet that was only seen for a few second in Episode III, but will play a big part in The Force Unleashed), where a massive Force Blast that would normally send any nearby enemies flying actually caused the ground to undulate and a sea of massive mushrooms to sway under the force of the blast. To say it was impressive would be an understatement. Felucia, which was also home to a handful of mini-boss fights of sorts where rancors highlighted one of the game's more interesting ideas: Force powers can be chained.

We saw a bit of it in the TIE Fighter factory where the demo first started and we were treated to the basics of combat (light and heavy attacks can be mixed up simply by pressing light or hard on the face buttons), but with the rancor fights, it was more obvious. Force-sensitive enemies could be charged with Force Lightning (yep, just like the stuff Palpatine uses) and then thrown like little living bombs into the rancor to light it up. Back in the TIE factory, a Force Grab could be used to hold an enemy in place before executing a Devil May Cry-like serious of light saber combos. Even in an early stage, the fights look nice and smooth, with plenty of variety. Better still, varying up moves nets you experience and the ability to upgrade Force powers and moves, even incorporating, say, a Force Blast into the end of a light saber string.

All of this came to a head when we got a chance to see Raxus Prime, a massive intergalactic junk dump. Like all things Star Wars, though, it wasn't just a pile of debris. Mag lanes weave absolutely epic streams of floating bits of hull, engine parts and other metallic refuse in criss-crossing invisible streams all across the sky. It, along with the ability to literally pluck almost anything from the air or ground and toss it around with The Force and heavy use of thick, murky shafts of light gave the junk planet a truly next-gen feel. The trip across the planet wasn't just for kicks, though; a Jedi by the name of Kazdan Paratus was apparently holed up and teaching those that would learn the ways of the Force -- a big no-no in Darth Vader's world.

Kazdan, though diminutive, is a Clone Wars vet, and as such his Force abilities were impressive. In addition to being able to literally sculpt automatons from the junk around him, he scurried all around an arena (a junk recreation of the Jedi Council of old, actually) with a set of robotic, spider-like legs. This was impressive not only because it allowed for the creation of not only little enemies but massive junk golems. Another thing to note: thanks to DMM and the heavy physics-based nature of the world, as the fight goes on, the makeshift arena that the boss fight with Kazdan takes place in will slowly be torn apart piece by piece until there's nothing left.

The sheer level of potential that The Force Unleashed packs is, frankly, stunning. The game was indeed early, frequently hitching and chugging in parts, but if the three wildly different environments were any indication -- and bear in mind we only peeked at stuff from the first third of the game -- LucasArts could be quite literally sculpting entire chunks of the Star Wars universe that can be explored. And best of all, you get to do it as a guy that relishes giving in to excess and brazenly flaunting his knowledge and ability in The Force. Badass? Yeah, we'd say so.