[Pre-E3 2008] A Show of Force
We finally go hands-on with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and have the full scoop inside.
Published: July 7, 2008
The boys and girls at LucasArts have an awful lot of responsibility on their hands. Nevermind the fact that most Star Wars games have been... well, let's call them "less than stellar." The Jedi Knight games have been relatively solid, as were the X-Wing/TIE Fighter, but console games haven't quite had the same track record (okay, fine, we'll admit that we dug Star Wars: Racer Revenge, and the Battlefront games were good, but nowhere near their PC counterparts). Even still, the onus right now isn't on LucasArts' internal teams to make just a good Star Wars console game, it's to link -- as cannon -- the bits of story between Episode III and Episode IV.
Luckily, as we discovered while finally getting our hands on a playable version of the next-gen Force Unleashed the potential to actually create an interactive bridge between the original and new trilogies is most certainly there. In fact, after learning the controls and seeing the scale of what they're trying to do, we're genuinely excited about what the game could add to the Star Wars mythos -- to say nothing of getting a game that actually gives you the sense that you're in control of a guy who is supercharged with The Force.
If for some reason you haven't been following the game, here's the Cliffs Notes version: you are Darth Vader's secret apprentice. Discovered as a child during a visit by Vader to Kashyyyk to destroy a Jedi as part of Order 66 (read: the systematic search and slaughter of every Jedi in the galaxy), you've been raised under Vader himself's tutelage away from the prying eyes of not only the Emperor, but everyone else out there. Thus, as an unknown, anywhere you go is fraught with danger from both the Empire itself and the Rebellion.
It's that origin story that we were finally able to see first-hand as we snuck into LucasArts a bit before E3 to get the full run-down of what would be shown. It was, in a word, promising. The potential, as already mentioned, of doing something that's actually cannon is impossible to overstate, and through some careful middleware deals, LucasArts' own internal teams have been hard at work building a world that lives up to that kind of hype -- namely Digital Molecular Matter for realistically modeling stuff like wood and metals (and how they react when, say, a Storm Trooper is launched into them or blasted with a huge Force push) and euphoria to give the characters their own digital brains.
Both were put to good use as we, in the shoes of Vader himself, stomped through Kashyyyk -- literally. Vader doesn't run; oh no, he stomps with impunity, flinging Wookies to and fro like so many pieces of paper. Rocks? Psshhh, Vader don't worry 'bout no rocks, he just picks them up with a little Force Grip and flings 'em into whatever he wants. Though the movesets between Vader and his eventual pupil are more or less shared, the Big Black Brute did have one difference: instead of Force Lightning, he had a Force Blast, which could be powered up and then unleashed.
When we did so in a couple different places, the results were spectacular. On a suspension bridge, the entire bridge bucked and undulated. Near a huge tree, the bark was blown completely off and near a seemingly sturdy covered area, the entire roof and supports were ripped from their base and sent sailing down below. The view, incidentally, was breathtaking.
Luckily, as we discovered while finally getting our hands on a playable version of the next-gen Force Unleashed the potential to actually create an interactive bridge between the original and new trilogies is most certainly there. In fact, after learning the controls and seeing the scale of what they're trying to do, we're genuinely excited about what the game could add to the Star Wars mythos -- to say nothing of getting a game that actually gives you the sense that you're in control of a guy who is supercharged with The Force.
If for some reason you haven't been following the game, here's the Cliffs Notes version: you are Darth Vader's secret apprentice. Discovered as a child during a visit by Vader to Kashyyyk to destroy a Jedi as part of Order 66 (read: the systematic search and slaughter of every Jedi in the galaxy), you've been raised under Vader himself's tutelage away from the prying eyes of not only the Emperor, but everyone else out there. Thus, as an unknown, anywhere you go is fraught with danger from both the Empire itself and the Rebellion.
It's that origin story that we were finally able to see first-hand as we snuck into LucasArts a bit before E3 to get the full run-down of what would be shown. It was, in a word, promising. The potential, as already mentioned, of doing something that's actually cannon is impossible to overstate, and through some careful middleware deals, LucasArts' own internal teams have been hard at work building a world that lives up to that kind of hype -- namely Digital Molecular Matter for realistically modeling stuff like wood and metals (and how they react when, say, a Storm Trooper is launched into them or blasted with a huge Force push) and euphoria to give the characters their own digital brains.
Both were put to good use as we, in the shoes of Vader himself, stomped through Kashyyyk -- literally. Vader doesn't run; oh no, he stomps with impunity, flinging Wookies to and fro like so many pieces of paper. Rocks? Psshhh, Vader don't worry 'bout no rocks, he just picks them up with a little Force Grip and flings 'em into whatever he wants. Though the movesets between Vader and his eventual pupil are more or less shared, the Big Black Brute did have one difference: instead of Force Lightning, he had a Force Blast, which could be powered up and then unleashed.
When we did so in a couple different places, the results were spectacular. On a suspension bridge, the entire bridge bucked and undulated. Near a huge tree, the bark was blown completely off and near a seemingly sturdy covered area, the entire roof and supports were ripped from their base and sent sailing down below. The view, incidentally, was breathtaking.
