Kashyyyk's system of glorified tree forts regularly crept out over massive chasms, and all while we stomped Vader around, using our Force Blast to tear through massive wooden doors and push Wookies around like they weighed nothing, we took in the sights of an Imperial bombardment. TIE fighters screamed through the skies, shooting at far-off targets. Wookies in the distance duked it out against impossible odds. Storm Troopers goose-stepped their way around.

And Vader just kept on stomping himself. The kind of power afforded by an untapped source of the Dark Side is intoxicating. Just as it was in the tragically underappreciated Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, picking up psychics-powered things and just flinging them around is a blast. Even more fun? Picking up a Wookie and then impaling him on a light saber, then flinging him into a nearby buddy. Yes, it's good to be bad.

After slicing, dicing, flinging and smashing out way through the area, we finally came upon our intended target: a Jedi hiding out. A duel commenced, and while at first it seemed fairly straightforward, things quickly got intense. When LucasArts says The Force is unleashed, they aren't kidding. The Jedi began pulling TIE fighters out of the sky and hurling them at the ground. He would buck against Force Grips and would repel light saber attacks. He would Force Push and flip around and... well, unfortunately a Darth's gotta do what a Darth's gotta do.

Except that before it can be done, his light saber is pulled from his hands by none other than a small boy. Taking the boy under his wing (but not before crushing the throat of his combatant), he stomps off to raise him away from prying eyes.

It's here that the game changes over, dropping you into the Apprentice's shoes and letting you go nuts in a TIE fighter factory. We sadly didn't get to move all the way through this level, but we were able to play around with his Force powers. Though the Apprentice wasn't fully unleashed yet, his powers were indeed considerable. It was entirely possible to pull a TIE fighter from the ceiling and send it flying into troopers below, other TIE fighters (that was the mission, after all: to wipe out everything), and he even has something of a short dash to get in close. Agile, speedy and pleasantly powerful right from the start, the Apprentice showed plenty of promise.

Hell, all of The Force Unleashed does, in fact. We can't wait until the game is just a bit farther along to allow us to actually sit down and play through the adventure properly, but at least our limited time with the game was encouraging enough for us to come away plenty excited. The core technologies in place really do seem like more than just bullet points on some fact sheet. As we mentioned in our previous coverage, the applications of the tech is more than just gimmicky extras, and we're absolutely psyched to see how the full game is going to turn out. Promises that the game actually ramps up in both its set pieces and situations made us all atwitter with excitement. Here's hoping this is the first of many pleasant surprises heading into E3. We'll have more soon.