Feel the power of the Darkside!!!!!
Players take the role of Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice, named Starkiller for his Special Operations. He his armed with a Lightsaber and Force Powers. Starkiller isn't the main attraction in the game though, he has a droid companion named PROXY whom provides the humor of the story and information on certain problems along the way. Going in-deaph, PROXY's programing has him being a training droid that simulates real danger, therefore trying to kill Starkiller. Ahhh we move on to Juno, Juno Eclipse the pilot of Starkiller's Ship "The Rogue Shadow" and is the love interest for Starkiller. Juno was born on Corulag and was leading the Black Five in bombing Callos.
The Gameplay puts the Force in your hands and gives you unpresidented power. But control issues are a really big problem. In many games, when jumping your character does squat but for a slight time before jumping no problem. In the Force Unleashed, you can actually see Starkiller preparing for a jump, making you get shot because you didn't press A early. When getting knocked down, he takes a VERY long time to get back up, and having you get shot by a Dark Trooper's rocket 3 times by the same guard, therefore making him have the worst recovery time in any video game. In other words, delay is a really big problem in this game.
There are major bugs in this game too! I find myself getting knocked down but then start sliding across the floor! I can't get up until I stop but I can still take damage when getting shot, making me helpless as a kitten in a tree. I've fell through the level and was seeing recorded images of me everytime I moved (Halo 3 had the same problem on the last level). About 20 seconds later, I saw so many Starkillers, I thought I was doing the Naruto Chapter Book Attack to a Sarlacc! The last level had this "DEFAULT TEXT" thing and the Force Points and Holocron objectives didn't record. I thought that since the level was glitched, the achievement was glitched too! I did my Sith Master game and burned through it, collecting any Holocrons I spotted along the way. I make it to the last level and it says "NONE" for my first bonus objective and the Force Points and Holocrons actually recorded! Now I had to go and collect every Holocron I missed without getting shot up by chainguns and dying! I did eventually though.
The Force maybe in your hands but the increasing enemy types makes you powerless. What the hell is it with 4 Snipers, 3 EVO Troopers, 2 Stormtroopers, 4 Dark Troopers and 2 AT-ST's?! I understand Halo, Chief has a whole army on his side and vehecles and cover. You, on the other hand have enemies everywhere you want to cover, no army or shield, and no vehecles, in fact, the vehecles attack you! All Lightsaber duel bosses are resistent to your "unleashed" force powers almost all the time! You can only Grip someone mainly after using the Aeriel Assault combo. If you beat up a Jedi too long, they will get up and while your still attacking, you are damaging them but they're not staggering. That always have me hacking a combo but then they give me a "C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-Combo Breaker!" all because of the no stun. I beat Kota easily in Stage 1 but dies like 9 times on Kazdan Paratus in Stage 2..........Stage 2!!!!!!!!!! Something you'd expect from DMC but Hayden and Lucas pulled it off here.
A wealthy experience dumbfound by bugs, control issues, camera issues (which I forgot to mention in this review), and crazy difficulty. Jedi Academy is still the Star Wars King of Games in my book, but there's 1 Trial this game did not fail in, and that is getting the Force right!