Like almost every Lucas Arts title, it fails to please.
Well, imagine my surprise when launch day arrives. I gleefully run to my nearest Blockbuster video store and I buy the highly anticipated title, ready to battle some sith and save the galaxy... again.
I get home, I boot up the good ol' PS3 and I remove Metal Gear Solid 4 from the disc vacuum, for the first time all summer, and I slide in the new Star Wars title.
I laugh at the introductory animation as the little Lucas Arts man plays with lightsabers and lightening, I begin to get giddy when I hear the title menu music begin. I practically wet myself when the classic Star Wars intro theme bursts into full chorus and those classic yellow letters scroll up my screen.
And then I'm playing. Oh how good it feels to start off as the Dark Lord of the Sith... who is really slow. But, none the less, the imperial march sets me off as I kill wookies and storm troopers alike, I'm not a stickler for details, and I reach a Jedi boss fight.
Problem #1: Boss fights. Why... I only just started the game, why is this guy kicking my ass so hard? It might be my fault for picking 'Normal' instead of Easy, but if the ass whooping I just got is any indication of Hard, then I don't think I'll even attempt that one. Why did I suck so bad? Well, one thing, it is really difficult to aim your force attacks when the camera is locked in position, also when your character is all black and it can sometimes be tricky to see what direction he is facing especially with explosions going on and the enemy attacking you. (Of course I later found out there was a lock on button but I didn't know that for this fight and thus I had an issue.)
So I finish that first "level" of the game rather satisfied. I moved on to the second level... which was a lot like the first except I was significantly weaker since I was now "Starkiller" (Which was a brilliant use of a name that was deemed unusable the first time it was suggested). So, most of the level was pretty easy, nothing really bothersome about the game thus far. I beat it, it was fun. Then I beat level two, which struck a huge resemblance to the first level... and then level three... and then level four... and so on. By this point I was getting pretty bored. Because, and here is my biggest problem with this game, it is a linear action game. There is no open exploration, there is no world (or galactic) map. It drops you in a level, you kill the bad guys, you kill the boss, rinse and repeat.
The boss fights are all the same, force push them over, hit them a few times, get in a saber/force lock, win, they die, you hit a button sequence, congrats you did it! It can get very, very, very boring. Just like most linear action games.
The levelling up system is nothing new either, you get your points, you spend them, you get a new combo that you'll probably never use.
Now, I've been rather harsh on the game but there are some highlights. I did enjoy tossing around storm troopers with the force, into one another, into my lightsaber, into the flame barriers.
I gave this game a 6/10 because, while I had some problems with the controls and the tedious boss fights the sections of the game where you're just running and slashing can be very fun and there are some parts of the game that are just plain awesome. It's not totally bad, but it isn't anything special.