"The Force Unleashed" is a skilled Jedi Knight but fails to make the grade of Jedi Master...
The game's engine creates several wonderful looking worlds that replicates the look and feel of the Star Wars universe to a high degree. The player models in particular have been done with great care and its only fitting that a Star Wars game hits high marks when it comes to the visual stage. My favourite part of the engine is the cutscenes because of the amazing facial technology that makes the characters look and move like real people...truly amazing work.
The voice acting is superb and what you expect from a big budget game set in the Star Wars universe. All of the characters sound real and the standard of acting from everyone is good enough to be used in a movie or TV show. The soundtrack is excellent and uses the music from the Star Wars franchise perfectly, really adding to the games theme and story.
The first problems occur with the gameplay and its down to the actual theme of the game "The Force". Personally its was very bold of the game devs to go with the force over the lightsabre as the main weapon of the game but for gaming it just doesn't quite work as well as it should. The targeting system can be a little jumpy at times making it hard to lock onto the right target. The vast combos don't help either trying to remember everything when in the midst of a heated exchange. The visual effect of using the powers is great to watch but its the boss battles that suffer the most from the force powers because instead of having high intense, fast paced exciting sabre battles, the amount of force usage going off affects the pacing of such battles making some tiresome, boring, unbalanced and repetitive.
The A.I is nothing special at all and probably the weakest part of the entire game. Most enemies provide little challenge though the bigger tougher foes can be a match for you however the pattern to killing them is so repetitive the biggest challenge might be not giving in to boredom rather than in-game death. Some of the boss battles feel a little unbalanced with how they can use the force and the dark side ending with the Vader battle is awful with the only way to beat him is to use a set pattern of movements and attacks something that was common in the 80's and early 90's of gaming and has no place in this day & age...Not to mention 5 minutes before that section, Vader was much easier to defeat begging the question what happened to him in those 5 minutes to make him tougher.
The Force Unleashed's story is fantastic and feels like something worthy of the Star Wars Universe, infact I would say its one of the best stories told in gaming to date. Despite a few bugs and uneven gameplay with average A.I, the game is still fun to play and probably worth 2 playthroughs despite its linear nature. The visuals, characters and story alone make the game a must for any Star Wars fan though don't hold the same hopes for the sequel.