- Nov 16, 2006
- 6,815
- 7,171
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The Force Unleashed 2 kinda sucks. There. There is your review. If you have $5 and need to mainline Star Wars crap, buy it.
It's the product of an absolutely brutal 8 month development cycle and, I mean this in the most underhanded way possible, it's incredible what Lucasarts was able to accomplish in that time.
If you're not familiar, and let's be honest why would you be, The Force Unleashed 2 is a hack and slash third person brawler type game set in the Star Wars universe.
You are Galen Marek, the secret apprentice of Darth Vader between the fall of the old Republic and the rise of the empire. Your purpose is to hunt down and kill the remaining Jedi that escaped Order 66. You don't do that. You try and get your dick wet instead.
Star Wars is so tropic (as in adheres closely to tropes) to the point where I think it actually actively interferes with game design.
The levels are just linear garbage. Literally run from one tediously boring room to the next. Combat mechanics are nearly non existent thanks to a persistent delay between animations that makes any sort of fine timing worthless. Get the Force Detonate ability and spam forever.
Enemy types are also more frustrating than tactical, with your standard "I am a medpac that moves" trooper Cannon fodder to weird phasing robots and sith acolytes. You can tell someone tried somewhere along the line to make an enemy that was vulnerable to Sabers, another that was vulnerable to the force, another where you have to block, dodge, etc etc etc. The controls are just so damn unresponsive that it never really seems to matter in the end.
Also, holy QuickTime events, Batman! They're everywhere in this game, and they are a gaming trend I will never miss.
Th graphics and physics are quite good, but in an ugly sort of way. A product of its time, TFU2 is the kind of game that looks great in static images, but as you play you realize the sterile level design and harsh/bland color pallets of the Star Wars universe are wasted on what could have been a really beautiful experience.
There were a few glimmers shining through this mountain of mediocrity however. The story often threatens to become interesting with a "are you the original or the copy" cloning plot that never gets fully fleshed out. Force powers are mapped to controller buttons cleanly and there is a tight upgrade tree that clearly isn't interested in dicking you around. All the powers are moderately useful in combat.
I also really liked the whole "what if" nature of the game (similar to TFU 1). Nothing that happens here is cannon to the Star Wars universe, so why not explore what crazy crap would happen if Vader trained an apprentice? However, again, it's an angle that never gets fully fleshed out.
The game ends on a choice that let's you choose the light or dark side. But why end there? That would have been an incredible mid-point split for the game to go in two totally separate narrative directions for the last half.
The whole game really felt like a demo of a much larger game someone had in mind, but we really only got a quarter of the beats. The game is incredibly short, clocking in at 6 hours for me, and that includes some idle fluff time on the menu while I went and made myself some dinner or something. The game even has the nerve to squeeze a backtracking level in those 6 hours of playtime!
Yes, TFU2 is another power trip game. It does well on that front. But it really made me realize that what I actually want from Star Wars is GOD DAMN KOTOR 3 ALREADY GOD DAMN IT!
JUST MAKE A KOTOR 3 ALREADY YOU BASTARDS AND JUST SIT BACK AND WATCH THE MONEY FLOW IN JESUS CHRIST! DO YOU HATE MONEY?! OF COURSE YOU DONT YPU'RE DISNEY AND EA/BIOWARE FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!
Ok I'll end on that note.
It's the product of an absolutely brutal 8 month development cycle and, I mean this in the most underhanded way possible, it's incredible what Lucasarts was able to accomplish in that time.
If you're not familiar, and let's be honest why would you be, The Force Unleashed 2 is a hack and slash third person brawler type game set in the Star Wars universe.
You are Galen Marek, the secret apprentice of Darth Vader between the fall of the old Republic and the rise of the empire. Your purpose is to hunt down and kill the remaining Jedi that escaped Order 66. You don't do that. You try and get your dick wet instead.
Star Wars is so tropic (as in adheres closely to tropes) to the point where I think it actually actively interferes with game design.
The levels are just linear garbage. Literally run from one tediously boring room to the next. Combat mechanics are nearly non existent thanks to a persistent delay between animations that makes any sort of fine timing worthless. Get the Force Detonate ability and spam forever.
Enemy types are also more frustrating than tactical, with your standard "I am a medpac that moves" trooper Cannon fodder to weird phasing robots and sith acolytes. You can tell someone tried somewhere along the line to make an enemy that was vulnerable to Sabers, another that was vulnerable to the force, another where you have to block, dodge, etc etc etc. The controls are just so damn unresponsive that it never really seems to matter in the end.
Also, holy QuickTime events, Batman! They're everywhere in this game, and they are a gaming trend I will never miss.
Th graphics and physics are quite good, but in an ugly sort of way. A product of its time, TFU2 is the kind of game that looks great in static images, but as you play you realize the sterile level design and harsh/bland color pallets of the Star Wars universe are wasted on what could have been a really beautiful experience.
There were a few glimmers shining through this mountain of mediocrity however. The story often threatens to become interesting with a "are you the original or the copy" cloning plot that never gets fully fleshed out. Force powers are mapped to controller buttons cleanly and there is a tight upgrade tree that clearly isn't interested in dicking you around. All the powers are moderately useful in combat.
I also really liked the whole "what if" nature of the game (similar to TFU 1). Nothing that happens here is cannon to the Star Wars universe, so why not explore what crazy crap would happen if Vader trained an apprentice? However, again, it's an angle that never gets fully fleshed out.
The game ends on a choice that let's you choose the light or dark side. But why end there? That would have been an incredible mid-point split for the game to go in two totally separate narrative directions for the last half.
The whole game really felt like a demo of a much larger game someone had in mind, but we really only got a quarter of the beats. The game is incredibly short, clocking in at 6 hours for me, and that includes some idle fluff time on the menu while I went and made myself some dinner or something. The game even has the nerve to squeeze a backtracking level in those 6 hours of playtime!
Yes, TFU2 is another power trip game. It does well on that front. But it really made me realize that what I actually want from Star Wars is GOD DAMN KOTOR 3 ALREADY GOD DAMN IT!
JUST MAKE A KOTOR 3 ALREADY YOU BASTARDS AND JUST SIT BACK AND WATCH THE MONEY FLOW IN JESUS CHRIST! DO YOU HATE MONEY?! OF COURSE YOU DONT YPU'RE DISNEY AND EA/BIOWARE FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!
Ok I'll end on that note.
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