Game diary – The Force Unleashed demo
Played through the demo a few times now & feel fairly impressed by what I have seen, although it is a very short example of a level from the game.
With only a short cut-scene at the very beginning, that features Darth Vader & his secret apprentice, not much is given away with regards to the storyline/plot.
What is highlighted to a degree, is the skills upgrade that is invoked during gameplay with each new upgrade being announced via a pause in the gameplay. Makes me wonder though, with what regularity this will occur in the full game & if it could become slightly annoying after a while?
The level itself is rather bland in styling but other settings in the game do look to be an improvement on this – a quick preview of these can be seen after you complete the demo.
Most of the full game features have been turned off for the demo, so there’s no chance to look over how you can create your own lightsaber etc. The force powers that can be dealt out in-game work well enough & the lightsaber combat itself feels right with good use of animations & sound.
The only real concern I had from playing the demo, was that the camera gets stuck a little bit behind the action. A number of times it felt that the camera had a life of it’s own & wanted to escape from the scene.
The Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo is avaliable to download via the PSN, now.
Tags: LucasArts
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August 29, 2008 at 8:00 pm
I like the demo. I’m left with the impression that the full game will have a decent amount of replayability, though it looks like the level design is strictly linear. It’s difficult aiming sometimes, but I’ve read that you get used to it.
Some things that might not be obvious:
– Timing your lightsaber swings matters. I haven’t tried this yet, but I’ve read about it.
– There are temporary power-ups. There’s one behind a door that can be smashed open. Another can be found in the hangar by jumping on the ship and then up to a walkway. The two power-ups have different effects.
I plan on picking up Unleashed sometime, but it will likely be months down the line. After my Spore and Fable 2 preorders, I think LOTR: Conquest, Warhammer Online, and Fallout 3 are next on my list.
August 29, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Something I discovered on playthrough 3 that made the whole experience ten times more fun. You can throw around the tie fighters, and catch the strafers in midair after they’ve passed you.
August 30, 2008 at 1:33 am
@ Aaron I found the power-ups & agree that lightsaber swing timings are important considering most targets need at least 2-3 hits to take down.
I really hope the storyline is well thought through…
@ Sara I tried that & found them very hard to control, once you have them under your control. Very much like Luke Skywalker on Dagobah with X-Wing in the drink.
September 19, 2008 at 1:54 am
[...] I came away from playing the demo with very little excitement & it had occurred to me that if the storyline turned out to be weak then this would probably kill the whole experience for me. Funny thing is, Tom surmises that the writing is good in the game but the rest, the gameplay etc, is sloppy/underdone – I’m unlikely to look or give time over to Star Wars:The Force Unleashed, anytime soon. [...]
September 24, 2008 at 3:01 pm
[...] my lukewarm reaction to the demo of Star Wars The Force Unleashed, coupled with some earlier doubts that I had posted about the game, it doesn’t come as a [...]