Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Catch-All

Gameraotaku wrote:
Thin_J wrote:

*edit*
Hopefully that impression doesn't hold, as the game's on the way from Gamefly.

Not to derail, but how the hell do you manage to get new release games from gamefly? I sent back a few games this week with SWTFU at the top of my list and they sent me my #9 pick instead! I have never, ever been able to get gamefly to send me a new title within 2 weeks of its release date. If it wasn't for my desire to replay titles I had passed by over the last few years I would have already cancelled my membership.

I don't know. This is the first time it's ever happened. It probably has to do with me sending my other game back on wednesday of last week and then proceeding to remove all the currently released titles from my list.

To be fair though, I've tried that one other time before this and it didn't work.

I did it for more than a year and got everything from Chromehounds to Grand Theft Auto (chronologically) in their first shipment.

There's basically 2 ways to use gamefly. You create a big list of all the games you'd like to play because you dont care when you play them, or you put down only the games you want, when you want them, because you know exactly what you want to play.

Yeah, GF is shipping this game to me now...only I'm not really interested after playing the demo. I just forgot to remove it from my queue. I've got NHL 09 and even CoD4 above it and they shipped me this.

I've had very good luck with the Polypusher maneuver lately. The only things in my queue aside from the soon-to-be-released game I want are games with even later release dates.

This morning I had a few spare moments, so I fired up the SWTFU demo. I enjoyed it as usual. Then I played the Devil May Cry 4 demo, and picked the boss fight. All I can say is DMC4's boss fight sure plays a lot better than SWTFU's boss fight.

DMC4 and SWTFU are both in my queue of "to buy when I have money." Might want to reconsider which order I get these games.

Im changing the maneuver name:

GameQueueFu or simply QueueFu

Much better

If I ever meet the person responsible for the game design for the Star Destroyer "moment" I'm going to punch him right in his idiotic face. Probably more than once. Actually I might keep going until he doesn't have any more teeth and all the bones in my hands are broken. Then I'll start kicking.

This is just plain horrid. What should be one of the coolest moments maybe in gaming history is not just annoying, but worst of all it's boring and it takes forever.

I think I've got about one more minute's worth of this in me before I send it back to Gamefly and pretend it doesn't exist.

I'm stuck trying to get to a couple of yellow holocrons in the full game. There's a part in the second level, after you've fought the first AT-ST in the room where you have to "Ascend the Tie Fighter Wings". The second time you come across a room like this, the wings are not moving. There's a red infinite energy holocron on your right as you come in the door.

In this room, I can see from the floor that there's one yellow cube on top of one of the wings and another one off near the ceiling, left, near corner as you come in the door. My obsession with collecting secrets is killing me right now. Does anyone know how to get those cubes? Does anyone know if I'm not supposed to be able to reach those right now?

Ah hah. Right after I ask the question, I find the answer.

Puzzle Spoiler wrote:

[color=white]On the floor there are TIE fighter wings, take one of them and "place" it in the wing elevator just to the right of the cube's elevator. Use your Force Grip to move it around, and you may have to play with it a bit to get it to rotate to the correct orientation before it will fit. Once it's in place, you should be able to jump (or double jump) to the cube.[/color]

Now on to the next cube.

I did end up finishing it. The Star Destroyer thing ended shortly after the rage post and the game went back to it's normal partially fun self.

I got a bit stuck on that one too Yoyo. I only figured it out after about ten minutes of jumping around and trying to stack things so I could reach one of the, uh, platforms.

I thought this was an excellent rental in which to set it to easy, see the sights, get the story (which was pretty good by modern Star Wars standards) and feel like a bad-ass. I generally don't like linear action games much these days, and I didn't want to have to redo a bunch of stuff, so as soon as that junkyard jedi (I love the idea of him going crazy and building the council members out of scrap) started annoying me by building junk giants evey three minutes I knew it was time to set it to 'apprentice' and just blow through it. The Star Destroyer thing took about a half-hour, but I did not have to do it more than once, thankfully.

The game really is great-looking, I think. And lifting three stormies and flinging them into distance never really got old. My gripes were mostly limited to the QTE's and the boss battles, the former suffering from unclear conditions of initiation, and the latter from unclear conditions of success. Whacking away at bosses to no effect was very strange... now I'll try this other ability, I guess! There were moments in those fights that had the spark of promise, like the animations for Starkiller blocking saber strikes, but it felt like it needed some stripping down and simplification. I know that's probably hard to do when you're working with both saber combat and the ability to rip junk of the walls and throw it at eachother.

There were some story points that seemed super rushed or from out of nowhere, one involving the droid towards the end of the game. I kept feeling like I missed stuff.

I really dug the setting of the very last level. Although if you read the novel 'Death Star', you'd know that testing the laser in such rapid succession was not really feasible. But it was testament to the franchise, I guess, that while I was running around there I was thinking about concurrent narratives from sh*tty books and intergrating them into some cumulative uber-story. That or it's a testament to wasted hours of my life.

I did a very quick search of the thread but couldn't find any Wii impressions? Did anyone try the Wii version?

Koning_Floris wrote:

I did a very quick search of the thread but couldn't find any Wii impressions? Did anyone try the Wii version?

Not likely, it seems like pretty much everyone was 360/PS3 or bust.

AnimeJ wrote:
Koning_Floris wrote:

I did a very quick search of the thread but couldn't find any Wii impressions? Did anyone try the Wii version?

Not likely, it seems like pretty much everyone was 360/PS3 or bust.

I'd be interested in hearing about how it plays on the Wii as well. Maybe the controls with the Wiimote and the nunchuk make you more willing to look over its flaws.

I wish I'd read this thread before I rented.

spoilers wrote:

[color=white]
I just cleared the junk world, and I am thoroughly Meh'd out by this. You're a badass Sith! No, wait, EVERY OTHER ENEMY HAS FORCE POWERS.
Controlling your minion is a pain in the ass.
And destructible environments? My ass.

What happened to the great part in the beginning when you were playing Vader, the incredible badass? Why don't I get to BE an incredible badass? *sigh*
[/color]

Rat Boy wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:
Koning_Floris wrote:

I did a very quick search of the thread but couldn't find any Wii impressions? Did anyone try the Wii version?

Not likely, it seems like pretty much everyone was 360/PS3 or bust.

I'd be interested in hearing about how it plays on the Wii as well. Maybe the controls with the Wiimote and the nunchuk make you more willing to look over its flaws.

My friend chose the Wii version and said this, regarding the Wiimote controls: "Totally annoying. Made an already imprecise game less precise."

Ignore him at your own peril!

Just finished the PS3 version. About 3/4 of the way through, I switched from Normal difficulty to Easy just so I could finish it for the story. The combat became really annoying for stupid reasons like lack of proper camera control. I also died a lot from falling into holes.

There was a mini-boss, the first time you fight a Junk Titan on Raxus Prime, I had to fight him about 16 times. I would say 4 or 5 of those times I beat him and then immediately fell into a pit thereafter, in a spot where it's not clear that there's a pit you can fall to your death. Damn level designer.

Also, I really wish they could've thought of a better way to do the Star Destroyer scene. It was neat in principle, but in implementation it was silly and out of place with the rest of the game. It might be my most disappointing gaming moment of 2008.

I am also angry that I couldn't get easily get both endings. Throughout the 4 or so times I've turned the game on, I've always just used the "Continue Game" option which spared me the trouble of managing save games. Just before the story fork at the end, I saved the game and it said, "Okay, Saved!" After skipping through the credits, the only save game I could find put me back at Level 2, although it said I had 8 hours and 22 minutes on the game already. So I have no idea what happened, but it seems I've made it impossible for me to get the other ending without going through the game again.

Okay, I'm done venting. Story-wise, I am actually quite satisfied. It's incredibly integrated with the plot from Episode IV, and as Tycho put it, "There are moments where it feels like new Star Wars, something I would never have thought possible." The "new" here isn't meant in terms of an original fresh take. The "new" here refers to an addition of the essential core of Star Wars, Episodes IV through VI. This addition is in tune with those movies. In other words, imagine time traveling back to 1985, two years after Episode VI debuted, and imagine Lucas putting out an Episode 3.5 that fit with the core movies. That's kinda what this is like.

Another chapter of the characters we love has been told. So the Star Wars fan in me is pleased. That's a good thing because I think he's the one that kept the gamer in me from putting my Sixaxis through a wall on multiple occasions. And now, the disc goes back to Gamefly.

Leia Voice: Hold me.

You're not off your rocker in that you think it's not a very good game, but maybe a bit off as far as being that completely negative about the entire thing. At least, compared to most of us. Other than the one moment that inspired pure hatred in me that I mentioned in here already, I had some fun with the game. It's frustrating at moments, the framerate is uneven, but there's positives there. Sure you never feel as powerful as you should, but the game's still ok. I think what hurts it most is just people's expectations for the game.

Oh, and for most of us the story is actually the main bright spot for the game, for instance. It really does feel like an old school Star Wars story, which is something we've not had out of that universe in any way for a long time. I really enjoyed that part of it.

Yoyoson wrote:

I am also angry that I couldn't get easily get both endings. Throughout the 4 or so times I've turned the game on, I've always just used the "Continue Game" option which spared me the trouble of managing save games. Just before the story fork at the end, I saved the game and it said, "Okay, Saved!" After skipping through the credits, the only save game I could find put me back at Level 2, although it said I had 8 hours and 22 minutes on the game already. So I have no idea what happened, but it seems I've made it impossible for me to get the other ending without going through the game again.

I forget exactly how to get to it. But, I chose to either start a new game, or continue after beating the game, and it started me at the first misssion but I was all powered up from the end of the game. Then all I had to do was press start, and "Choose Chapter" or something like that. I could then start at the last level. You have to do it all over again, but it's much easier the 2nd time. It's kind of dumb that you have to start the first mission to get to the stage select, and you can't skip the cut scene before it either.

Depending on the ending you went with the first time, if it was the "light side" ending you got the better one.

SirRockford wrote:
Yoyoson wrote:

I am also angry that I couldn't get easily get both endings. Throughout the 4 or so times I've turned the game on, I've always just used the "Continue Game" option which spared me the trouble of managing save games. Just before the story fork at the end, I saved the game and it said, "Okay, Saved!" After skipping through the credits, the only save game I could find put me back at Level 2, although it said I had 8 hours and 22 minutes on the game already. So I have no idea what happened, but it seems I've made it impossible for me to get the other ending without going through the game again.

I forget exactly how to get to it. But, I chose to either start a new game, or continue after beating the game, and it started me at the first misssion but I was all powered up from the end of the game. Then all I had to do was press start, and "Choose Chapter" or something like that. I could then start at the last level. You have to do it all over again, but it's much easier the 2nd time. It's kind of dumb that you have to start the first mission to get to the stage select, and you can't skip the cut scene before it either.

Depending on the ending you went with the first time, if it was the "light side" ending you got the better one.

Dang, that's one thing I didn't try. The disc is already in the mail. Thanks though. I did get the light side ending, and I guess I can wait till the other one comes out on Youtube.

Maybe this is a little late, but I did play it on the Wii.

I played the 360 version for maybe 3 hours. I don't own a 360, but my borther-in-law does, so we were playing pass-the-controller-back-and-forth style. I really enjoyed it. The graphics, the story, the powers, the unlocks, all made me wish I could play it on my own time.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and my boss tells me he bought it for the Wii. I wasn't sure I wanted to drop any cash on it, so this was perfect. He let me borrow it last night. It is a completely different game. The level design, the menus, and the mechanics are all significantly different.

The graphics are awful. I just want to get that out of the way. They look bad. For the first 15 minutes, I thought to myself, "Wow, this game is dark." I turned up the gamma and found out why. They're trying to hide bad textures and a serious case of the jaggies. If you've played the 360 version, do not for any reason look directly at the Wii version.

The levels are much smaller. I'm sure part of this is to reduce draw distances because of hardware limitations. I only played up through the Tie Fighter construction level on the Wii, but I enjoyed the 360 level so much more.

In the 360 version there are tons of unlockable abilities, powers, and combos. On the Wii, this has been reduced to one menu of about a dozen "Force Powers". The character customization was one of the reasons I wanted to play the 360 version so much. All things being equal, they would have lost me right there. Also, they don't have an objectives list for each mission. It's basically just "Get to the end."

Using Force powers and attacks is greatly simplified. You swing the remote to attack (GAAAAHH! I WANT TO MASH A BUTTON!). You push the nunchuck forward to Force Push (BLECH!). You use other combinations of buttons and gestures to do other stuff, but they didn't leave any way to control the camera. You have to just trust it to do it's job. You can't look up.

Luckily, you don't need to look up, because those holocrons aren't hiding. They're everywhere. But that doesn't matter because they don't actually help you level up or unlock abilities. The game told me I have 13/200. I don't know what happens at 200, but I'll never find out.

All of this points to one thing. They made a different version of the game not for the Wii, but for the Wii audience. I feel bad saying this, but they dumbed it down for "Wii users." I cannot recommend this to anyone. I'm going to have a hard time giving this back to my boss without saying, "Wow, this sucked."

And to top it all off, the apprentice doesn't hold the lightsaber with the reverse grip. He holds it like any normal Jedi. Shenanigans.

Lex Cayman wrote:

Maybe this is a little late, but I did play it on the Wii.

First, I played the 360 version for maybe 3 hours. I don't own a 360, but my borther-in-law does, so we were playing pass-the-controller-back-and-forth style. I really enjoyed it. The graphics, the story, the powers, the unlocks, all made me wish I could play it on my own time.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and my boss tells me he bought it for the Wii. I wasn't sure I wanted to drop any cash on it, so this was perfect. He let me borrow it last night. It is a completely different game. The level design, the menus, and the mechanics are all significantly different.

First, the graphics are awful. I just want to get that out of the way. They look bad. For the first 15 minutes, I thought to myself, "Wow, this game is dark." I turned up the gamma and found out why. They're trying to hide bad textures and a serious case of the jaggies. If you've played the 360 version, do not for any reason look directly at the Wii version.

The levels are much smaller. I'm sure part of this is to reduce draw distances because of hardware limitations. I only played up through the Tie Fighter construction level on the Wii, but I enjoyed the 360 level so much more.

In the 360 version there are tons of unlockable abilities, powers, and combos. On the Wii, this has been reduced to one menu of about a dozen "Force Powers". The character customization was one of the reasons I wanted to play the 360 version so much. All things being equal, they would have lost me right there. Also, they don't have an objectives list for each mission. It's basically just "Get to the end."

Using Force powers and attacks is greatly simplified. You swing the remote to attack (GAAAAHH! I WANT TO MASH A BUTTON!). You push the nunchuck forward to Force Push (BLECH!). You use other combinations of buttons and gestures to do other stuff, but they didn't leave any way to control the camera. You have to just trust it to do it's job. You can't look up.

Luckily, you don't need to look up, because those holocrons aren't hiding. They're everywhere. But that doesn't matter because they don't actually help you level up or unlock abilities. The game told me I have 13/200. I don't know what happens at 200, but I'll never find out.

All of this points to one thing. They made a different version of the game not for the Wii, but for the Wii audience. I feel bad saying this, but they dumbed it down for "Wii users." I cannot recommend this to anyone. I'm going to have a hard time giving this back to my boss without saying, "Wow, this sucked."

And to top it all off, the apprentice doesn't hold the lightsaber with the reverse grip. He holds it like any normal Jedi. Shenanigans.

Pretty much everything I'd expect out of a Wii. I own one and have to say it's an poor excuse for a next gen system. There are certain niche games that can shine on it, but for the main stream games that require some horsepower to run well don't expect it to be any good on the Wii.

I pretty much bought this thing for the new Super Smash Brothers game and only picked up Mario Kart since the purchase.

DLC incoming, Luke, Obi-Wan, Mundi, and Kit Fisto skins as well as a new stage set in the Jedi Temple.

So for those who enjoyed TFU (and i did... mostly), there's more to come.

I also got to play this game a bit on the Wii at a friends house. It was like an hour or something so nothing big. He already finished the game once, so I was playing his pumped up character. Note that I got into the game thinking it would be bad (because of things I heard) and not playing any other version. Coming into it like that it really wasn't all that bad. Yes, the camera sucks, and the controls are imprecise. Making combo's is very hard because of that. But I must say, I was having a lot of fun by throwing people around and I kinda liked the way you need to make a throwing motion with the nun-chuck to faceplant a guy into a wall. The sword fighting wasn't much fun, the swinging of the wii-mote doesn't work that well, and combined with the combo's which are hard to do make it less fun. Also there was no need for any saber action because I could just throw the guys around like muppets.

So it was definitely fun for the hour I played it, I am not sure how it would hold up for longer play time.

We also tried the duel mode, where you get to fight each other. It's kind of like a fighting game with added force and light sabers. The controls keep being clunky. It is fun to pick the other up and throw him down a pit. But it tended to end in a button mash for who pushed the force power button first. Also, when you get unleashed after dealing an X amount of damage to your opponent you get unlimited force power for a time. This is very very silly, because when you deal force lightning damage the other person is paralyzed. So when becoming unleashed you just need to move in close enough to zap the other and than keep zapping him until he dies. It's a 100% sure kill.

This mode was clearly tacked on and is hardly much fun.

I heard this game was also coming to the PC, I wonder how it will play there.

Koning_Floris wrote:

I heard this game was also coming to the PC, I wonder how it will play there.

Hopefully, it'll be the 360 version and I can just plug my 360 controller into my PC. I love doing that.

Just got it from Gamefly today. Just finished it today. Very, very short game with some fun segments but I agree with most everyone here; the Star Destroyer scene is bullsh*t, stop making me fall into pits, and for the love of God and all that is holy I. Do. Not. Want. Quicktime events! Still, the base combat was fun enough, even if I missed being able to decapitate Storm Troopers.

The story on the PS3 version felt really rushed. Maybe it would have been better if it'd been a longer game but the idea that Starkiller had so much change (good ending) in such a short time was a wee bit absurd and I couldn't really get to care about any of the characters. Maybe the novel's better, where they can actually flesh out the characters rather than having the cut scenes be 30 seconds between me swinging around my light-club at anonymous baddies.

I am certainly glad I rented it, it was a fun excursion but I don't see myself paying for DLC or actually shelling out cash for it. Damnit, why can't they just make a game like Jedi Knight 2 again? That was a quality Star Wars game.

I played an hour or two of my housemate's (PS3) copy, and while I want to like it, it's just not clicking with me somehow.

doomcryer wrote:

Anyone remember a little game called Black & White? I played through The Force Unleashed last night, and it reminded me eerily of that game. I found myself doing lots of the same things. Like picking up a rock, charging the rock, and throwing it so far that I can't really see where it's going, but I hope it hits it's targets.

A thousand times yes - except my aim was at least 10x better in B&W than in TFU. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, although that may be down to my predominantly PC heritage.

Oh, and Yahtzee gave the game his usual entertainingly angry review of it this week, but most of his bile was directed at Wii-related issues.

This game is seriously pissing me off when I play. There's so much squandered potential here and it mostly revolves around the saber fighting -- the one thing you absolutely must not screw up in a game where you play a fricking Jedi. Lesson number one, the basic attack has to be effective enough to at least cause the bad guys to stumble while you ramp up to further combos. See: Ninja Gaiden and/or damn near every Japanese brawler ever made. Or God of War.

Lesson two: blocking should be immediate. If I can't break off an attack I initiated to block in response to a new enemy moving in, all you're doing is telling me to run away constantly until I'm in a stronger position. It's BORING. There's no flow at all when you're in the thick of it. None.

I could go on and on. Nothing is more infuriating than wasted potential. It could have been so good.

Certis wrote:

I could go on and on. Nothing is more infuriating than wasted potential. It could have been so good.

Why does this quote sound so familiar, nowadays, with anything Star Wars related?

On a more on-topic note, I'm glad to hear the honest, mixed reaction from this group, as I was so looking forward to this game. Looks to me like an under-$20 used copy come February might be the prescription for those of us who haven't bought it yet.

I'd say rent it or find it for under five bucks. It's like a six hour game and the replay value of the 360/PS3 version seems pretty minimal unless you're really into collect-a-thons.