Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Hands On Preview

As if to prove that it wasn't kidding with the title of its latest Star Wars game, LucasArts has positioned Darth Vader as the first playable character in The Force Unleashed. Make no mistake; you'll be playing as the dark lord himself, complete with his wide array of force powers, in the very first level of The Force Unleashed. That means you'll be able to perform force chokes, lightsaber throws, and force pushes from the outset, which is certainly a novelty for this kind of Star Wars game where you usually have to develop your powers as the game unravels. Your time with Vader soon comes to an end though, with a tear jerking twist (more on that later).

In the opening level, Vader trawls through the Wookie home-world of Kashyyyk in search of one of the remaining Jedi following Order 66 (The Force Unleashed is set between Star Wars III and IV). Throughout the proceedings LucasArts has made sure that the game's cutting edge technology (i.e. Pixelux's Digital Molecule Matter and Natural Motion's Euphoria engine) is shown off in excess. You'll be treated to scripted events of Vader blasting through heavily reinforced gates with his force powers, the result of which is contorted metal and flying shards of wood. This is thanks to Pixelux's Digital Molecule Matter (DMM), which ensures that the reinforced gate in question will break up differently with each subsequent playthrough.

Then there's the Euphoria engine, which gamers will know best for its work on GTA IV. Thanks to this tech, NPCs react to in-game physical stimulus with a wide variety of animations and movements. Put another way, if you pick-up a Wookie with Darth's force powers then they'll flail around erratically in the air, while dispensing with them down nearby cliffs results in the Wookie bouncing cringingly off each jagged rock before coming to a twisted rest at the foot of the drop. In fact, using your force powers to play around with the Euphoria engine was one of the most enjoyable aspects of our hands on - we particularly enjoyed dragging around stormtroopers so that they link up and form chains (our record was three).

The thing is, from what we could gather during our hands on, it looks like LucasArts has simply gotten hold of this technology and shoehorned it into the game at every available opportunity. It just didn't feel like the developer had spent time to integrate the tech so that it blends seamlessly into the game world. Instead, it sticks out a bit like Darth Vader at a youngling's funeral. At one point you can use your force powers to bend a metal girder (Pixelux's DMM at work again) into the flight path of oncoming TIE Fighters, which is good fun (don't get us wrong), but the resulting carnage feels a bit contrived and excessively forced unfortunately. Hopefully LucasArts will be able to blend these features of the game a bit more seamlessly in the remaining development time and smooth out the end product as a result.

A New Moon Rises

You may be wondering why you'll be flinging stormtroopers around in The Force Unleashed, even though it's fun enough to require no explanation whatsoever (a bit like bullseyeing womprats). Nevertheless, all sides of the force (i.e. surviving Jedi, rebel fighters, and stormtroopers) are your enemy in the game. This is because the protagonist is Vader's secret apprentice, who's introduced at the end of the first level. When Vader comes across a surviving Jedi (Kento) on Kashyyyk and has defeated him with his lightsaber skills, the game moves into a cut-scene where Vader holds the Jedi in a force choke. "I sense a much more powerful force nearby. Where is your master?" Vader asks courteously, much to the protestations of the Jedi who claims that Vader killed his master years ago. The camera then pans around to reveal a child (evidently Jedi Kento's son) who's cheekily nicked Vader's saber using the force. Vader then decides to take the child on as his secret apprentice (after dispensing with his father, of course).

Lord Vader sets his secret apprentice (called Starkiller) various tasks across the galaxy, all of which require tracking down and killing Order 66 Jedi survivors, which forms the basic format of each level in the game. Players must move through levels leaving nothing and nobody alive (primarily rebel fighters and stormtroopers in the levels we played), so that there are no witnesses and the Emperor doesn't sense Starkiller's presence. Levels then culminate in a boss battle with the Jedi fugitive, with the endgame of each battle culminating in an interactive cut-scene. These interactive cut-scenes will also crop-up when you battle some of the mini-bosses throughout the game. We spotted one Rancor mini-boss during our hands on (the same as the pit monster underneath Jabba's palace at the beginning of Return of the Jedi), so it looks like there should be a range of fairly challenging beasties on show.

While you start off the game with Darth Vader and his menagerie of force powers, you'll have to build up Starkiller's abilities throughout the rest of the game. As well as a health meter that replenishes with enemy kills, Starkiller also has a force meter that refills when you're not using a force power. These powers start off fairly basic (e.g. basic lightsaber slashes, force grabs, and a force dash), but they soon expand as you unlock further powers and combo moves that incorporate these abilities.

The progression of Starkiller's character through his powers seems to have quite a bit of depth to it. His traits are ranged throughout three different categories: Powers, Talents, and Combos. Powers form your basic force abilities such as Lightning, Grip, Lightsaber Throw, Lightning Shield, and something called Repulse (which is basically a blast that emanates from Starkiller in all directions). Then there are your talents which, from what we could gather, determine the strength and magnitude of Starkiller's abilities (e.g. Force Focus, Vitality, Resilience, Battle Meditation, Saber Mastery, and Combo Mastery). Finally, the combos offer a wider degree of variation to the basic saber attacks that you start the game with, while also incorporating other force powers where possible. The saber slam, for example, brings together lightsaber attacks with a force push. You can then ramp this combo up as the game progresses to perform additional swipes with the saber and more powerful force pushes.

LucasArts' Adam Kahn spoke to us about some of the other combo permutations in a TVG Q&A recently and the system certainly looks ranged enough to require quite a bit of mastery. While he suggests that there are 23 different combo variations in the game, we actually counted 27 when we took a sneak peak during our hands on. I suppose we'll have to wait and see how the preview code we played compares with the final version when it's released in a couple of month's time.

Never Trust A Sith Lord

[Spoiler Warning]

Of course, The Force Unleashed is destined to have a fairly dark ending. Everything is pretty dark side throughout the game and you can hardly imagine its story ending with Darth Vader extending a paternal hug to the tortured soul of Starkiller. LucasArts did treat us to a cut-scene towards the end of the game where Starkiller returns to Vader after a mission, only to be lightsabered in the stomach by his master. The Emperor's appearance on the scene soon reveals why: Palpatine explains to Vader - as Starkiller writhes around in pain - that his spies followed the apprentice on his last mission. The Emperor then gives Vader a slap on the wrist by telling him not to do it again (which seems a bit tame to be honest) and goes about his daily business.

LucasArts wouldn't tell us whether Starkiller survives his injuries as a result of Vader's fairly extreme way of disassociating himself from his secret apprentice (surely, "He's some crazed fan of mine, Palpatine! He must've gotten past the Imperial Guards," would have been sufficient). What they did say, however, is that this cut-scene is towards the end of the game, but is by no means the end of the story. We were assured that there are more twists and turns to come.

[Spoiler Over]

Where there certainly won't be any twists and turns, however, is with the multiplayer game (in that there won't be one). While the Wii, PS2, PSP, and DS versions of The Force Unleashed come with multiplayer modes, there's not even a sniff of multiplayer action on the next-gen games. This is certainly a shame as Xbox 360 and PS3 owners would certainly have enjoyed the fighter game style of the Wii version's multiplayer.

Visually, apart from the application of Pixelux and Natural Motion's software, The Force Unleashed is fairly run of the mill. This is illustrated by the fact that when you do experience this technology in action during the game, it appears like a cluster of quartz rock in a distinctly average looking rocky outcrop. If LucasArts can spend some of the remaining dev time blending its base game world with these technologies, then it'll certainly improve the overall graphical appeal of the title.