My favorite awesome trend/marketing gimmick that newfangled next-gen systems have brought us: downloadable, free game demos. Last night, LucasArts released their demo for The Force Unleashed on PSN and XBox Live.
The demo offers a brief tutorial on how to control your Force Grip — i.e., the ability to levitate and throw practically anything in the game — and a brief level of you versus everyone as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice (yawn — seriously, why does every new Star Wars story involve someone’s “secret apprentice”?). Players can use Force Lightning, Force Push, their lightsaber, the aforementioned Force Grip, or combine any and all of these into combos. In many ways, this is God of War with a lighsaber, from the combos to the timed button presses for the boss battle (an AT-ST!), but whatever; the real surprise is actually how much fun this thing is and how well it plays.
For the first time in ages, LucasArts seems to have delivered a game with truly intuitive controls and collision detection. See that droid in front of you? Want to throw him out the window and into space? You can. Want to slice that stormtrooper with your saber, and finish him off with a Force Push through a door? You can. Want to drop that TIE fighter on a swarm of troops below? You can do that too. It all works insanely easy and looks amazing.
So yeah, Star Wars hasn’t been fun in awhile. But this actually looks very promising. The Force Unleashed comes out for seemingly every game system in the known universe on September 16th.
AGH! OK, guys – this is the LAST Star Wars post for a while. Unless it’s something really amazingly nerdy, unlicensed and created by fans of the original trilogy, like a knitted R2D2 toilet paper cozy.
Fuck “The Force Unleashed.” Don’t buy it. It only encourages George.
Dude — A) it’s your site, so it’s totally cool, no more SW posts, BUT:
B) No matter how we feel about Lucas today — as a person or a filmmaker or a businessman — does that really warrant a “Fuck ‘The Force Unleashed’”? To close yourself off from a great game just because of some bitterness about the guy is a little silly. I didn’t play them, but the Knight of the Old Republic games were some of the most beloved of the last gen. Did buying those really “encourage George?”
Just as a note, when I got to the site this morning I see multiple banners for Star Wars the Clone Wars MP Soundtrack! Stop encouraging George!
Honestly if its a solid game I will give it a look see. KOTR was some awesome fun in its day. Matter of fact, you could pick it up today and that entire series would still be great.
And I can use the money I saved on NOT going to see Clone Wars to buy a copy of Force Unleashed (F.U. for short)!