The Console Wars

If you've ever wondered what it's like to pick up a Stormtrooper with the Force and smack him into a wall until he dies, you don't have to wonder anymore.

"Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" finally puts gamers into the shoes of a Sith apprentice - in fact, Darth Vader's "secret" apprentice. He's so secret that he's never mentioned before or after in any of the Star Wars movies, books or video games. His sole appearance outside of this game is in Namco's "Soul Caliber IV." From a plot perspective, it's weak, though understandable. There just aren't that many Sith around, and a Sith game based around Darth Maul or someone of that ilk would simply be way too late '90s.

What isn't weak is the Force powers that the apprentice controls. They're not subtle. Whereas Obi-Wan Kenobi might say "These are not the droids you're looking for," the apprentice would use the Force to slam the Stormtroopers into a wall at roughly 300 miles an hour. His powers are primal and uncontrolled. Above all, they represent the best Jedi experience that LucasArts has ever come up with - for the first couple of hours. The game gets repetitive. Though it's continually fun, it could be even better. The sense that the character is one of the most powerful Force users ever to live never leaves, but one does get the sense that his powers are wasted on killing random Rodian No. 554. The combat is fun, and all the ways that you can go about dispatching Stormtroopers never gets old, but the game really shines in the lightsaber duels.

The duels start out like regular game play, but it feels more dynamic. The Jedi characters are powerful enough that you can't kill them in one or two hits like almost everything else in the game, and they seem to catch on to the player's strategy much quicker than other characters - usually to the player's detriment - because they counter attack brutally. Once a Jedi is dropped down to a certain amount of health, the combat goes into the very pretty, though very derivative of "God of War" style of button-pushing, special move. No reason to mess with what works.

The graphics are, of course, amazing, but this is 2008, and there's no excuse for bad graphics in an A-list title anymore. The same can be said for the sound. One really nice thing is that the controls are obvious, and the combo moves are not "Guilty Gear XX" nightmare patterns, which is an unfortunate and recent action game trend that is thankfully avoided in this game.

"The Force Unleashed" has its flaws. Some of the level design can be obtuse, and there is one point in the game where the player faces enemies that are invincible to all but Force Lightning until their "pack" leader is found and killed. A few of the puzzles are sort of lame, and it's never clear exactly which Force power needs to be used to open a locked door. But, in the end, the game captures the feel of Star Wars better than almost any of the movies, except perhaps "Revenge of the Sith" and "The Empire Strikes Back." "The Force Unleashed" has a lot more going for it than any other Star Wars game since "Knights of the Old Republic."

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Grade: B+

Available Now for PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360