Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2

Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2

Rating: T

Score: 8.0/10

                Force Unleashed 1 took the world by surprise using a fun variety of force powers, lightsaber action, and thrilling Star Wars plotlines. It's sequel, Force Unleashed 2, had a lot going for it, although it's existence is puzzling story-wise (more on that later). Still, the addition of more awesome powers and gameplay sounded worth the huge build-up and wait. Does it satisfy? This game is available for the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

                The story starts where its predecessor ended, which is weird since our main character, Starkiller, died in that story. Don't worry, since the clever storywriters figured this new Starkiller being a clone of the last would satisfy fans...which is does not. Now, I'm no Star Wars fan, but I know quite a few things that don't work, one of those is cloning a Jedi. Jedi are seen as gifted and unique, with their "force powers" (the power to control objects with their mind, among other cool stuff) making them well respected warriors for their powers. You can't clone them, or they wouldn't be gifted and unique, and it's even mentioned in the story that Jedi are impossible to clone. Secondly, cloning dead Jedi is even more impossible.  This is a huge cop-out for a story continuation.

                Either way, you're cloned by Darth Vader (the antagonist of just about every Star Wars story ever), who you then run away from by just breaking the front door and flying away. Well, isn't that a secure place! Did Vader serious not expect a Jedi prodigy he killed previously not to try to run away? Anyways, the story goes on from that lackluster start and fails to get much better.

                Gameplay makes up for some of the storyline.  There is greater lightsaber action and force power-abusing. With your lightsabers (which you can customize to gain abilities like health generation), you can slice up enemies in multiple different combos by alternating lightsaber attacks and different force powers. With your pure force power, you can shoot lightning, lift enemies around and fling them, and push people around violently. It still retains comedic value to pick up enemies with your mind. It’s comical since the enemies will grab onto any nearby enemies/crates/etc to stop their flight, but only bring the other person/crate/etc with them too. You can now unleash all your anger in a violent burst and get upgraded power for a limited amount of time. Due to an overall lack of difficulty it mainly plays as a "get out spending ten minutes on enemy waves " move. You can also change enemy thinking with Mind Trick, which can either turn a foe into a friend or simply make the enemy agree to run away. It's not particularly useful when you stack it amid other powers like the ability to zap everything and everyone in front of you in a quick second, but it has its moments.

                Any fan, or even non-fan, needs to see Starkiller in action. In his adventures, he drives a huge battleship into a space colony, then jumps out of the ship (in mid-air, no less) and lands in the broken colony. He also flings fighter ships at other ships, engages in high speed space battles without a ship, and manually fires a cannon the size of a continent. I mean, he easily puts Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker to shame, and they're seen as super-powered and terribly gifted Jedi.  This would put Starkiller somewhere around "almighty god" level.

                This leads into leveling up Starkiller. Why would you need to level up an almighty god? That's exactly the problem, observant reader. You can level-up your force powers, but since you start the game so powerful it comes down to picking a power you like and leveling it up quickly for no reason other than self-amusement. As long as you have the basics (i.e. first-level powers, which you start with), the game is surprisingly easy. Hordes of enemies are button-mash-fest with occasional bigger baddies needing an extra bit of dodge-counterattack (or you can throw your lightsabers from afar, like I did). It comes down to needing at least one thing: grappling. All the Jedi-ish enemies require the grapple. The grapple animation was cool first time around, not so much the billionth.

                This game comes with plenty of pros and cons. The story is a joke, but gameplay is fast, and still very fun. It's end boss is repetitive and incredibly easy, but all other bosses feel very momentous and intense, if not terribly challenging. Leveling up Starkiller is worthless, but the new lightsaber changing is a surprisingly intuitive way to make the game unique to all. How much you enjoy it probably won't depend a lot on how loyal you are to the series (as with a lot of licence games), and it's worth at least checking out for all.