![]() Lined with objects to fling at Wookiees and Stormtroopers alike and turrets to pick up and control with The Force, you’re not trapped as Vader with nowhere for the Wookiees to run, your victims absolutely are. The walkways over Kashyyk are narrow and tight, but small walkways make for small spaces, meaning you can travel them relatively quickly compared to some of the larger areas you might find in a level where you play as Starkiller. The level design and layout does everything possible to make you feel like you’re not being held back by Vader’s clear lack of mobility. Fresh off the Emperor’s operating table, he feels sluggish on his new legs, but full of rage and overcome with despair.Įven the level design for this first level clearly has a lot of love put into it. It sets the tone for the rest of the story, for better and for worse.Sure, it taps into the same regressive, bland discussions about power and “cool factor” in the Star Wars fandom that led to such woefully unnecessary and frankly bad creations like the fan remake of the Lightsaber Duel from A New Hope, but it feels right on Vader here. ![]() The decision to teach players how to run, only to take that option away minutes later would almost always be to a game’s detriment, but here, even such an insignificant choice makes Force Unleashed’s take on the Emperor’s authoritative right-hand feel all the more caring. Vader’s deliberate, domineering gait changes for no one, not even the player. Starkiller certainly feels nimble and powerful in the tutorial, but going from Starkiller to Vader makes the protagonist look like a youngling. Jumping from the tutorial to the prologue punctuates that glacial movement even more. Force Unleashed was a rarity in a sea of games that took power away from the player it understood how to make playing as a lumbering, all-powerful tank feel empowering, rather than dull or slow. Power fantasies are the common currency of videogames, and whether you look for it in the balletic brutality of a boomer shooter or in nailing the perfect conditions to ascend to godliness in a roguelike, today’s gaming landscape gets how to make being unstoppable feel rewarding. It’s about 15 minutes of pure bliss for any Star Wars fan, but it goes beyond the confines of pleasing devotees of the Galaxy far, far away. Locked doors are doomed to become rubble as the Jedi-seeking-cyborg nears his target. Vader is an unstoppable killing more-machine-than-man, as he cuts through Wookiees like a warm knife through butter. From go, it embellishes Vader’s powerful presence as he chokes out an Imperial commander with the Force and effortlessly flings anyone-or anything-standing between him and the rogue Jedi he’s hunting. With the exception of games that took a toy box approach like Lego Star Wars or the Battlefront games, a game that gave players a chance to pick up Vader’s iconic red lightsaber was almost entirely unheard of.Įven though the level’s only a few minutes long, the beginning of Force Unleashed isn’t just a hollow opportunity to get behind the Sith Lord’s iconic mask it’s a power trip within a power trip. It’s soaked in the trappings of AAA games from its time, but it also finally lets players do something they’ve been dying to do ever since Star Wars videogames entered the living room: Force Unleashed lets them play as Darth Vader in all his glory, and in doing so, cements its prologue as one of the greatest-or at least most memorable-first levels in any videogame.īefore we had much evidence of Darth Vader’s methodical viciousness on-screen thanks to the likes of Rogue One and Star Wars: Rebels, his deadliness was relegated to comics and novels in the extended universe. The main character Starkiller’s edgy power trip feels like a fever dream compared to most of EA and Disney’s output, let alone its closest counterpart under Disney, Jedi Fallen Order. ![]() Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which was originally released in 2008 and remastered for the Switch in 2022, is a bizarre game to look back on.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |