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| From: Lucas Arts Entertainment
Category: Video Games
List Price: $59.99
Buy Used: $33.70
You Save: $26.29 (44%)
New (39) Used (21) from $33.70
Rating:  100 reviews
Sales Rank: 292
Platform: Playstation 3
Genre: adventure_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: PlayStation 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 901802
Model: 32389
UPC: 023272332389
EAN: 0023272332389
ASIN: B000R39GPA
Release Date: September 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 If only the apprentice had learned basic fighting skills... December 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed had the potential for a great story, great game play, and an all-around great entry in the abysmal field of Star Wars video games. Sadly, it fails to live up to its potential.
The story is mildly entertaining, but extremely predictable. The controls and gameplay are frustrating and difficult, often times working against you. The graphics and sound are good, but nothing spectacular.
* Gameplay
The first few hours are fun as you hack and slash your way through storm troopers. After the novelty of electrocution and throwing wears off, the game just becomes a repetitive exercise in button mashing.
The AI cheats on a regular basis and the rules of combat are asymmetric. Enemies can block your most powerful attacks while you are unable to block mindless storm troopers. Your force powers, while entertaining, cannot be used on many of the enemies. Major bosses can't be thrown; some are immune to lightening; nearly all of them can block your light saber indefinitely.
Most of the boss and mini-boss battles end with a special button-sequence you have to enter with the right timing. It's cheesy, pointless, and detracts from enjoying the well-done cinematic death.
The Apprentice also has a number of fighting problems. He steps forward when he slashes and will step right off a cliff to his death. He takes 4-9 seconds to get back up and is vulnerable to attack during. The same cannot be said for the enemies.
Saves are via checkpoint system. The checkpoints are not evenly spaced and some major battles have multiple waves of enemies without saves.
* Controls
The biggest problem is with the targeting system. If you've played Assassin's Creed, imagine that system with a sloppy camera and having dozens of inanimate targets in a room. More often than not, the targeting system will select a rock or barrel causing your camera and force powers to be misdirected.
You'll electrocute, push, or slash inanimate objects when you mean to attack the bad buy. This is especially a problem with bosses and later levels when they are able to kill you with just a few hits.
Fighting is all about combos. Combos may be difficult for some to master; this doesn't matter since most combos can be blocked by enemies. Worse yet, enemies can hit you while executing a combo and interrupt the sequence. You cannot do the same to enemies.
* The Force
Force powers are entertaining, but nothing special. You throw stuff, push stuff, and electrocute things. Many things are immune to your powers, including the later bosses.
Of particular note is one sequence late in the game where the Apprentice demonstrates power far beyond Darth Vader or the Emperor. This sequence is slow, boring, and pointless. It took upwards of 30 minutes to complete and the on-screen instructions you are supposed to follow is actually wrong at times. It also raises another question: why is Starkiller the "Apprentice" if he is this powerful? Shouldn't he be the Master?
* Summary
Download the demo. Play it, throw a few storm troopers out a window. Get your fill of being a Jedi and move on. If you can get the game used at a substantial discount, it may be worth it. Otherwise, save your time and money and get something else.
 Cool...but frustrating December 3, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
While there are some very cool aspects to this game, the clunky controls, the minigames, and the endless jump challenges makes this game entirely too frustrating to enjoy.
The good:
- Reasonable story
- Beautifully rendered cutscenes
- Nice graphics
- Being able to pick things up and throw them at your enemies (sometimes electrifying them with sith lightning) is probably the coolest aspect of the game
- Lightsabers, sith, and sith lightning are just cool on principle
- Killing the last surviving jedi has a certain appeal to it
The bad:
- Horrific targeting system
- No long-range weapons for you (unless you count using the force to hurl debris at your enemies) - your enemies are free to blast you from afar with a litany of weapons, while you are stuck with throwing things at them from afar with the force
- Minigames suck (and always will suck for any game) - there are countless minigames that are (usually) required to kill your larger opponents and bosses
- If you are not excellent at jump games, be ready to be frustrated as you will jump-jump-jump-miss only to slide your way to the very bottom of the level and have to jump your way back to the top...only to slide all the way back down to the bottom of the level again
- Long load times - you will die a lot and you will get sick of seeing the load screen - you will also get sick of seeing the load screen when you change your lightsaber configuration, your costume, or upgrade your force powers
The game started off as a lot of fun. The first level is extremely enjoyable. From there, it starts to degrade as the minigames, jump-games, and other frustrating elements seem to grow in both number and difficulty with each level. By the last level, I was so frustrated with the negative aspects of the game that I had to write this review to warn other people about buying this $60 mixed bag. Buy it used, or better yet, rent it.
a quick bit of fun November 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sigh...I'm a Star Wars fan and a gamer...it's hard on us people.
This game is okay. Very exciting at times with an okay story going on. Ooh, look it Darth Vader. Ooh look a tie fighter. Ooh look the game is over. Yeah, the problem with the game is that it is too short. It's not open-ended in any way that allows you to replay it really differently. The skills sections (that allow you to customize your character as you gain experience) are...okay. The bit of wow wears off pretty fast as all you are in essence doing is running in a tube destroying anything in your way. Still the action-feel is well done, the graphics are awesome, and it's hard not to enjoy dispatching enemies with a light saber.
Dear Game Designers:
Gamers want to play a game for more than a week or two. Action CAN include role-playing elements, like dialogue choices, or open-ended, optional, side missions that don't effect your main story line significantly but players can enjoy. We want to feel that we can influence the story, even just a little. We want to be more than button pushers. We want to enjoy our exorbitantly expensive video games more than once.
As for The Force Unleashed, get it cheap, or even better, rent it, no, better yet, borrow it from your friend who unfortunately paid for it (I assure you he/she is done with it already), and enjoy it for what it is, a flashy action game with no depth.
Great game but its too short. November 26, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved the older star wars games like old republic where it was more RPG but this game focuses more on the fighting. The powers that you are able to use are pretty cool and you are able to do combos with them. So for example you can use force grip to lift up a storm trooper, electricute him, throw your lightsaber into him, and then send him flying away. The force grip feature is the coolest, I have never seen it in any other game and its easy to grab things and throw them at your enemies.
The story is really good too. It has a lot of familiar faces like darth vader, emperor, princes leia, and others. It explains how the rebel alliance was formed. Its kind of the bridge between the movies episode # 3 and 4.
The only thing that I didnt like was that I finished the game in like 2 days on hard. The game is way too short. After you finish it you can go back and play it again to try and collect all the holocrons and complete all the objectives.
Well hope that helps.
 Amazing graphics and gameplay November 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Great story and gameplay with amazing graphics. You dont need to be a star wars fan to enjoy this game.
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