The Force Unleashed 2 trailer & new website "game"

Cool. And yet... he's SO DAMN UNSTOPPABLE... it kind of negates the drama. The art direction is great - the giant spider looks better than almost anything else in the Prequels... still, I just hope he ends up being a character I can actually care about.
 
Cool. And yet... he's SO DAMN UNSTOPPABLE... it kind of negates the drama. The art direction is great - the giant spider looks better than almost anything else in the Prequels... still, I just hope he ends up being a character I can actually care about.

That's the problem with using Jedi as your main characters and designing you games to basically be the same kind of game that you designed back in 1992. For all the graphics/physics advances, fundamentally, the design of the game is no different from, say, DOOM or Duke Nukem 3D or...Dark Forces 1.

It's you against literally EVERYONE. And you are, of course, nearly unstoppable. Contrast this with, say, the COD games or Bad Company 1 & 2 where you're part of a squad or unit or whatever.

But again, because you're playing a Jedi/Sith character, you don't need to say "Hey, how come we basically have this demi-god running around f-ing stuff up with no backup?"

The key problem with picking a Jedi as your main character is this: he's basically superman. There's no limit on his power. Or at least, there's no rational limit ever explained in the films. There's some notion of someone being "strong" in the force, but, what, they're gonna have you play someone WEAK in the force?

When you design these games that are basically "You vs. The World", it's naturally going to fall into some non-canonical trap where the main character is FAR more powerful than any character who ever appeared in the films. That's by necessity for game purposes. I mean, sure it looks all badass when Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are messing up battle droids, but those guys are clearly chumps, and even those two get overwhelmed eventually. But in order to have increasingly "cool" fights, visuals, etc., they need shots of this dude pulling a Star Destroyer out of the sky, slicing AT-STs in half, pausing in mid-air to execute four or five mid-air attacks like Trinity in The Matrix or Elmer Fudd when he runs off a cliff, etc., etc., etc.


I actually question whether they could ever make a Jedi-oriented game that operated differently, especially after this. I don't think they can. I think pretty much, this will be the apex of jedi power in video games, or it'll just keep growing to the point where Jedi can literally do ANYTHING. "Oh, I'll use Force Intangibility, and then I'll use Force Atomic Displacement to rip the badguys apart from the inside." and so on and so forth....
 
I actually question whether they could ever make a Jedi-oriented game that operated differently, especially after this. I don't think they can. I think pretty much, this will be the apex of jedi power in video games, or it'll just keep growing to the point where Jedi can literally do ANYTHING.

I dunno, playing Jedi Knight, as a character I felt very vulnerable to blaster fire, Sith, etc. The point of The Force Unleashed is to go over the top with it, it's not an issue of a necessary escalation of powers to make the game more spectacular than the last. The fact that you are running around going crazy with these ridiculous abilities is the gimmick they're using to sell this particular game series.

In fact, the logical next step is to make a SW game where your powers are hugely scaled down to increase the challenge.
 
I dunno, playing Jedi Knight, as a character I felt very vulnerable to blaster fire, Sith, etc. The point of The Force Unleashed is to go over the top with it, it's not an issue of a necessary escalation of powers to make the game more spectacular than the last. The fact that you are running around going crazy with these ridiculous abilities is the gimmick they're using to sell this particular game series.

In fact, the logical next step is to make a SW game where your powers are hugely scaled down to increase the challenge.

I played Jedi Knight, too, and yeah, you were pretty vulnerable. It was one of the major criticisms of Jedi Outcast, actually -- that you had to go back to basics and re-learn everything. Then with Jedi Academy, they sort of changed things around a bit.

With TFU, however, as you said, the whole point seems to be "DUDE YOU CAN RIP PLANETS IN HALF AND EXTINGUISH SUNS!!!"


This, plus the fact that most of the sabre combat in any of these games seems to just come down to button mashing, are what ultimately have completely turned me off to Jedi FPS games. RPGs are one thing, but FPS Jedi games...I dunno. I enjoy playing games in "God mode" sometimes, but not when the game IS God Mode, ya know?


I just find the whole Jedi obsession to be boring now. I miss the days when you could play games that DIDN'T focus on the PT era and/or Jedi. Games like X-wing and Tie Fighter and the original Dark Forces. Battlefront was...ok, but kinda lame in its own way. I'd really like to see a smuggler game, but given that Star Wars NOW = All Jedi, All the Time, that's not gonna happen, I guess.
 
Demo in four days:

LucasArts is happy to announce that the demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II will be arriving at both the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network on Tuesday, October 12th.

The level focuses on the very beginning of the game, which takes in a secret cloning facility on the planet of Kamino. Starkiller, told by Vader he is no more than a clone, becomes tormented by the memories of his past and escapes into the rain-soaked planet with Vader not far behind.

Unleash the power of dual lightsabers, over-top Force powers including the new Jedi mind trick, and get a first taste on a journey that will take Starkiller across the galaxy in search of the truth behind his past, as well as the woman he cannot forget.
 
I'm sure I'll enjoy checking it out in a year when the used prices come down to around $20.
 
downloaded and played the demo last night. It was pretty good, but then again I actually like the over the top Jedi powers.

Can't wait for the full game
 


Titles like that can only make me laugh. People complain about the PT being inconsistent with the OT, yet somehow "Force Disintegrate Everything in a 2 Mile Radius" is uber cool and totally acceptable.

Anyway, I played the Demo last night. It's slightly improved over the first game, but it still has those stupid press the predetermined button boss battles. I will be waiting for the game to hit $30 or less like I did with the first game.
 
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How are the controls? I gather the targeting system was a bit wonky in the last game. Any improvement?
 
They improved that a little bit, but its still not perfect. It was easier to target what I wanted to in the demo and throw it in the direction I wanted to, but still not perfect. It was certainly less frustrating. Like I said, my main complaint is that they still kept the same style boss battles where you just have to press the button on screen.

I did see one other potential issue in the demo. There was a part where you had to double jump + dash across two platforms. I could see that being a problem in the full game as it was difficult to judge the distance between the two platforms.
 
I downloaded the demo and played it through... boy, I was mostly bored. I button mashed through the battles on "MEDIUM" skill level. It's a really GOOD looking game... but the character is kind of blah. On medium, it seemed way too easy. I used to love Star Wars games... wish I felt better about this one.
 
I'm going to get it just because my nephew likes to play it with me. I wish LucasArts would just give us what we want, TIE Fighter 2, or another X-Wing game. (also Republic Commando 2, Dark Forces...).
 
I downloaded the demo and played it through... boy, I was mostly bored. I button mashed through the battles on "MEDIUM" skill level. It's a really GOOD looking game... but the character is kind of blah. On medium, it seemed way too easy. I used to love Star Wars games... wish I felt better about this one.

I'm going to get it just because my nephew likes to play it with me. I wish LucasArts would just give us what we want, TIE Fighter 2, or another X-Wing game. (also Republic Commando 2, Dark Forces...).

That's about where I came out around....oh...2000 or so with Star Wars games. I haven't really played a good one since X-Wing Alliance. Jedi Outcast was...passable. The rest went downhill. At least from what I can recall.
 
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