Where to begin with STAR WARS - The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition? I like Star Wars, I really do. That doesn't mean I enjoy everything from the franchise simply because it is Star Wars. This is also one of those cases where I'm way late to the party and good ten years or so have lapsed since release date. Is that a detriment, though? If your game is about spectacle and superficial appeal I'm afraid I have to say it is.

If there's one thing I have to give The Force Unleashed credit it's the way it embraces the fan fiction nature its writers decided to run with in the scenario. Enter Starkiller, Darth Vader's secret adopted child prodigy he “liberated” from his parents and apparently trained in secret so the two of them could supplant good Emperor Palpatine. Or did he? Sith being what Sith are you can guess what happens, but not before Starkiller has some revelations along the way to assassination targets Vader sends him to. Is he really doing the right thing? Why is the new pilot lady so foxy? Will the chatty robot sidekick ever shut up and stop trying to mock kill him? At least we know it will end eventually because I got the distinct impression what we finally played through are cliff notes of what writers must've written before story was deemed low priority for the game. It hits all the notes you'd expect from a Star Wars story, and plays up the power fantasy angle, but it's all just so shallow and never given time to develop. At least that fan fiction perspective leads you to expect anything and there are two endings if that's a seller for you, though.

One last word of praise I have for the game before descending into explaining what didn't sit that well with me would have to be the production. Not actual gameplay production, mind you. I'm rather talking about the presentation when it comes to pre-rendered cutscenes and motion capture/lip sync. There was a big buzz about body image capture at the time and how using actual actors to embody characters would change the industry. Well, I'm not sure how much it caught on, but it certainly didn't detract from the game for me and there was that Noir game that did it even better or so I hear...

I'm almost tempted to repeat my opening lines here, but I had a distinct impression I was in for rough times the moment Darth Vader prologue began and this carried into the game proper. Your character simply has these paradoxical controls that at the same time feel both too stiff and loose, if that makes any sense. Character movements and attacks in no way flow fluidly to and from so you always have to be aware of your surroundings, not helped by the fact camera tends to play hooky and get stuck, as you watch from off-screen attacks. God help you once you have to do platforming because even with some leeway thanks to double jumping and propelling yourself forward with the Force I still found myself just hoping I would succeed. Speaking of the Force it leads me to second part of the equation – Force powers are simply too inaccurate and loose for strict control you kinda assumed you'd have. At the most basic Push and Lightning do the job, so much so I relied on Lightning heavily as the game went on for damage dealing, but actual for Force MANIPULATION is a crapshoot. Hold a button to grab something with the Force and then finagle it around with analog sticks to rotate and throw in the direction you want to. This is about as pinpoint accurate as it sounds, doubly so because the Force Unleashed's “priority auto targeting” is at best wonky and at worst out to kill you. At the same time you need to be within arbitrary range to see the shimmer effect on objects or enemies you can use the Force on. In hectic situations this leads to unnecessary taken damage as explosions can move potential projectiles around you, plain glitch-ridden nature of the game preventing you from grabbing objects or trajectory of thrown subjects simply not working out as intended.

In my humble opinion it's one of those instances where controls employed, as limited by gamepad design, were simply inadequate. Which happens to be a major problem when your entire game is sold on the premise of living out a Force killing machine power fantasy. Yes, Starkiller is supposed to wreck everything left and right. Problem? Game never conveys that past some incidental destruction and neat things you'll notice at the corner of your eye as you play, like how enemies tend to grab onto things or other enemies to hold on as you bounce them around with the Force. Your powers never come out as something organic, but rather typical “press B for Force Push”.

Hold on, I'm actually lying.

Game does allow you some pretty impressive moves and displays of Force prowess. They're just relegated to QTEs. Yes, my friends. Ancient relic of yesteryear rears its ugly head once more. The Force Unleashed is a particularly egregious example as anything even remotely breathtaking won't have you displaying how proficient you actually are at beating enemies, solving puzzles or navigating the environment so much as gluing your eyes to bottom center of the screen and hit those four buttons when they pop up. Bosses especially will be taken down with mandatory QTEs which, thankfully, for the most part weren't difficult and aired more on the annoying side. Proving even latter can be deadly for you would be that Star Destroyer takedown sequence which has you bringing it down with an ongoing analog stick QTE during which TIE fighters spawn endlessly in waves to prevent you from doing so. That sequence probably shortened my life by a year... only to do it in less than a minute the next day.

Even with all of the above I probably would have enjoyed the Force Unleashed a fair bit more if not for what seemed to be gradual decline in quality and effort as the game went on. Difficulty certainly ramps up, but in the last two out of nine levels on the offer game sure loves to throw snipers, walkers and specialized troopers at you all at once. This becomes an issue because hurling objects with Force Push is your best method to take out distant enemies and that manipulation takes time. Combined with the above and you can see some problems arising. Despite relying on Force powers to clear areas around you, create a protective shield and such, you still have threats at various ranges you cannot negate so easily or at all. Death Star level in particular had me just giving up and rushing past enemies because I stopped caring about experience to level through impressive enemy kills, searching for holocrons and everything else. Difficulty is the wrong word to describe this, “turns into an annoying chore” is probably more apropos.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

Ignoring certain design decisions like those incessant QTEs, even if it all worked as intended, The Force Unleashed would still just be a mediocre game bearing Star Wars in the title. What I finally played through is definitely not something I would recommend. Short fan fiction story is a matter of taste, but this level of inaccurate control and sub-par implementation of the game's primary feature aka feeling like a Force wielding badass, is not. Add on top of that some rather rudimentary lightsaber combat, uninspired levels and cast you don't exactly find yourself caring for makes this a far cry from Jedi Knight games. You could say that for-the-time impressive production values make it worthwhile, but I would disagree and question priorities at hand. The Force Unleashed comes off as an ill-realized attempt at creating the most ambitious Star Wars game up to that point – one that tried to do more destructive aspect of the Force justice.