Star Wars: The Force Unleashed [Demo]

[hush]

have been playing this for about an hour it is short so I played it a few times over and I have to say I really liked a lot

[EvilBoris]

Considering it uses the same engine as GTA4 as well (which had massive amounts of animation feedback and general solidness to the world) its quite disappointing.

It's only using the animation engine that GTA4 used

[averybluemonkey]

Loved it. Everything I was hoping for. Can't wait for the release.

[Brats]

You have to wait until your force bar is full enough to use the force powers, thats why you cant always use them, it recharges itself after a few seconds of rest. I'm sure if you wernt trying to find so much to complain about within the demo you may have noticed this fact.

Don't be a spanner. I already said I was looking forward to this. Glad to hear the right trigger thing isn't a fault with the game, but that doesn't excuse the other issues. But if the final game turns out to be great, I'll be buying it, make no mistake.

[EvilBoris]

I was looking forward to this, what a mess.

[rmoxon]

Don't be a spanner. I already said I was looking forward to this. Glad to hear the right trigger thing isn't a fault with the game, but that doesn't excuse the other issues. But if the final game turns out to be great, I'll be buying it, make no mistake.

Other issues? what you mean like how you seem to have expected EVERYTHING in the game to be throwable? To be honest alot of the stuff in it is, besides the walls of the ship!!

I wasnt being a spanner at all, I thought you were to be honest.

[ezee ryder]

I was looking forward to this, what a mess.

Mess? Hmm. Think it is far off being a mess.

[Strolls]

I also thought Crates in games had become a clich?

Yeah, don't LucasArts know that the Intergalactic Standards Body specifies only containers should be stored in star-docks?!??!?

[Brats]

Other issues? what you mean like how you seem to have expected EVERYTHING in the game to be throwable? To be honest alot of the stuff in it is, besides the walls of the ship!!

You've ignored the other point I made about the combat, but hey.

I didn't say I expected everything to be throwable, but I did expect everything to react. Force push only affects specific and limited points in the environment. Most walls don't even blemish. I can buckle a specific girder that the dvevelopers want me to, but others are impervious. The wreck of the shuttle in the docking bay is just static. The doors buckle satisfyingly, yet the hinges must be made of the strongest substance in the galaxy as they never seem to break, meaning that you can't pick the doors up and lob them around.

The other disappointment is that a lot of the stuff you can throw around blows up too easily. Pick a droid up with force grip and try and put him down safely again. You can't. Even if you let go a few centimetres from the ground, the droid explodes and seems to evaporate into thin air. Chuck a crate at someone and it leaves some debris. Chuck a Tie Fighter and it too is made of these strange evaporating qualities. Did the Empire make all its ships and Droids out of lithium?

You might think I'm looking for faults here (something you've accused me of before - why is it that whenever someone doesn't like something you do, they are apparently 'looking for faults'?) but this all adds up to something more fundamental, a lack of emergent gameplay. I can only do what the developer want me to do, they didn't have the balls (in this demo at least) to just throw a load of stuff into the environment and let people muck around with it. Pardon the pun, but it's all so 'forced'.

Why can't I build a tower out of Tie Fighters? Why can't I light sabre someone's arm off then pick it up and hit them with their own arm? Why can't I use the shuttle wreckage to lob around? Why can't I pick up the walkways that the enemies are on and tip it upside down?

And the developers did promise this. Form the early previews:

The NaturalMotion physics have been combined with an advanced materials system created by LucasArts themselves, which ensures that every object or surface in the game breaks, shatters, splinters or bends realistically.

That's just not true. It was an admitedly ambitious goal, but Lucasarts have been boasting about their tech for ages. But it's just smoke and mirrors rather than being the great leap forward we were promised.

[Ajay1986]

To me the game seemed like a physics engine tech demo from 5 years ago. Oh look there are barrels all over the place that we can throw around, WOW.
Really not impressed at all, i found the combat poor and even the controls were awkward.

[Skull Commander]

I must say I'm not impressed. It just felt wrong and unfinished. Psi Ops felt more 'meaty' than this, and that game is getting on now.

[C']

Yeah thought it was a bit naff too.

Just no weight to any of the combat or actions and didn't feel fluid at all.

Disappointing!

[Malc]

I didn't like it either, I did like the automatic reflecting of bullets though however. But apart from that it was just hammer the X button really.

[EvilBoris]

Mess? Hmm. Think it is far off being a mess.

The graphics were impressive and the framerate was solid but the controls were awful (mainly the force grab) and the camera was awful too.

Chopping up that walker thing was quite fun though, it reminded me a little bit of DMC there.

[Magnakai]

It seems a fun brawler, but Jedi Knight and it's sequel gave me a much better impression of being a Jedi than this.

I did see the Stormtroopers grab onto another Stormtrooper once or twice, but that seemed like the extent of the much-vaunted technology in the demo. I'm sure there's more to the game, but the demo's what we're talking about here and, by and large, it's rather weak. Not a purchase for me.