Then I played the game.
I went into the game with mixed expectations. On one hand, it's a brand new, Lucas-approved story, and it involved heavy, heavy use of the force in completely abusive ways. What could be more fun? Of course, on the other hand, I had the lukewarm reviews.
I'm pretty sure I was hooked from the moment I took control of Darth Vader and started flicking Wookies across the stage and choking them with the Force. I felt godly, which is the intention of the game.
Game play-wise, there are few experiences on any system that compare to The Force Unleashed. The premise of the game is, of course, to go hog wild with the Force, and destroy everything, which the game does, and does well. There wasn't a level that went by that I didn't find some clever new way of killing an enemy or uncover a spiffy Force puzzle. The control scheme works well for the multitude of commands I had at my disposal, especially later in the game when The Apprentice is overflowing with Force coolness.
The graphics, while not up to the bar set by games like Gears of War, are decent. They get the job done, nothing more, nothing less. The models for the main characters are great, as is the lip-syncing, and the cinematics will rock your face. The environments, however, tend to look drab, and the fact that you will visit most worlds twice through the course of the story makes those environs seem a bit repetitive. The draw distance is long, to understate it. When trying to bring down the Star Destroyer, you'll see the incoming TIE Fighters a full 40-60 seconds before they actually reach you. That's impressive.
The audio side of things is superb, as we've all expect from Star Wars titles. Great voice acting, great sound effects, marvelous use of John Williams' existing score, and an engaging new piece that fits right in with the Star Wars universe make this game positively delightful on the ears.
That's not to say all is well in Force-land. My gripes are minor, but all had a tendency to be annoying at times. The menus have load screens. What?! I blame cross-generation development for this. It's likely that if this were a 360/PS3 only game that there would be no load time, but alas, we must wait to customize our skills and Lightsabers. The game has an annoying tendency of shoving The Apprentice into a black hole of sorts. Everything glitches, and you can't move. I was once smashed by a rock thrown by a Rankor, and that pushed me through a wall and into the black oblivion that exists beyond the level boundaries. The only way I've been able to fix this is to start over from the last save point. Finally, as with too many 3rd person games, the camera has a tendency to be both wonky and annoying.
That brings us to the part that I liked most, and it is the number one reason this game receives a great score from me: the story. The game is not long - clocking in just shy of 15 hours to find everything - but the story conveyed in those 15 hours is nothing short of amazing. Beginning to end, the story unfolds at a pace that draws you into the game, not only for the joy involved in throwing Force powers in every direction, but to see what happens next. The aforementioned voice acting drives the characters and brings them to life. If fact, I daresay that the characters in this game out-act the folks on the big screen (particularly in the more recent trilogy). The acting and writing is honest and doesn't have that stilted feel from the movies. The Apprentice is also one of the most engaging characters to come along in the Star Wars universe. He is a hero/antihero without being emo and tearful (I'm looking at YOU Anakin)or coming across as fake. His story is as great as this kind of story is capable of being without absorbing a hundred ours of your time, and its tie-in to Episodes 3 and 4 is brilliant.
Many, many reviewers are unhappy with what is one of the coolest moments in gaming history. That would be brining down the Star Destroyer. No, it's not easy. Yes, you might die a couple of times. Yes, there are waves of TIE Fighters that shoot you while you are trying to bring down said Star Destroyer. Yes, it will take some time. Do any of these things dull the experience? Absolutely not. It's easily one of the harder parts of the game, but with a little patience, you will bring down that ship, and you will feel really cool for having done it.
In short, disregard the reviews from other outlets. It seems to me that they let a comparatively minor list of gripes affect the score a bit too much. Yes, it's got flaws, but on the whole, the game is really a can't-miss title that is just a ton of fun and has one of the best original Star Wars storylines/characters around.
My full review, including numerical scores (because that's official and cool) can be found over at IGN.
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