Archive for September 17th, 2008
Google Android secretly shown in London. Pics of phone all over the net. Company buys Valve software to develop games for the phone and online. Brad Pitt now the top malware lure. Sarah Palin more popular than porn. Meanwhile her email was hacked. NY to add RFID to drivers license. Luckily it is optional. Canon doing DSLR with 1080p movie capability. Nice. Xbox360 tops in Japan. Congrats. Kodak rolling out an OLED wireless photo frame.
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On September 16, “The Force Unleashed” was unleashed upon us and wow, this game is amazing. The storyline is epic, and the game play is awesome. After the jump, we will discuss in more detail.
First let’s deal with the story. For me, this story is better then any of the prequels, and far superior to the Clone Wars movie from this summer. You are code named “StarKiller” but your given name is Galen Marek, a young sith who is trained secretly by Darth Vader, who discovered you during the Jedi purge that occurs immediately following Revenge of the Sith. After killing your father, Vader takes you and the story jumps about 13 or 14 years into the future where Vader is now using you to be his secret assassin with the goal of enhancing your force skills to the point where you can help him kill the Emperor and take over the galaxy. I won’t go into any more then that at this point, since I don’t want to spoil anything.
The voice acting is considerably better then the Clone Wars movie provided and it really feels cinematic in quality. The cut scenes are fantastic and are engaging enough that watching them over and over doesn’t get annoying.
The game play is ultimately what makes this game made of pure win. First off, you begin the game playing the prologue of the story as Darth Vader on the planet Kashyyyk, the Wookie home world, and you are hunting a Jedi that is hiding out there. You battle Wookies, and have a collection of Storm Troopers with you that you can feel completely comfortable killing as well. In fact, you get a pretty cool, and funny, achievement for doing so. I am going to say that this level alone, makes the game worthwhile. Playing as Darth Vader is just every geeks dream come true.
The Force Unleashed completely re-imagines the scope and scale of the Force by taking advantage of new technologies, Digital Molecular Matter (DMM), by Pixelux Entertainment, and euphoria by NaturalMotion Ltd. Paired with the powerful Havok Physics™ system, these new technologies create an amazingly realistic feel to the game play. DMM incorporates the physical properties of anything in the environment so that everything reacts exactly like it should - wood breaks like wood, glass shatters like glass, and people who get picked up react like people would thanks to a revolutionary behavioral-simulation engine, euphoria enables interactive characters to move, act and even think like actual human beings, adapting their behavior on the fly and resulting in a different reaction every time.
It really does bring a whole new dimension to this type of game. The end sequences when fighting “Boss” type enemies (at-at’s, and other Jedi) are pretty cool, and have a cut-scene feel to them while allowing you to interact at the same time.
Finally, the concept as whole is epic. The scope of what this game attempts is impressive, and even though it is being billed as the most expensive video game ever, it is completely worth it. It is a bit violent so I would not recommend it for the under 13 age group.
What I like most about this game is that it did what none of the prequels could do. It made me excited to be back in the Star Wars universe, and reminded me of everything good about the Star Wars franchise.
Are you excited for this game? Have you started playing, if so, what do you think? Let me know in comments.