Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Demo
We’ve been anxiously anticipating the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo, and as of today, August 21, you can download the short demo via PSN, or Xbox Live. I managed to pull myself away from Too Human long enough to give the 360 version a whirl.
First, you’ll notice we said short demo. The demo really isn’t all that lengthy, but it does serve to give you a good feel for what you’ll be getting into when the game drops on the 16th of September. In addition to the main demo, you can play through a tutorial mode that lets you get a feel for using the Force Grip power, one of your most utilized assets in the game. We recommend tinkering with the tutorial for two reasons: 1) more time spent hurling things at Storm Troopers, and 2) the Force Grip power can actually take some getting used to before you’ve mastered it.
You can “grip” almost any object not bolted down to something by targeting it, and pulling the right trigger. Once you have that object firmly in your grasp, you use the left thumbstick to move it side to side, and the right thumbstick to move it up and down. You play around with it for a while, and soon enough you’ll have full control over your impressive Force powers.
The main demo has you playing through the TIE Fighter construction facility level that we’ve been seeing for ages in trailers and walkthroughs. But before you get into it, you’re treated to a short cut scene with the Apprentice and Vader. As of right now, you can find the cutscene as our featured video on the right sidebar.
After Vader gives you your orders, you’re dispatched to the TIE Fighter facility to pretty much reek havoc on anything that moves. Yes, plot wise we know the Apprentice is there to retrieve General Kota’s lightsaber, but the demo never gets that far so whatever. All of the Apprentice’s movements and attacks feel aggrandized and emphatic. Walking, running, jumping, performing lightsaber combos, hell, even just standing there holding that lightsaber the way he does, everything the Apprentice does looks and feels dramatic.
From the limited bit we saw in he demo, the combat works well, while falling just short of being entirely stellar. Lightsaber melee feels visceral, and once again, the slashes and thrusts have a certain flair and emphasis to them that make it feel awesome. You’re generally dealing with dozens of enemies at a time, and while you’re not presented with too much of a challenge, you do find yourself occasionally pestered by an enemy while our of Force power range (or exhausted of your Force meter), which you have to chase down and dice up with your lightsaber. Lifting items and throwing them at Stormtroopers is awesome. Lifting Stormtroopers and throwing them at Stormtroopers is awesome. Lifting items and/or Stormtroopers and throwing them at TIE Fighters is especially awesome.
Your enjoyment level goes up when you start to realize and appropriately utilize the depth of combat. While the game play in a simple fashion, you also have great ability to free style and start to chain together Force powers and lightsaber combos in interesting and often fantastic ways. Essentially all you have in the demo is a lightsaber, Force push, Force grip, and lightning. You put all those together however, and you can grip a Stormtrooper, impale him with your lightsaber, electrify him, then send him flying off with an emphatic Force push.
Enemy AI is also impressive. Much has been made of the Euphoria engine for character animation and artificial intelligence, what with Stormtrooper being able to hang on to things. Almost as much as seeing how Stormtroopers react while feeling the effects of your Force powers, is seeing the lengths they go through to avoid them. In one instance I hurled a rather large crate a Stormtrooper only to see him immediately drop flat on the ground dodging my improvised projectile. Surprised but not deterred, I simply flung another crate at him as he rose to his feet, again he reacted quickly by throwing himself off to the left, avoiding my attack. Annoyed, I quickly starting grabbing everything in sight and hurling it at him, rapid fire. He responded by ducking, dodging, crawling, and doing everything imaginable to avoid my attacks until finally I had exhausted my Force powers. Before he got up again, I closed in and finished him with my lightsaber.
Level design also works well. While we assume the levels will be generally linear, the demo felt like it had a couple of different branches to explore and choose from. Graphics were good, but not anything that looked mind blowing. Overall the Force Unleashed is going to make one seriously fun experience. Obviously we’ll have to wait on the full version to see it in its full glory, but the demo makes a good showing here.
Oh, and by the way, you get to snatch a TIE fighter out of mid-air. It’s such an amazing experience you almost can’t believe it when it happens.
Think about it, seriously.
I love the way Starkiller just force pushes the hell out of doors. My favorite part.
[...] For now at least, we should be able to safely look forward to one good Star Wars title. [...]