It’s been a while since we saw a Star Wars game released on anything other than hand-helds, in fact The Force Unleashed will be the first to be released on the next-gen consoles. LucasArts is being very secretive with TFU and little information has been released until recently.

The game engine to be used is one developed by LucasArts: Ronin. It integrates the Havoc, Euphoria and Digital Molecule Matter psychics engines. This gives characters exceptional bio-mechanical AI. Say you force push a storm trooper; in previous Star Wars game the storm trooper would be pushed away, but in TFU he can grab onto his surroundings to stop himself. Finally, evil minions have the will to live.

The story follows Darth Vader’s apprentice, Jacob Nion or “Starkiller” as Vadar affectionately refers to him as. Starkiller is taken by Darth Vader and trained to become a Sith, given missions to hunt down the last of the Jedi after the Great Jedi Purge at the end of Episode III.

It has been rumoured that, like the Knights of the Old Republic series, your actions will affect whether you stay with the Sith or seek redemption and turn to the Jedi. This will be a difficult feat to pull off successfully, as it will mean LucasArts will need to develop two completely separate main story lines. After all, a good Jedi couldn’t be an apprentice to a Sith. KotOR managed this as the story could be completed as Sith or Jedi. If your alignment can change, this promises to be a very open-ended game.

Unlike other Star Wars games your character will begin Force Adept, having already mastered basic force abilities and, instead of learning new ones from scratch, you improve the few you do have. Force Push improves from the ability to simply push an enemy away to allowing you to send enemies hurtling back as if they’ve just been hit by a bus.

Force Grab allows you to pick up enemies and dangle them upside down, shake the life outta them or use them as bowling balls, the choice is yours. However, as with force push they don’t like being used as human projectiles and will try to grab a hold of anything to get their feet back on the ground.

The final confirmed force power is the stereotypical Sith power, Force Lightening. As with the other two force powers you can do more than just one thing: charge an enemy full of electricity then send him at a distant target as a human bomb, use Force Lightening on your lightsaber to add extra power or zap a power generator to overcharge it, creating a satisfying boom.

The Force Unleashed is due for release on September 16^th for both North America and the UK and will be available on the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, DS and PS2. However only the 360 and PS3 versions will have access to the Ronin engine.

The Force Unleashed looks like an exceptionally strong game and LucasArts will be expecting it to do well, but with the release of other eagerly awaited games like Gears of War 2 around the same time, could TFU end up having its Force Lightening stolen?

Lewis

Labels: 360, Hype Train, PS3, Star Wars, The Force Unleashed, Wii

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