Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

As the sequel to Lucas Arts' fastest selling game in company history, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II had a lot of pressure on its shoulders. When the gameplay of the original Force Unleashed turned out to be mediocre and forgettable, the announcement of a sequel gave gamers high hopes for a better combat system, and an overall better game. Too bad The Force Unleashed II seems to create more problems than it solves.

In this sequel you continue to story of Darth Vader's secret apprentice with a stupid name, Starkiller. (Spoiler Alert) After dying at the conclusion of the light side ending from the first game (or did he?), Starkiller is cloned (or is he?) on planet Kamino in order to continue to serve his master. However, Starkiller is haunted by the memories of his original self (or are they his own memories?), and decides to defy Vader and search for his girlfriend, Juno. General Kota also returns to try to convince Starkiller to lead the new Rebellion, plus there's cameos from Boba Fett, Princess Leia, and Yoda.

Starkiller's journey takes him to the familiar planets of Kamino, Geonosis, and Dagobah; as well as the Rebel starship, The Salvation.

The combat system isn't too different from the first game. You'll have two lightsabers this time, and you can also use the Jedi mind trick to convince enemies to fight each other or leap to their doom. The upgrade system, however, has been simplified. Each basic force power has three ranks, and Starkiller has almost all of them available at the beginning of the game. Lightsaber cores and color crystals have also been fused together. (I don't know about you, but I like being able to choose what kind of add ons I have and what color my lightsaber's blade is.)

The game's biggest problem is the story length. I'm going to be honest: this is one of the shortest retail games I've ever played. I'd estimate maybe five hours total of playtime. FIVE HOURS!? Are you serious!? And for $60!? No thank you sir. I'd rather burn my cash; at least I'll be able to cook some food and keep warm for about three minutes. At the end of the game, it's obvious that Lucas Arts intended The Force Unleashed to be a trilogy, if not longer. There's also at least one DLC due sometime in the future, so it looks like they're trying to garb all the money they can get.

The poor length of this game also hurts everything else in it. Character upgrades are rushed, there's only two real boss battles, and Boba Fett and Yoda only get 30 seconds of screen time a piece. Sure, there's plenty of mini-boss battles to be had, but they're limited in variety and get boring quick.

Of course, the game isn't completely horrible. Most of the force powers and lightsaber fights are still fun for any Star Wars fan. The force grip ability has especially shown significant improvement in control and usefulness. The game also looks and sounds like any Star Wars game should, even though John Williams didn't write the new score. Another new feature this time around is dismembering stormtroopers. (And yet it still got a T rating?)

There's also some challenges to keep you distracted, and I guess it's worth your time if you seriously need to unlock every single achievement, costume, and bonus material.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is probably one of the most disappointing games of 2010. If you're a fan of the franchise, just rent it so you can unlock the Boba Fett costume and live a bit of nerd fantasy. Otherwise, stay "far, far away" from this game. (I know, I hate puns too.)

Available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and MAC. Also available for Nintendo DS. Rated T for Teen. Produced and developed by Lucas Arts. Also developed by Aspyr Media for PC version, and Red Fly Studio for Wii version.

Image provided courtesy of Wikipedia.org.