He’s acrobatic in his motions and uses his force powers to crush, kill and destroy his enemies. Every kill getting him closer to a showdown with Darth Vader.
When Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II was unveiled at E3, the trailer revealed a stunning computer-generated action sequence showing Starkiller fighting a mob of Storm Troopers. The graphics were promising and fed tons of hype to fans of the first Unleashed title, which introduced Starkiller, the protagonist and apprentice to Darth Vader.
Unleashed took place between Star Wars: Episodes 3 and 4, creating an original story that bridged the gap between both the old and the new trilogies. Starkiller first worked for Darth Vader following his orders and doing certain tasks that would enable Vader to take the control of the empire away from Emperor Palpatine. But after completing a mission that involved rescuing members of a fledgling rebel alliance, Starkiller learned that the Empire was evil and decided to go after Vader and disrupt his plans of total control. When Starkiller confronted Vader, he was killed. In his death, Starkiller was credited for starting the Galactic War between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance.
Unleashed II takes place seven months after the first, and there is a huge disconnect in the story that should be mentioned. The beginning of Unleashed II reveals that Vader cloned Starkiller, so the character you’re playing with in this game is a clone of the original Starkiller from Unleashed. The Starkiller in Unleashed II also retained all the memories from the first game, which is both convenient and confusing. As the “new Starkiller,” your mission in this game is to rescue Starkiller’s love interest, Juno, take down waves upon waves of Storm Troopers and attempt to defeat Vader again.
The fact that you play as a clone from the first game is a red flag and reveals that there was no need for the creation of this sequel. Since we know that Vader doesn’t truly die until Star Wars: Episode 6, the final film of the trilogy, having Starkiller come back from the dead to rescue his girlfriend and to try to defeat Vader again is both redundant and pointless. There is no motivation when playing this game since the story leads nowhere, which is evident by the game’s six hour running time.
Aside from the lack of a cohesive storyline, the game has fluid controls that run a lot smoother than the first, allowing for a more minimal gaming screen. The stream of text that explained how to do certain combos no longer clutters the screen and there is an absence of a mini map on the left corner, two components that were included in the first game.
The way you can execute and unlock combos has been made easier. Instead of having to pick and choose what combos you want to unlock, like the first Unleashed, players now get to spend points they have collected throughout the game to upgrade their Force Talents. Also, there are hidden lightsaber crystal Holocrons in each level that, when collected, allow you to upgrade your lightsaber.
Yet even with these upgrades, the game fails to deliver. It isn’t challenging enough and there are hardly any puzzles. Also, if you’re waiting for the scenes that you’ve seen in the commercials showing intense battles between Starkiller and Vader, you’ll be left waiting for an eternity because all those were just for show, and you don’t even get to play those levels.
With a confusing storyline, sub-par graphics and lack of variety, The Force Unleashed II will leave fans of the first scratching their heads, wondering why the sequel to such an amazing game was treated without care.
Originally published in the Daily Titan on November 16, 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment