STAR WARS THE FORCE UNLEASHED PC
STAR WARS THE FORCE UNLEASHED LICENSE

This is a version of the Force that really hasn't been seen anywhere before, with over-the-top uses of things like Force Push. The Force Unleashed is built around giving players the ability to, as the name perfectly implies, unleash the Force. Kudos to the team for crafting a story that not only extends the fiction, but in a few small ways even expands upon the existing content. It's hard to talk about exactly why without spoiling anything, but I'll just say that the tale does a very good job of tying the two trilogies together and nicely sets up the current state of everything that you see in A New Hope.

The game's story takes place between Episodes III and IV (or the new and old trilogy for you number-phobic readers out there), though much closer in the timeline to A New Hope than Revenge of the Sith. However, despite these practically ground-up differences, these versions share many of the same issues that their big brothers have. So while you visit the same levels as in the other games, the level design itself is completely different, as are a number of other elements of the overall package. What's interesting here is that though the game shares the same storyline, Force powers and general structure as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 titles (which were the versions most often highlighted in the title's push up to now, obviously), Krome handled the PS2, Wii and PSP games while LucasArts simply oversaw the production. It does enough things right, especially with regards to giving players the ability to wield the Force like we've never seen before, to make it a play-worthy effort for Star Wars fans everywhere, but it does so with a number of missteps that won't easily be overlooked. Of course, those bits don't actually apply to PS2 and PSP gamers as the systems can't handle the computational load of those technologies, leaving the game's core action design to stand on its own. Featuring such technical buzzwords as Digital Molecular Matter and naturalmotion's Euphoria engine, the game has brought a ton of promise to the table.

STAR WARS THE FORCE UNLEASHED LICENSE

LucasArts hopes to change all that with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, a game that's been hyped not solely on its license and story, but its technology as well.

STAR WARS THE FORCE UNLEASHED PC

Raven did the PC right with a handful of Jedi Knight titles, but console gamers have been left out in the cold on Hoth for many years now.

It's been a long, long time since we've seen a good action-based Star Wars game hit consoles.

Star wars the force unleashed