Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Review

The first Force Unleashed was a weird beast. It was a terrible, terrible game (not quite Rebel Assault or Masters of Teras Kasi, but still) and yet it somehow managed to capture the classic Star Wars feel that we’ve so rarely seen since Episodes IV-VI, or a few very select games. This was largely down to the excellently scripted story, set between the two film trilogies, which depicted the formation of the Rebel Alliance and actually felt like canon. Best story to feature in a Star Wars game? Possibly. Good enough to justify playing the game? Let’s just say I’m thankful for comic adaptations.
Considering the game’s runaway success, a sequel was inevitable, and the dev team apparently took note of the fact that the actual gameplay was a bag of arse and sought to improve it with a decent amount of success. Irritatingly, though, this appears to have been at the expense of the plot, and as discussing it involves hinting at the ending for the first game, some of you may wish to avoid the next paragraph.
After Sith assassin turned Jedi knight (and gaming’s reigning Wentworth Miller lookalike contest champion) Starkiller’s heroic sacrifice at the end of the first game, he awakens in a cloning facility on Kamino with his old master Darth Vader trying to convince him to turn back to the dark side. Sadly for Vader this doesn’t quite work out: a few explosions later and Starkiller’s on the run in the facility, with the aims of escaping, tracking down old flame Juno Eclipse, and – before too long – trying to work out whether he’s a clone, as Vader claims, or the real Starkiller.
Interesting, right? Searches across distant planets! Identity-related intrigue! Except it’s not, because the plot point about whether Starkiller is a clone is pretty much forgotten after the second level, barring a few token mentions, and the initial search for Juno is completed rather quickly and anticlimactically. On the plus side, the plot appears to have allowed LucasArts to shoehorn in Yoda. On the minus side, the shoehorning is so obvious that the game creaks audibly as he clunks into place, and after a couple of backward-speaking lines he’s gone. The same goes for fan favourite Boba Fett, who turns up for a spot of bounty hunting before vanishing.
Don’t expect any major plot points like the first game’s revelations about the Rebellion’s formation – or, indeed any real form of story at all – and you won’t be too disappointed. Not until you finish the game on what appears to be the fifth level, at least (although the game will argue the number on the stage selection screen.)
Thankfully, the all-important gameplay is far more enjoyable, so it’s a case of two steps forward, one step back. Part of this newfound enjoyment is down to Starkiller’s lightsabers getting an upgrade that actually lets them cut through Stormtroopers with a few hits, rather than bludgeon them to death over the course of a half hour, and – happily – limbs and heads go flying with abandon. Starkiller also has the expected variety of Force powers on display, along with a few new abilities like Mind Trick, which either convinces enemies to fight on your side for a time or causes them to commit suicide in grimly amusing ways.
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Enemies can be roughly divided into two subcategories: big and small. Big enemies, like AT-STs, can take huge amounts of damage, normally have some sort of painfully obvious trick to defeating them, and – once enough damage has been done – can be finished off with a simple quick-time event that, while impressive the first time, quickly becomes repetitive. Small enemies are far more susceptible to both physical damage and Force attacks, barring the odd exceptions that are resistant to either lightsaber attacks or Force powers.
No single enemy is much of a threat for Starkiller, and the game’s challenge comes from the large mixed groups you’ll find yourself up against. This is simultaneously the game’s trump card and biggest weakness: cutting swathes through large groups of enemies, shoving foes off walkways, and tearing through companies of Stormtroopers with Force Lightning makes you feel genuinely powerful in a way the first game never quite achieved. It also means there’s not much to the combat. Starkiller’s lightsaber combos can be spiced up by throwing in Lightning or a Force Push at the end, but by and large, that’s all the combo depth you’ll really need to go into – and it’s really rather shallow.
This lack of combo depth means that boss fights, rather than being epic battles forcing you to use your abilities to their maximum potential, are gimmicks. An early one plonks you on what amounts to a 2D plane, forced to dodge attacks and hit a giant hand, while the climactic battle – pitting you against one of the most revered villains in cinematic history – is probably the single easiest section of the game, and boils down to a mix of extraordinarily easy combat and extraordinarily easy QTEs.
Despite the presence of a few fantastic fights you may well want to play through a few times, the game’s preference for saving before cutscenes and only letting you skip the pre-rendered ones means that longevity comes from the bonus Challenge modes, which are entertaining for a time. These test particular skills ranging from deflecting rockets back at attackers, through a spot of speed platforming, up to a gauntlet run through a mix of foes. The primary rewards are comic book-style cutscenes detailing a side-plot, in addition to costumes, experience points, and lightsaber crystals, enabling you to customise Starkiller in rudimentary but meaningful ways, with crystals granting various extra abilities. More experience from wrecking the scenery, and more health from killing foes? Or health drain attacks from lightsabers, and added fire damage? The challenge stages entertaining enough for a few runs, but only the most hardened completists are likely to redo them often enough to get Platinum ranking on each.
As Star Wars second episodes go, this is more Attack of the Clones than Empire Strikes Back: it’s flashy, pretty, and fun for awhile, but it lacks any real substance. While the combat is vastly improved over The Force Unleashed, the anaemic story – which honestly feels like it was thrown together solely to provide a few levels for the game, rather than crafted to work together with it – is a serious disappointment. Two steps forward, one step back.