Game:Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Players: 1
Age Rating: 12+ (BBFC)

Review

Ok it's been out for a good few weeks but here's a review anyway:

This is one of the few games that have come out on all the main consoles (present-gen and next) however this review is based solely on the Xbox 360 version.

The story starts off with you playing as Darth Vader on kashyyyk where Vader is hunting Jedi after having fun throwing Wookies around you find a hut with the jedi hiding in it after a good fight with the first jedi you've encountered you defeat him and just as you about finish the jedi off your lightsaber is pulled out off your hand, you spin around to find a boy holding your lightsaber this moment is quite good but you wish you could see vaders expression so he finishes off the jedi kills some of his stormtrooper buddies and you fast forward to vader accepting the boy now in his 18s as his apprentice so without revealing more of the story you do various missions for vader and the plot takes more twists and turns that you can deal with in such a short game. So there are two endings but rather than having choices throughout the game there is one at the end of it but basically the jedi ending will allow the films to happen as normal but the sith ending is not related to the films however both ending can pull at the heart strings of people who love happy endings.

When the demo came out there were many complaints on how the controls worked however personally i found that with practice the controls were only really problematic during the pull down the star destroyer level as for the actual game play the combination between using the force and a lightsaber was quite easy with practice even though you might not be targeting the enemy you wanted. The combos usually ran smoothly and you were only limited due to the length of the force bar. However there were some issues like the fact that dead enemies would still fire at you and grab objects and the not so serious problem of falling over enemies which is very funny on these large metallic troopers that wave their hands around when you die. A plus in my opinion was the QTEs which allowed you to watch some very cool finishers without complex combos however sometimes your so concentrated on which button to press next you don't notice the nice finishers.

The graphics i felt were very good by xbox 360 standards and most of the things you can see being destructible i added to the power of the game while the graphics were probably not as good as some of the new PS3 titles and some time the environments get repetitive within the level the diversity between each level quickly makes you forget the previous level and wanting the next.
The sound was excellent for the main characters which matched the expressions well and the voices of strangled troopers and phrases like 'close the bullhead doors' and 'ahhh no!' added to the light entertainment value the background music worked well with what you were doing at the time however going for the quiet music to loud star wars style music is very oppressing when you can't see any enemies.

Right the positives are by far the gameplay and the physics the fun of throwing people around and pulling off nice combos is only stopped by the lack of force bar.
now this isn't a negative as such but after finishing the game 4 times i want to be able to do something more now if i had the ps2 version i would be able to use cheats like invincibility and unlimited force not to mention costums like darth vader darth maul and Qui-gon gin which would add to the replay value. Also the lack of multiplayer makes me consider buying the wii version despite the inferior graphics and physics engine.

Overall
So i would defiantly rent this one but if you want more on the fun factor i would consider the wii version unless they find the unlimited cheats on the Xbox 360/PS3

Ratings

Graphics: A
Sound: A- (but more the A than straight A- ... A-+ if you want)
Gameplay: A+
Repeatability: B (almost a B- without the cheats)

Overall: A