Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II review

Formats: PS3, XBox 360, PC, Wii, Nintendo DS
Format reviewed: PS3
Publisher: LucasArts
Developer: LucasArts
Made2Game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II review score: 5/10

After StarKiller was killed at the end of the first Force Unleashed, it seemed fair to peg that the series had done its deed and plugged a hole between the original films and the new films pretty well. Well it seems that LucasArts have had other ideas, because now we have sequel.

For those who don’t know the original story, StarKiller is Darth Vader’s apprentice and as such is sent on a journey to become a better Sith and strong enough to help Vader defeat the Emperor. As you may have guessed things don’t go as smoothly as StarKiller is lead to believe and instead he is betrayed by Vader. Following this StarKiller is then revived and set on a mission to create the Rebel Alliance, but this was a ruse to sort out the opposer's of the Emperor and once again results in StarKiller’s death.

This is pretty much where this next title picks up, StarKiller is dead or so you are told, and the character that you are controlling now is StarKiller 2.0, a cloned version of the dead guy which Vader is trying to develop into an ultimate Sith warrior. You are meant to be one in a series of clones that have not worked and thus Vader has replaced them. But this time things are different, upon him threatening to basically kill you, StarKiller jumps ship and sets off on his own. Now things become very much a web of story and reflection, if you have played the original game you will remember Juno Eclipse who was the Captain of the Starship that ferried StarKiller around to the various planets on his original journey and also ultimately became his love interest. She is now, this version of StarKiller’s only goal in life.

Thus the adventure is a seemingly strange run across the galaxy to find her. The story is not the only flaw in the game, were as most games that are direct sequels will try to expand on the original, The Force Unleashed 2 just kinda copies it. Unlike the upcoming Batman sequel that will allow all the moves and equipment from the first game to be used without relearning,  here StarKiller has forgotten everything and only relearns the skills in the Force at certain points the in the story.

The way things work makes the start of the game feel terrible and it only actually picks up after a good few hours. The addition of another lightsaber does sort of alleviate some of the pain of missing Force powers, but not enough to make you feel powerful and well… anything like an Ultimate Sith Warrior. Not everything in the game is bad, it does have some things on its side, though mainly graphics.

LucasArts know how to make things look great and everything in Force Unleashed 2 looks pretty amazing, from the rain swept planet of Kamino to the Space Battle on board the Salvation. The Force powers targeting has also been improved, not by much but the ability to not grab a chair instead of the Storm trooper who is shooting at you, if a welcome addition.

The Force Unleashed 2 is not what players will expect from the Star Wars cannon, it doesn’t fit in well with established lore and feels more like a cash-in than something you really want to play. Don’t get me wrong there is fun to be had in terms of playing with Force powers and the fact that Lightsabers now cut off limbs instead of just leaving burn marks. But ultimately there are better action games out there and StarKiller’s story was told already. If there is to be another game in the series, then we hope LucasArts learn a lesson from what went wrong here.

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