I Killed a Guy with a TIE Fighter

Posted by Royalcow

Who out there after seeing Star Wars hasn't really wished they were a Jedi (or Sith)? How awesome would it be to shoot lightning from your fingers, force choke someone, or pull a X-wing out of a swamp (that's telekinesis, Kyle)? The correct answer is really freaking awesome. That is the basic premise the recently released game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

The game attempts to connect the events of Episode III to those of Episode IV. I actually enjoyed the story and the voice acting by Crashdown from Battlestar Galactica (see left) is quite good... but really that isn't why you should play this game. You see that picture above? That is why you should play this game because Darth Crashdown is a bad-ass, making you a bad-ass by extension.

Now for those of you who read Penny Arcade, you might find the following story somewhat familiar, but these types of things happen a lot in this game. It would not be odd to encounter a bunch of enemies, pick one of them up with the force and toss him hundreds of feet in the air, then proceed to force lightning your way through anyone who managed to get within a few yards of you, all the while doing serious bodily harm with your lightsaber. Oh don't forget to block and reflect some of those blaster shots back at those pathetic stormtroopers.

You have a lot of choices for what format you want to get this game for. While I have it on good authority that the Wii version is not up to snuff, you can get it on the DS or iPhone instead. Preferring as many games as possible in HD, I picked up the Xbox 360 version. Being the achievement whore I am, I attempted to kill 200 Wookiees with Darth Vader (oh right, you get to play as Vader at the beginning of the game, more awesome). I decided that the easiest method would be to pick up the first Wookiee who jumped out at me and then fling him around killing everyone. Turns out upon seeing a fellow hirsute companion being pushed towards them, other Wookiees decide to grab on. The resulting chain of Wookiees became too difficult to manage, so I just ended up hurling my lightsaber at them instead.

All in all I think this game is at least worth a rent (or check out the demo on Xbox Live Arcade). There are a few problems that take you out of the game (freezes, falls that don't kill you when they should, etc.) but the game autosaves enough that returning to a previous section is not that big of a deal. Oh and I killed a guy with a TIE fighter. How cool is that.