With a little extra cash in my pocket due to a bonus check from work, I decided to drop some money on a game I didn’t previously have in my budget, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2.
I was pretty excited; I didn’t expect to be picking up another new game, especially just a week after Fallout: New Vegas was released, so this was like some cosmic aligning of the planets deal where everything just works out right. Well, good thing I don’t believe in that shit, because as you may have already noticed, I’m writing a review for a game I picked up just two days ago. For some people, that’s plenty of time to finish a new title, but I don’t think I’ve ever finished a retail game that fast. Does that mean the game was so GREAT that I couldn’t put it down? Not exactly, Force Unleashed 2 didn’t take me more than 5 hours to play through. So the question that begs answering is, “How were those 5 hours? Was it worth the price of admission?”

I played the demo for Force Unleashed 2 last week and it really felt like an improvement from the first game. The demo level was very solid and the story it teased was enough to make me want to buy the full game, just like a demo should. What I wasn’t expecting in the full version was to have to go through the motions of that demo multiple times. Now, I don’t mean you have to play that level over and over, but the mechanics you encounter in it are recycled again and again. The only escape from this monotony is the occasional obstacle requiring you to use the force to push, pull, drag, or lift something so you can move on to the next kill area, and even that get’s recycled. You’ll enter a room with a mixed bag of enemy troops, then move on to another room just like it, and another, and then another with a slightly harder enemy, then another….on and on and on.

The platforming isn’t horrific, but in the last stage especially, it gets extremely repetitive for no good reason. So much of the game seems added just to stretch out the experience, and ends up ruining it. In fact, that’s my biggest complaint of The Force Unleashed 2; it’s goddamn TEDIOUS.

But maybe that’s all I should have expected from this game. Maybe I’m just to a point of boredom with quick time events, but so many enemies die by this means that it really devalues its existence by the time you’re half way through the game. In all honesty, the most fun I had with the combat was fighting Stormtroopers. They are the only thing in the game that really let you have fun with your bevy of force powers. The game pretty much tells you how to kill any of the larger mobs on your first encounter with that type, and you simply rinse and repeat that for the next thirty times you run into it. I really wish the game would have allowed you to vanquish your enemies in more ways and let you use them as play toys rather than just something you have to hit buttons at so you can get to the next cut scene.

Now, I’ve read on a couple other sites that people were a little upset about Dagobah. Simply put; there’s not much reason for it even being in the game. It makes up one QUARTER of the planets you visit, and it only lasts for about 30 seconds until you get to the cut scene with Yoda, and in those 30 seconds you do nothing but run forward in the swamp. It was largely pointless, but you know what? I’m happy they didn’t make Degobah into a platformer like the rest of the game, forcing you to hack up swamp area after swamp area of enemies.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not ALL bad. I did enjoy some parts of the game immensely. Each of the three “falling” stages were very well done, the third one was something that I’ll have a lasting memory of. The environments are really a pleasure to look at, and the controls are a great improvement over the first game. I still had some issues with the camera getting in my way, but I blame that on myself for not using the auto target button enough. I liked how I could upgrade certain force powers and change my lightsaber crystals to tailor the abilities to my play style, but I found that I still used specific abilities with certain enemy types. Maybe the next game could allow a deeper customization.

Overall though, I don’t feel like I got my money’s worth. This would be a great rental, but it’s not worth the 10+ dollars per hour of game time I spent.

On a side note, I have to add that the one thing that I will never forget about this game wasn’t even because of the game itself. At the very end, you have to make a pivotal decision which I assume will be carried over to the next game in the series. My daughter was sitting with me on the couch as I finished up the game, and she asked me what was happening when the choice was presented to me. I explained to her what the two choices were, and I asked her which one I should choose.

Her answer made me very proud.