Ran through this one in the past 9 hours or so (on and off, during work, break, car rides, and on teh couch). PSP version - i'm hoping - has a lot of character exposition and cutscenes missing, because as I see it, any connection these game characters have with each other is even more two-dimensional than they were in Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.

There's also a lot of broken gameplay mechanics that immediately kill fun factor, and put a leash back on that alleged 'unleashed force'. (Stormtroopers being able to widthstand/parry 20+ lightsaber slashes? Full force lightning - with two hands? FORCE CHOKE!? )


You've seen similarly designed puzzle-type enemies (the kind that are more effectively killed a certain way) in the Revenge of the Sith game, a game which this very very closely emulates. But in this game, whereas you had a bit of leniency in deciding how to take out enemies, even if options for enemy types were sometimes limited, you are instead forced to consistently try EVERYTHING on enemies until something works.

That's because most of the enemies from around 4 hours and onward into the game, can survive your attacks, and share the same basic, uber aggressive AI profile. There are melee attackers that can seemingly block/absorb/redirect/cancel your force attacks, parry nearly all of your saber attacks (no counter system is in place, and you have to see attack animations all the way to their finish). You'll occasionally get lucky enough to get 20 feet of space from the enemy and try some ranged attack to hurt them - but the most effective and seemingly absurd tactic, seems to be to gain space, throw saber, repeat till dead.

Towards the last few hours of the game, you'll be facing a lot of these anti-jedi enabled regular stormtroopers/warriors/guards/etc, along with a bunch of increasingly annoying flying types, and gunner types. The melee attackers will pin you down, rendering your force attacks nearly useless, the shooting characters will quickly sap your life bar with spot-on (these guys weren't supposed to be able to aim ) accuracy and rapid (AND I MEAN RAPID) fire laser barrages, and finally, the flying mother *bleep*ers will do a bit of both - since they seem to have more HP than any of them, and are even harder to hit as they are flying.



There's a lot of debris/junk in the game, but the game lacks a competent way of targeting specific debris, and also lacks auto-targeting finesse that would allow you to pick up an object, and toss it at a lone trooper in the middle of a wide-open arena. (It'll likely miss 2 out of 3 times).


The camera is a bit of a pain in the ass. It slowly autocenters behind your character, but can be quickly centered by tapping down on the dpad. You can lock the camera on enemies by pressing L+Down on the dpad, but the end result is usually you having to take hits while you rearrange the camera, or wrestle to view an object or area that the gameplay mechanics decide you don't need to see. :\

PSP version does have a bit of a lengthy load time between areas, and there's a heck of a lot of frame skip - likely due to the fact that there's so much junk and shit going on on-screen that all those needless effects, textures, and models are killing frame rate.

Story had potential, but was paper thin, and weakly developed. As said, I hope the PS3/360 versions have more content in this area that was simply edited out of the PSP version - otherwise the story is really only noteworthy at the very very end, and even then so it can be surmised in a few sentences. There's also a bit of a weak plot twist that throw what you think the plot's about out of whack. By the time you finish it, you may likely feel unfulfilled, and WISH TO GOD that the next Kotor game sheds info on itself sometime soon.


Enriched star wars games are increasingly hard to come by.


Far as the gameplay design goes in Force Unleashed, these developers shouldn't quit their day jobs. It's average, and we don't want average. Activision/Ravensoft did this much better with the Jedi Knight series - with gameplay that left a great amount of succeeding on player skill, and not senseless button mashing and redundant battles that drag on and on.


By the fifth or sixth hour of this game, you'll already want to be at the end of the game - it really drags and digs into repetition. It's a shame really, had high hopes for this one.


On the plus side, sound effects and visuals are great, and push the bar for the PSP (duuurr, remember the frame skip?)

With the additional 'fancy' effects that the game engine has on the next gen systems, any continued games they create with the engine CAN AT LEAST, already having the fancy shit sorted out, focus on making a compelling, well scripted story, and gameplay that *bleep*ing satisfies when it promises to up front (with a game name like Force Unleashed, you'd think there'd be plenty of fodder to abuse - yet when 'unleashed force' becomes useless against standard soldiers, then you really *bleep*ed up).

I also hope Raven/Activision can continue the Jedi Knight series. I see this game project is a potential play to sweep the JK series into new hands, but it really doesn't deliver where it needs to. As said, such gameplay in Force Unleashed IS NOT designed for multiplayer fun. When gameplay design detracts from skill based playing, it's almost useless.



In any case, i'll have a clear save uploaded later on in the evening (after I get back from work). Starts the game with all costumes and force powers, and most of the saber crystals (didn't bother to find them all, as near the end, I just wanted to get it over with). The basics are in there though, green, red, violet, blue, red, yellow - no orange yet.

I found a purple-ish red and a pink! It sorta got a bit repetitive when you keep veturing back and forth to the same location.

thanks for the input..

awww the mean stromtroopers beat you up. lol

i found a red 2 green 3 purple and orange

Any idea where that orange was?

I do have to say the last two boss fights of the game are pretty kewl, especially the battle damage on the second to last fight. If only the boss wasn't owned like a bitch so badly.


So, that plot twist. Complete garbage. Mr. Apprentice held his own, so why wasn't the original plan carried out? It obviously could have worked! Stupid writing...

That seems to be the case with all storylines...

i like the gameplay and all the hidden items