It was the end of January 2011 and I, in full videogame maturity and fresh from the Xbox 360, had made a rather unusual pindaric flight; from Halo 3 I had upgraded to the then brand new Dead Space 2. A leap in graphic quality that unfortunately goes to the detriment of the iconic Master Chef and who left me at the time completely out of breath. It almost felt like I was playing with a different console from the one that had been on my shelf for months.
It was an absolute sensation, with a next gen flavor, that pleasant shock that is obsessively chasing even today. And once I was done dismembering necromorphs, I wanted even more to find out what my elite Xbox 360 had to offer. That’s exactly how I got to Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II.
It is a game that could do not deserve with your eyes closed to be incensed with the appellation of Old But Gold. It was quite a chapter controversial It’s divisive in opinions. Despite this, for the time, he succeeded in two rather important design aspects for a video game: graphics and gameplay.
I, hungry for “graphic designer” as I was at the time and a die-hard lover of Star Wars from an early age, I couldn’t resist the magnetic hold that Force Power II wields on me from that Gamestop shelf. And now I’ll also explain why I loved it.
Two for the price of one
Better face the elephant in the room right away, why was Star Wars the power of the Force II so controversial? Fault of a plot writing which, I must admit despite my love for the game, was really of low level.
Galen Nion Marek aka Starkiller, a former pupil of Darth Vader then moved to the side of the rebels, at the end of the first chapter he dies. Or at least, that’s what the players believed by getting one of the two endings of the first game. In the second chapter Starkiller will awaken in a bacta tank. Confused memories crowd his mind and once he realized he was on Kaminotry to escape from the empire to try to recover memory and find his old friends.
Now without further spoilers, the plot starts from one interesting premise that you literally go to self-destruct going further. In fact, Vader will try to continually insinuate into Starkiller the doubt of being a clone of the original. In confirmation of this, in addition to being very confused, there is the fact that the jedi has awakened on Kaminofamous planet of cloners enslaved to the empire.
The reassurances of Galen’s old friends and the fact of having memories instead row in the opposite direction, constantly putting a sense of doubt in the player: what we are controlling. is he the original Starkiller or are we actually impersonating just a copy?
It goes without saying that this narrative ploy it works very little. Although it is a rather intriguing opening, it quickly loses its bite as the plot progresses. Let’s face it, it’s just a bad story, with two equally bad endings.
It was a problematic storyline and I don’t deny that, but Star Wars the Force II had two more arrows to its bow that made it one of the titles. funniest I ever played at the time.
Short but fun!
What made my experience with The Power of the Force II incredible was my enormous admiration for the Jedi and for theirs powers. And following the title it carries, the game created by LucasArts with its gameplay managed to convey to you the enormous power of Starkiller. Maybe even too powerful!
In gameplay, however, this power made the game incredibly fun. You had tons of options for slaughtering Imperial stormtroopers: tear them apart (literally) with your own two lightsabersthrow them away with the thrusts of force, manipulate them with force grips, electrocute them, fascinate them and much more.
The options were multiple, but the best part was probably there possibility to concatenate imaginatively all these powers. For example, I loved to pull enemies into the air with PTO, stab them with the launch of the lightsaber, electrify them, and then smash them to the ground as if they were living grenades.
Unfortunately, the game is very short and its duration is about 6 hours. Even less than the first chapter. Despite its short lifespan, for those few hours of gameplay the gameplay is more than just fun! And well diversified!
If in fact the initial feeling is of being too powerful for mere imperial stormtroopers, you do not have to worry: slowly Darth Vader will send in your presence imperial units more and more lethal and well equipped. Despite this, although the difficulty may be challenging, the power of Starkiller makes the game very undemanding.
Star Wars The Force Unleashed II is a feast for the eyes
The second arrow that can boast the power of the Force II Star Wars, as you may have already guessed, is that technique. If the first chapter was already exquisite to see for the time, with the second one touches a peak hardly achieved by other games of that yeartouching the photorealism.
The animations were fluid, natural and far above the average of the video game of those years and even i models were amazing. Especially considering that in the case of enemy models, you could literally tear them apart with your lightsaber, with limbs that more often than not in the fury of combat they flew almost everywhere.
The CGI footage was really scary, but in a good way. To the point that many at the time hoped they would make a series or film with the same graphics engine. But even on the Star Wars artistic front, the power of the Force II defended itself well.
Many of the settings I remember them like it was yesterdayalthough the most beautiful are certainly the basis of Kaminowith its eternal rain, and the floral city of Cato Nemodia. The attention to environmental detail is incredible and certainly rare for the time. Character customization was also something precious. In fact, several costumes were available, but above all many colors for the two lightsabers including the legendary black color. And if you wanted, you could change the color of the lightsabers individually.
In short, Star Wars the power of the Force II was definitely a controversial title especially for fans of the sagabut there is no doubt that at the time it was wonderful to see and that may still be fun to play today. If you own a PC and are curious about getting it back, you can still find Star Wars the Power of the Force II on Steam! For my part, I can only advise you to try this little pearl!