Force Unleashed 2

[Joe]

Probably gonna be the winner of 'Biggest Letdown of the year' award.

 

[Tetsujin]

Just cancelled my preorder. I don't have too much money right now and I don't want to waste it for letdowns D:
Say, how is this Lords of Shadow game...?

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Believe me. It deserves every one.

Force powers are even annoying because there's ALWAYS at least on thing immune to what you're using, so it becomes a monotony of "use X against X and Y against Y and wait for QTE prompt"

I'm gonna see if I can trade it in for LoS today.


X

 

[null]

I'm sorry you ended up taking one for the team X, but I'm literally still pounding my desk laughing. Awesomely bad games are hilarious.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I'm letting myself laugh about it because it's the only rewarding part about having played the game. Oh lord. How did this even happen? Seriously the unused cinematics alone tell a better story. I'd write a full lul-rage review if I was at a computer and not on my phone.


X

 

[Tetsujin]

To think I got all hyped up for TFU2 and stuff. I even got the platinum trophy on TFU1 a few days ago. >.>

 

[ForceStealer]

You are a Platinum machine, tets Every time I happen to pass over your PSN name I'm always amazed how much you've increased since the last time I looked.

 

[Tetsujin]

I have too much time on my hands.
I wanted the FFXIII platinum trophy as well but grinding for all that shit just isn't fun enough.

 

[ForceStealer]

See now that was one I got There wasn't TOO much grinding, but boy did i ever feel like a nerd with a notebook in front of me working out the most efficient upgrade items

And I'm eager to see X's nerdrage review when he gets to a computer

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Nerdrage review will be added probabpy late-ish tonight, as I'm out and about for a while today (also probably trading in the game while I'm out). It will be epic. I promise.


X

 

[Tetsujin]

See now that was one I got

Yeah, I saw that, my respect for that.
I don't know if I'll ever be arsed to do it.

About TFU2, I will still check it out someday but I'm just going to rent it instead. For now, I'm interested in reading a detailed review from you, X.
Keep it spoiler-free though?

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I'll spoiler tag anything so those who don't care can read it, but it doesn't ruin it for anyone.

Also- under 24 hours and one trade in later, and I am now the proud owner of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.


X

 

[Joe]

I was trying to decide the other day whether I would be purchasing this or Fable 3. This has made up my mind.

That and Fable 3 has apparantly surprised a lot of people.

 

[ForceStealer]

Fable 3 seems to be getting really inconsistent reviews. They're kinda all over.

 

[Russell]

So apparently this isn't the sequel I'm looking for.

Spoiler

A review I found on the interwebz:

Spoiler

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 is a desperate cash grab. For whatever minor improvements were made to the combat for this sequel -- and, boy, are they pretty basic -- the story is an insult to the original's award-winning narrative. While the first Force Unleashed tied up a compelling piece of Star Wars canon in a nice bow, the sequel has no aspiration to be a major part of lore or to be nearly as epic. It simply cobbles together glorified fan fiction for what amounts to an unexceptional subplot as it abruptly ends in the second act screaming, "SEQUEL GOES HERE!"

The story begins with a revived Starkiller, locked up in a cloning facility on rainy Kamino, being told by Darth Vader that he's just the latest iterative test tube creation in some cloning plot ... or is he? No, really, or is he? We never find out. That's not so much a spoiler as it is the type of writing one should be prepared for. However, that's not the main plot. At its core, the story is about the shackles of love, as our sad clone (... or is he?) desperately tries to reconnect with his love interest from the first game, Cpt. Juno Eclipse.

You could make an argument that with his overabundance of power, Starkiller's character in the original Force Unleashed was a "Mary Sue," but the first story was handled with such respect and (at the time) finality, it wasn't a real problem. For the sequel, let that Mary Sue criticism fly proud: Our hero tosses TIE fighters like crumpled paper, survives an impossible fall in the wake of a starship's detonation and is basically the most ridiculously powerful user of The Force the galaxy has ever known. If Darth Vader had one of the highest concentrations of midichlorians ever seen, Starkiller is a midichlorian.

There are situations that border on being bad Star Wars camp. If things aren't laughably ridiculous enough early in the game, it definitely settles in by the time bottled clones start popping out wielding dual lightsabers. Seriously, these clones were bottled with lightsabers. I know the empire has the cash to fund the creation of a Death Star, but are so many lightsabers being produced by Wookie slaves on Kashyyyk that the options for these things must have been either sell them at the dollar store or bottle them with clones.

The story taking a dive in the sequel wouldn't be so bad if the mediocre gameplay of the first title soared to new heights here. Short version: it doesn't. It's better, for sure, it's an improvement. However, with similar, more precise action games in the third-person like God of War, Batman: Arkham Asylum and, even, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow available, the Force Unleashed 2 just feels inelegant. You'll spam whatever button activates the power that the specific enemy you're fighting at the time is weak against and watch the same close-combat grab animations hundreds of times. There really isn't a need to change up the combat routines for specific enemies because they are weak to such specific things. Thankfully, when frustrating deaths do occur -- typically during a boss fight or because you didn't kill enough enemies to sap their life -- the checkpoint system won't set you back far at all.

The cycle of combat involves hammering the dash button to get in close, using the aforementioned "best move" on the enemy and then watching those yummy experience and health orbs fly into Starkiller. The XP points are used to upgrade one of seven force powers, with each segmented into three levels. Leveling up lets Starkiller either use the ability on more enemies at once, like Force Lightning or Mind Trick, while abilities like Force Push or Saber Throw increase in damage. It's pretty basic and you'll likely find yourself dumping those points into whichever power your enemy of the moment is weakest against.

Health is given out by the bucket for killing the variety of Stormtroopers and Droids that are tossed at Starkiller like eggs at a window. Worrying about health isn't a huge concern in the game, except when the arachnid drones won't stop jumping and breaking the flow of battle or when being blindsided by rockets from AT-STs.

Playing on normal, the game is easily under eight hours. There are only nine levels (eight, if don't count one glorified walk that takes two minutes) spanning two worlds and a starship. A jaunt around the galaxy this is not. Also, if you're aware of the cameo appearances in this game, that's exactly what they are. Showing up for a cutscene and poof... they're gone.

The 'game' part of The Force Unleashed 2 isn't bad, but everything else is so dumb it's hard to enjoy the experience. Some elements, like controls and technical work, are passable. But as a follow-up experience to the original game, it's one I can never wash off, wish I could forget and don't plan to acknowledge ever existed.

Anyone looking to turn off their brain for several hours and spam some buttons as a ridiculously powerful Force user will do fine. Those who respected the first game for its story, or are looking for quality presentation, combat variety and the feeling like they didn't just get two-thirds of a full-priced product can find better games now in a galaxy much, much closer.

Shame, it looked/sounded great before it came out.

 

[Sheva Alomar]

So glad I didn't even bother to pre-order. Big damn shame that this game was slapped into the franchise.

 

[Interslicery]

The only reason I loved the first one as much as I did was because of the great story. it tied eps 3 and 4 perfectly together, and if the story is shit, I have no reason to play this.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

So, I've been distracted by Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, and I kinda forgot about writing this. Spoilers will be tagged for those who want to avoid them. Please note that I will list the 4 5 levels that you go to in order, so MINOR spoiler there, but nothing crazy.


Everything starts out on Kamino, which is a longer version of what you played in the Demo. It's longer in all the right places, making your escape epic, and the conflicts involve the amusing moments with blowing away big groups of troopers, while still dealing with the more difficult troopers and their electrostaffs, the jump pack troopers are still fun to just shock and let them spiral around and explode. The Carbonite War Droids do a good job of mixing it up, and adding some need for tactics. Dynamic running moments and crushing TIE Fighters. The grappling mechanics are a lot of fun with little cut scenes, but they never explain the dash push / dash lightning attacks. I just knew about them from the first game.

From there you move on to Cato Neimoidia to rescue Kota. Things are still fairly epic at this point with you making a grand entrance and smashing through pretty much everything in the hanging cities. The DMM is much better and in just a lot more things, like statues, so many things can be bent if they don't break. You run into 2 new enemies here that start to mix up combat more:

Spoiler

the AT-MPs that fire missiles that you can block back, or grip and throw, and the Sith Acolytes, who are immune to your force powers. Don't ask where the Acolytes came from, because it never explains why there are suddenly Dark Side Force wielding lackeys everywhere. Grappling takes care of them, and it's enjoyable to impale them in the chest with a lightsaber, and then toss them off a cliff. you get to rampage through casinos, destroying tons of gaming machines, and fight a war droid and some more AT-MPs. There's a few great events while everything is blown to smithereens around you, and Baron Tarko taunting you over speakers. You finally make your way into the arena.

The end section of this level is basically where the story decides to show you that it's actually not going anywhere, and there are some BIG changes that hit the game.

The Gorog has changed. It went from this:

to this (minor spoiler in the below cinematic, reference image below)

Spoiler

Intimidation factor gone, it looks like it's been abused and mistreated, and is less than the all-powerful monstrosity I'd hoped to defeat. In fact you mostly just keep chaining it up so it wrecks the stadium and falls, no direct SotC / epic combat to be had. Kota keeps shouting bits like "attack its hand" when it grabs one of the cables: but he's blind... so.... what? It grabs Kota and falls, and you chase and save him, and escape on the Rogue Shadow.

From here you tell Kota that you're a clone, which he doesn't believe, and he argues with Starkiller that he needs to be battling the Empire, not "finding himself" and he might as well go wander on Dagobah- so you do, while Kota goes elsewhere.


In the mean while, Boba Fett is Hired, his cinematic appearance marking the only time you see him. The only other two being the Slave One flying away, or if you get the Light Side Ending.

You land right outside Yoda's hut on Dagobah, have the option of picking up some rocks to grab a couple force holocrons, go say hi, and see a vision of clones in the walls, and Juno being captured. Then you leave. Yoda has more lines in the above, scrapped Gorog cinematic, and it makes it seem like he's important. He's not. He basically says, "Go into the cave, do what it tells you."

You depart from the completely barren Dagobah level, and move on towards the Salvation (the Rebel Ship that Juno is/was commanding).

Spoiler

You picked Kota up on the way and explained everything between cutscenes. BIG disappointment, because there COULD have been an entire level made out of that, especially because Kota was on Malastare, which is where the Zillo Beast - who was cloned - was from. Feels like a missed opportunity for a big battle, and you know, actually having some story. Basically, Starkiller thinks he's a clone and doesn't care, because he needs to find Juno, and Kota just wants his power for the Rebellion.

The Salvation is a lot of long Starship corridors, which is unfortunate, because it really limits your ability to really feel powerful. Plus the enemy combos ramp up here, and neuter your force powers even more. You've got little Terror Droid spiders and jump at you, and basically defeat them by Jump, Force Repulse, Repeat. There are one or two Grievous-like bots at places, but you don't really notice them until your QTE shows you what you're killing. The other enemies are these odd droid-like people that are immune to EVERYTHING because they warp out of the way. The only way to stop them is shock them and combo anything together to kill them. It's at this point that you're basically button spamming one thing for whatever enemy is on screen. Your force powers ALL have hard counters, and despite feeling unleashed, you feel downright incapable compared to TFU1.

There's lots of jumping through burned out and dark corridors, and re-powering things with force lightning. I actually glitched and turned invisible and fell through a wall in this part during one of the platforming areas, and had to guide my invisible self back to the starting platform where it re-spawned me.

Spoiler

Fett's here to get Juno, which is why the ship's crawling with enemies.

It goes for a horror feel, but that does really work with keeping the idea of Starkiller as a bombad, force mad, deadeye, jedi warrior. That's ok, because the combat is slowly showing you that without fighting every enemy exactly how it tells you, it won't just be tough, NOTHING will happen. So you start to feel a completely different type of horror from what it's trying to portray, as you suddenly realize that, "Oh, shit. Even the force >9000 is now just a chore." Force pushing bots swarms is tedious, and there's no big squads of hapless Storm troopers to shove around, let alone any room in which to do so.

You get to fight the Terror Droid somewhere around here, with Kota nagging at you to do things that he can't see from the other end of the ship (let alone if it were right in front of his fucking face, because he's BLIND).

Spoiler

It's far from epic, with you being forced to deactivate its shields by opening a reactor, and then smash it. You get to ride it for a minute, but it's too clunky to be much of any fun. FAR from the one in this unused cinematic:

New enemies came in somewhere along here: MORE Sith guys with red lightsabers that are immune to lightsabers, but NOT some(?) force powers. Combat neutering complete.

Spoiler

Fett escapes, as you see the Slave One fly off, and you move in for an assault on Kamino, except- THERE'S AN IMPERIAL FLEET WAITING FOR YOU!!! D: ...didn't see that coming... The ship already a wreck, so you make your way to the bridge. You re-power and fire the main cannon and blow up a Star Destroyer. The big payoff? No Cinematic, you watch it's shitty little model break and explode out the window in game from where you are. Now you've decided you're gonna crash the ship into Kamino and rescue Juno. Some directional button mashing and you're smashed back down on Kamino, looking for the place you found on your vision.

Back on Kamino, you're in the inner area, working your way up a ton of spinning cloning containers. At this point, I checked my trophies, and realized that I was one away from the end of the game, and basically felt disbelief. They had to somehow sum up all the big questions, and tie the events in to what they'd released in the 1157 minigame... or did they?

The new enemies are Carbonite War Droids that shoot fire. A re-skin. Because there have been SO many new/unique enemies in this already, I needed to repeat a mechanic, without being able to freeze them. Rip shield, attack until dead. The platforming is long, quiet and boring. Nothing special for smashing things, only a few warping enemies that spamming Force lightning and a few slashes will dispatch. A fall respawns you at the last solid piece of land that wasn't one of the rotating clone holders. Jump to EVERY new section, because there's a Starkiller-sized gap between surfaces that SEEM like you can walk across them, that will reset you a long way back.

Spoiler

Kota keeps asking you for help, and you keep insisting that you don't give a fuck, and want to find Juno. That's basically the atmosphere. At some point, you walk through some awkward camera angles and see other clones in vats, but nothing epic there, and NO tie in to the 1157 information. You don't even show up in an area that looks like where he was held. You finally find Vader. Cue one of the most aggravating boss fights ever. No epic throwing him through walls, like the trailer, nada. You jump around cloning platforms as he throws shit at you, and summons up groups of white/blue clones of you. White wielding lightsabers (they come pre-packaged), and blue- force immune. I fought off these things, and continued after Vader, but after about 30 mins realized that even with maxed out lightsabers meleeing him at close range, while he was stunned, I was basically doing nothing, and dying reset him back to full. The only thing to to is Mind trick your clones and follow him until you basically clusterfuck him to death. EVEN Force Fury doesn't help, which I'd forgotten existed, because there's no real good reason to use it, or big space to show off. Vader chucks Juno and before you can cut his head off, Kota shows up and stops you, because he can APPARENTLY SEE WHAT YOU'RE ABOUT TO DO.

This all leads to one of two equally unsatisfying conclusions, spoiler tagged below. Is this Starkiller a clone? Was the first TFU Starkiller a clone? 1131/1138/1157? The game either doesn't care (DarkSide) or doesn't tell you (Light Side). That's not a spoiler, I'm just letting you know, so you can choose the ending you'd rather see by Pressing R1 or L1 at the end of this mess. Personally, I'd go Dark Side.

Spoiler

Light Side

DarkSide

Long story short, I beat the game in under 6 hours, while taking the time to meticulously destroy every statue, bridge ornament, tv, game machine, and piece of furniture on Cato Neimoidia, because I had a lightsaber crystal that gave me experience for it, and the story gave me nothing more than the nerd rage it took be to write this. I'd rather play a game as Jar Jar Binks in Episode one. Seriously. The Teaser/Betrayal/Walls/Snow Cinematics aren't in the game, but should have been, and at least TFU1 took you BACK to most of the planets you went to. Keep the Demo though, aside from the beginning parts of Cato Neimoidia, it's all of the best part of the game.

Do yourself a favor, buy Castlevania (like I did), or if you've played that Enslaved. They both came out this month, and are supposed to be FAR better than this. Castlevania already is, and I'm only on Chapter 4 of TWELVE, and have already been through over twice the content of TFU2.


X

 

[null]

I love how Juno is the supposed lynchpin of both FU games, yet the story spends a grand total of like 45 seconds investing any effort into the love arc.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I wish that instead of creating a DLC Level where you kill Ewoks, they would have actually made more levels for the actual game. Granted, I'm probably just bitter, and can't play this even if I was interested, because I no longer own the game. I'll contemplate picking up a used copy if/when they decide to finish off the Ultimate Sith storyline, since that alone would almost certainly be better than the whole of TFU II.


X