Metareview -- The Force Unleashed (360, PS3)

by Justin McElroy on Sep 16th 2008 11:00AM

The reviews are in for The Force Unleashed, and though the title promises unparalleled Force-based action, it seems that most of the praise being heaped on the game is for its story and how well it nails Lucas' universe.

That doesn't mean that the Force is wrong with this one, though (we've been waiting for months to use that). The consensus is that throwing wookies about like Congenital Generalized Hypertrichosis-stricken Ken dolls is a never-ending font of fun.

Eurogamer (70/100): "It gets an extra point, then, from this Star Wars obsessive for the story and the mostly magnificent recreation of the universe. As a fan you will want to experience what The Force Unleashed has to offer. It's just a shame that while there are occasional moments of brilliance when everything falls into place, they're not quite enough to back up the game's delusions of grandeur."
Game Informer (88/100): "The Force Unleashed isn't the ultimate Star Wars game - KOTOR is still king in my book. But, as advertised, it amplifies this mystical power in new ways to delivers exciting gameplay and unforgettable Star Wars moments. It'll leave you wanting more, but take my word for it, it's worth playing just to see Vader Force-throw wookiees."
Giant Bomb (60/100): "Overall, the story is the main thing that I'll remember about The Force Unleashed--I found it to be more satisfying than the last three movies combined. ... That said, it's unfortunate that the game isn't a bit more even, because the constant flips from too easy to too hard really drag things down and prevent The Force Unleashed from being great. But even with its lengthy list of caveats, The Force Unleashed is still one of the best Star Wars games to be released in quite some time."
1UP (C):"A more appropriate name would've been Star Wars: The Force Mildly Contained -- rarely does the Force truly feel like the ultimate weapon, something that separates you (Darth Vader's not-so-secret apprentice) from the rabble of stormtroopers, Rodians, and Felucians."

Tags: force-unleashed, lucasarts, metareview, metareviews, PS3, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (86)

Hmm the demo was quite fun...looks like I will be renting this one.

I didn't like the demo. The controlls were aggrivating to me. Didn't even finish it. I may buy it one day used, very cheap.

@RavenPaul

Couldn't agree more. The controls annoyed me to no end...especially for using force push (or whatever the left-trigger-controlled power was). It seemed as though it would be near impossible to effectively use that power in the heat of battle when the controls changed so drastically to control an object in 3D space.

I was constantly getting lit up when trying to line up a damned box precisely enough to hit a Storm Trooper when I released it because the controls were such a pain in the ass.

Thirded. I have no more energy to debate why The Force Unleashed is garbage (One of my hardcore Starwars fanboy friends refuses to accept it) but I'll just go ahead and agree with everything you said.

Bad controls, weak force powers, stupid anti-force shields, quick time events (grrr.....), etc.

Lucas ruined the StarWars property. I can't stand to watch or play anything associated with it.

Star Wars is dead to me.

DEAD

to me.

I haven't played the full game yet, only the demo, but I don't think I was as annoyed by the game as the rest of you. I thought the controls worked rather well personally. I will agree that the quick-time events were stupid, but I liked everything else. I was never super-hyped for this game so it's not like I'm disappointed but it had more potential. I still think it's worth purchasing though.

Ehh I pre ordered this, I have a feeling depending on how much you like star wars will make this better.(which i like quite a bit.) I guess i will pick it up. If i don't like it i can trade it in.

You know there is a demo. No need to have the game depriciate and lose all of your $$ if you dont like it.

I am a huge star wars fanboy and I hated this game. If you want good star wars action get Soul Caliber 4 on the PS3 or 360.

I've only played the demo of this so far, so this is more of a general thing (though many of the complaints lodged against this game are things I ran into in the demo).

It seems like nowadays reviewers have this system of "find something wrong, and knock xx points off the review score for it". It's almost like gymnastics in the olympics where all you're grading are faults, only there's no starting difficult score.

No one seems to take into account how much fun the game is overall anymore. It's like any little thing that is done wrong in the game, even if it doesn't interrupt the overall enjoyment of the game, has to have points docked for it. As such, we end up with these reviews where the final score has little to do with how fun the game is to actually play, but rather how technically sound and well designed the game is.

While that stuff is great, I can't help but think that if a game is more enjoyable than another, it should have a higher score. I guess this is a way to combat subjectivity, since "how much fun" a game is is subjective from one person to another. But if that's the case, reviews are pretty much useless since THAT is what someone that plays the game on their own is judging it by, not how technically sound it is.

Games seem to get very little credit for what they do right, but rather only discredit for what they do wrong. The actual core of the game seems to rarely be considered.

Problem is with games being rushed 50$+ un-returnable products we don't have the time to give 8+ scores to games they could be better.

It dose not help the review industry standard is a 7 now ....

"It dose not help the review industry standard is a 7 now ...."

People complain about this a lot, but it doesn't really bother me. If you equate the scale to a letter grade then indeed 7 should be about the average. Though I do think that 10's are handed too freely.

The problem is that there are two (or more) ways of looking at scores. Some people want 5 to be the average, while others view them like grades and view a 7 as average. Neither view is wrong, but there's no industry standard and that tends to create these debates over scores.

I think most people would agree that the text of the review is a lot more important than the actual number, because, as you noted, it oftentimes points out subjective parts of the experience.

However, I think the score is intended to indicate
1.) Whether the game is of a quality of development worth $40-$60 and
2.) How much the faults of the game actually interfere with the ability to have a subjective amount of fun.

The fact of the matter is, saying a game is "too hard" or "too easy" in a review doesn't tell me much. Saying that there are camera problems that make it difficult to even see the boss tells me that regardless of game design or fun factor, that part of the game is going to be a pain.

Really what it comes down to I think is that if a game gets a 95, it means: "no matter who you are, you will definitely enjoy this game", whereas a 75 means: "if you're a big fan of (property/genre), you will definitely enjoy this game."

I'm a huge Star Wars fan, so 75ish is good enough to mean I'll definitely be picking up the Wii version, as IGN and NP both said the motion controls work really well.

Am I the only one who finds the irony in claiming they're viewed like letter grades with 7 being average? I don't know where Earth goes to school, but around here a 70 is one point over fail. And fail is fail, regardless of how high or low the fail (At my school, anyways. That really could vary from place to place.)

Anyways, I'm not saying I disagree with 7 being average. It makes sense, some how. But that doesn't equate it to letter grades.

@fulluphigh

7 isn't one point above fail, it's 1 point above a D. 7 would be a C-. But I was really thinking of the 7 range when I made that statement anyway. Oh, and that's not irony in either case :P

I think even if a game is 'fun' to play if the difficulty is inconsistent or the controls are lame those things add up and become most of what you remember after playing for 10+ hours. I feel for these reviewers, I imagine they have a deadline to get a game finished and write the review and that would just exaggerate the bad aspects of a game... Especially if those bad aspects are keeping you from completing a certain section or something.

When I play and start to get frustrated at a certain point I turn the game off and come back to it after a couple of days. I don't think these guys have the same luxury...

Vcize, your comment was my thoughts exactly. When did games have to be exactly everything to everyone; I've only recently played through some old games I never did before (Halo, Shadow of the Colossus, KOTOR to name a few) and LOVED them. Not the latest graphics, not all the best controls but INCREDIBLE imo for different reasons!

- uses quicktime events during boss battles = not fun

- can't use force powers on bosses = not fun

- repetitive levels = at least the game is short

The best review is the one you write yourself.

No PC port, Balancing issues, pacing, like BS its simply an average title that had most of its profit put into media propaganda.

so, is giant bomb's shtick just to dislike everything, or what?

Fortunately, I have no money to spend on the game!

Wait.

These mediocre games will be $20-30 in 3 months. I'm looking at you, Mercenaries 2, Infinite Undiscovery, and Too Human.

You'd pay to play Too Human? Some games are fun with bad execution in parts, some are well executed but the concept could have been improved.

Too Human fits neither of these categories.

I played through too human once already and it sure isn't as bad as everyone likes to say. Its not great - but it sure isn't awful. If you hate hack and slash you will hate it. If thats you favorite kind of game you will love it. Have you even tried it?

Its not all that bad. It is mainly action, so if your looking for a KoToR style of depth...keep diving...its not here.

I might get this when it's at the $20 mark since there's no way I'd pay $60 for this. The lightsaber turned "glowing baseball bat" doesn't help either.

Awesome comment and my thoughts exactly, I'll add this to a fairly big list of perfectly enjoyable games that I'll be picking up used around the $20-$30 mark with additional sales and discounts.

The whole used game industry is something I'm really fond of, and can say that games like Conan, Burnout Paradise, Armored Core, Darkness, and similar level games have been very thoroughly enjoyed after being picked up with mint case and instructions for much less than half or even a third their original cost.

Then there are the few titles that I pick up day 1 like MGS4, Gears2, etc, all others I pick up at a later date but still really enjoy them.

I guess they felt realistic lightsaber damage would make the game too easy

Unless it was balanced by realistic blaster damage. 1-hit kills ftl

Raven didn't seem to have a problem making the saber seem bad ass back in 2002 with the release of Jedi Knight 2.

A moment of silence for a fantastic Jedi game. *bows head*

Lmao, 'The force mildly unleashed'

Lmao, you didn't even quote it verbatim.

I didn't quote it at all :S I made that up myself after seeing the scores, only after I posted did I read the actual reviews.

I believe you completely, interweb kid!

"I didn't quote it at all"

You didn't quote it at all...except for the part where you encapsulated what you said in single quotation marks. Add 'lying' to the list of things you aren't good at right behind 'quoting reviews.'

internet is..

Yaknow, the quotation marks don't necessarily have to be used to highlight something I read, it could be something I am particualarly trying to make stand out in my sentance, alternativly I could use CAPS or "Speech Marks", seeing as I don't have colours. try reading through my history, I do it all the time ¬_¬

And Boffo, since you are obviously so good at working out what I meant, why don't you become my aide or personal reference monitor, so I can go to you when I need you to stress whether I'm lying, being sarcastic or 'Quoting', Oops, that wasn't said in the review, I have used it incorrectly :O

Obviously I've made your day, seeing as you had nothing else to do but quote the fact that you 'Think' or should I say 'assume' I made an error in again what you 'thought' or 'assumed' was a quotation

*Laughs*

Aww...I didn't strike a chord did I? You poor ickle guy. It doesn't really matter what you thought you were doing. Accepted conventions dictate that what you originally wrote is a quote (or a misquote to be more precise), but thanks for letting us all in on your secret code for accenting bad jokes.

Its okay Boffo, you can accept defeat and victory, freedom of speech and freedom of mind is what makes our contries democratic, so you can continue in your little ideal world of delusion as to what you think I said and I will just continue to 'know' what I said and what I 'meant' by it.

By the way, did you insinuate I quoted because of the use of the word 'mildly' if thats the case, I wonder why you even bothered to reply to me in the first place. Then again, I'm not suprised based on your last comment.

That word 'insinuate,' I do not think it means what you think it means.

It is impossible for me to 'insinuate' anything with a statement that you yourself have made. You 'insinuated' a quote by using single quotation marks. Whereas I have 'inferred' that you have no idea what the hell you are talking about based upon your comments thus far.

I only assumed your original statement was a quote because you used quotation marks, and you had all but one word copied exactly from the 1-Up review. If you don't want to be mistaken, then perhaps you should sharpen up those communication skills.

"internet is.."

Serious business.

For fuck's sake, I don't think it ever killed anyone around here to come out and admit a mistake.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/insinuate

Check it, also notice how I am now using quotation in its correct form 'to suggest or hint slyly', 'to instill or infuse subtly or artfully', were you not suggesting or prehaps hinting I was wrong in my first claim? Or were you assuming:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/assuming

'taking too much for granted; presumptuous.'.

If I was quoting, I would have boldly come out and said typo, after dark corrected me, I don't have a problem with that, so if I correct Dark and tell him I was not in fact quoting, how does that make me wrong or have a misscommunication problem? Do you even know what you are talking about? Or are you just pulling facts from thin air based on what you read? As you said, the one word change at the end, that could mean two things, either I was quoting from the bottom review and made an error which I would have corrected myself after reading the reviews afterwards like I always do, or it was intentional.

But fine, I can see you're going to be immature about this, so don't mind me not bothering to reply to any more assumptions or insinuations you may have.

BTW, try to lighten up, you only have one life and I can see I'm stressing you out. Heres a smile :D

"Check it, also notice how I am now using quotation in its correct form 'to suggest or hint slyly', 'to instill or infuse subtly or artfully', were you not suggesting or prehaps hinting I was wrong in my first claim?"

You are still misusing the word 'insinuate.' I would have had to make the statement myself to suggest or hint something with it. Why would you link the definition, when you didn't even bother to read or comprehend it? You should really quit posting proof that you have no grasp on communicating in English because it isn't helping your cause.

"BTW, try to lighten up, you only have one life and I can see I'm stressing you out. Heres a smile"

Please quit projecting onto me. I'm far from stressed. In fact, I am thoroughly entertained by what you're doing. I always enjoy when people dig themselves deeper instead of admitting their mistakes.

I loved the demo and once you get the controls down its pretty amazing. Looks like i'll be buying this after work today

This may be the first time I've ever agreed with you. +1.

Once I got the grip/lighting/throw guys combo down in turned into a whole new experience. Even the hardest difficulty was enjoyable.

GameInformer's review pretty much describes my thoughts and reason for purchase of this particular game. Add in that I also used old ass PS3/X360 games while that current trade-in promotion is going on, and it didn't cost too much to purchase.

But for those on the fence about it... rent or wait for a $10-20 dollar dip in price.

The iPhone version is fun.

I have an issue with your posting of Giant Bomb's score as 60/100. The actual score is 3 out of 5 stars, which has a different meaning than 60/100. You should leave it in its original score, just like 1UP's grade.

3/5 = 60/100 ... should I do the math for you?

5*20 = 100, 3*20 = 60 = 60/100 ...

If they switched 1up's rating out of 100 it would be 60/100 too!!

I'm wondering why Game Informer rating is so high by comparison! SW fanboyism?

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Metareview -- The Force Unleashed (360, PS3)

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