It is not better yet it is not worse than its predecessor. It just provides decent enough experience for those who enjoyed the first one. That is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II in a nutshell.
You’re Starkiller.. for at least 6 hours.
Once again you find yourself in the boots of Starkiller, Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, even when the ending in the last game made it quite clear he is not coming back. Yet there he is. Luckily, Darth Vader had some of those Starkiller clones at his disposal. If you want to get anything out of the game’s plot, it is better to play the first game first. You won’t be getting the same depth from the sequel’s plot what the first game delivered.
It takes about 5-6 hours to run through the game and I went straight away to hard difficulty.
And what’s more; it is REALLY SHORT in Force Unleashed 2. It takes about 5-6 hours to run through the game and I went straight away to hard difficulty. Sadly, I like to see my Star Wars action with decent plots, not like the ones I could use in our tabletop RPGs.
Games with poor plots can be good if the experience otherwise is enjoyable. Yet it is still hard to enjoy from a game which is really short and does not have any secondary objectives/plots. The game is one big tube run with cutscenes.
Force Unleashed II looks good
Ok, now we have whined enough so let’s give the game some praise. The first thing that you notice when you start playing the game is, that the game is really beautiful. The motions are fluid and everything has been crafted really well. It is sad to notice that there isn’t much variance and THAT is because the story ends too soon. As the visuals have been handled very well, so is the audio. You know you love your audio system when the lightsaber swings and theme songs sounds THAT good. The voice acting is still good, as it was in the previous game.
Combat
Get ready to deal some punishment
You literally spend your 6 hours in the game dealing a fair amount of punishment
And then there is the combat, which I somewhat loved. We now have two lightsabers, one new force power to use and force(nerd) rage in addition to those we enjoyed in the first game. During the rage, you basically can’t be hurt and your lightsabers will do a decent amount of damage to get rid of those stormtroopers. It is very satisfying to toss those stormies around like rag dolls with powers that are way more than you could ever wish to see in the movies/books/comics. You literally spend your 6 hours in the game dealing a fair amount of punishment and you’re going to love it. There is one thing missing though. Variety in the enemies. This time we see only few different as in the first game there was jawas, wookies etc. No variance here either.
While there are possibilities to modify your character with different lightsabers and costumes, that really doesn’t bring anything new on the table. The challenge mode outside of the story lets you run through challenges which will result in medals and in a scoreboard. These will unlock the trophies for the trophyholics. This is somewhat artificial extension however, nothing more.
The verdict
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 isn’t perfect, it isn’t anything new and somewhat you might feel disappointed after you have read this review. However, you should know this: If you enjoyed the first game mainly because how fun you had in the actual gameplay, you will enjoy from this too. The story and the lack of variety just make this game somewhat hollow. While I don’t recommend paying the full price from the game, the game is decent game enough to buy when the price comes down and you really need to spend six hours with Star Wars.
7.0 out of 10
Why so high? The combat works well and the visuals are very good.
Why so low? The game is too short and lacks of variety
Marko Kari
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