Customer Reviews

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(47)
2 star:		(51)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

I loved Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and my only complaint was with how short it was. I was hoping that would be corrected in the second game. Well, the time it took to beat The Force Unleashed II was different than the first one, but not for the better. Game play in the sequel is only about 5 to 6 hours. This just should not happen for a $60 game. It is a huge ripoff in my opinion and for more than for just the short play time too. They showed Yoda and Boba Fett in videos for the game, but they show up in cut scenes only for about 3 minutes of screen time. Much like the first game, everything is very repetitive and you fight the same characters over and over again. It is a blast playing a game like this with force powers and there are many things they could do that will make your jaw drop, but they just did the bare minimum to get your money. There are much better games that provide you a good value for your money. This one is a rental only.

While The Force Unleashed 2 has some nice graphics, it was something of a disappointment for me. It is shorter than the first, the dialogue worse than the first, the gameplay/combat is more tedious than the first, and the story is more lacking than the first. The game really seems like a step back.

I beat the game the night I got it... in just a few hours. The first game was too short, this one is basically a joke. I don't understand the production company here... the shortness of the first game was probably the biggest complaint. Why would they make the sequel even shorter? I've played demos that were longer than this (and they were free). This is probably part of why the story suffered so much... it was too rushed and made to be a little farcical. About that:

The story is very haphazardly put together and pretty cliche, even for an IP that has many cliche game stories. All your amazing power and you are just a clone. That isn't much of a spoiler, since it's in the demo and in the first minute of the game. Are the three flashes of memory you have your own? (Yep, that's about how much development the plot has.) Well, let's not bother with that yet -- let's just save the girl we think we might have fallen for in 10 minutes flat (hey, we beat Anakin's record!) and we might have maybe left behind when we may have sacrificed ourselves in that event that might have happened to us. Why not, it'll be fun right? What makes the story even worse is the awful dialogue. I got so sick of hearing Kota gripe that I wasn't doing something fast enough. His inane instructions were equally annoying, because I always knew what needed to be done before he opened his mouth.

The combat starts out feeling smooth and fun. Some of the controls are slightly, very slightly, better than the first game. This game takes a step back, however, in that combat becomes repetitive very quickly. You basically only fight 4 baddies -- regular/flying troopers, shock troopers, force users, and robots. These are all recycled throughout the game. You basically have an "I-win" button as well, with the grapple. Doing it over and over gets incredibly boring, however. There is at least one memorable moment in the first boss fight, but you'll soon be forgetting it when you get back to the repetitive stuff. I also noticed that on the PS3 the game lags up quite a bit whenever there is a lot going on. This happened during regular fighting as well as on the final boss fight. Nothing says awesome when a Jedi gets up close and personal only to start stuttering. Still, there were some moments that made me think "hmm, that's kinda neat". The parts of the game where you are falling and using force powers to deflect or blow up stuff in your way was actually enjoyable.

You would think with a game so short, it would be difficult to become bored. It still happened, at least for me. So, despite the couple of not-quite-saving-graces the game has, I would say it is worth a rental. If you don't get your hopes up too high you might have a bit of fun... but you won't get $60 worth.

I really enjoyed the Force Unleashed despite all of its flaws. What the game lacked in polish, it made up for in a storyline that I really enjoyed.

Fast forward to the Force Unleashed II. Most of the control issues have been fixed. A lot of the graphical hiccups have been adjusted as well. The game looks and plays very well, but not great - no wear near the level of a game like God of War III. The force powers have been upgraded, dual lightsabers look great and sith fury is just awesome. The targeting system has been vastly upgraded, so there is less blasting plants or walls when you are trying to hit an enemy. At the same time, you still get trapped in your animations and can be carried away from enemies or off of ledges. Even with those gripes, there is far more polish here than on the original.

Unfortunately, the story is sadly lacking. Where I was compelled to see what happened, excited to see familiar faces and square off with The Emperor; here it was just kind of...meh.

Many of the reviews claim the game can be completed in 5-6 hours. That is true, on easy, not completing many of the "tasks" to fully complete the game. That said; if you're not into trophy collections and collecting various items for your costume, combos, etc., Force Unleashed II is probably a rental. If you enjoy playing through several times to get every last dime out of your purchase and don't mind waiting for the inevitable DLC or must own all things Star Wars, than this is a nice addition to the catalogue. Good, not great, wholly unremarkable.

Pros-

Looks friggin awesome

Plays like a dream

Big bosses

Not too hard

Cons-

Way too short

Camera can sometimes cause a problem, sometimes, but not too often

Liner

Not alot of choice

In the end it is a rent, but a good rent, if u get a 30 day pass or what have u. Yes people will complain about a few things, but it is a get it though.

Even if you have to borrow it, you should check it out. I give it a 8 out of 10. 4 out of 5.

My Star Wars geek days are long gone, so this review isn't from someone who praises anything with Stormtroopers or references to the original trilogy. To be blunt, The Force Unleashed 2 is one of the most boring games I've played in the last 5 years. You'd think that with a game like this, one about a Jedi/Sith who uses the Force in ways that we never saw in any of the movies, there'd be tons of fun. All I see here is a God of War clone with Star Wars characters tacked onto it. And as someone who didn't care much for God of War 3, that's not a good thing. The Force Unleashed 2 can be summed up best as this: push square a lot, Force Push, Force Push, square, Force Push, cutscene, square some more, cutscene, QTE event where Starkiller does most of the work for you after you press just two buttons, repeat. There's nothing I liked about this game, and the only reason I went on as long as I did was to get some easy trophies. I won't lie. But even then, I feel dirty knowing that this thing will show up on my PSN account.

If you didn't play the first game, go do so because it was a little better than this one. But after the events of the first Force Unleashed, Starkiller died, but it turns out that Vader made a bunch of clones of him in case he died, or wanted to have a perfect apprentice. You play as one of those clones, complete with memories from the first game, and tons of Force powers. Granted, you can only really do a few- Force Push, Force Lightning, Force Grip and some other standard fare like throwing your lightsabers (is this even really a 'power'?), air-dashes and more. But Starkiller doesn't want to obey Vader, and breaks out of the cloning room on Kamino, and goes off to discover his identity and find out where his love interest, Juno Eclipse, is. You'll go from level to level, trashing the Empire's troops and ships, and be bored in the process over the span of roughly 6 hours.

Yes, this game can be completed in 6 hours or less. The funny thing is that God of War 3 was the same way, which is just one of the many similarities the two games have. I never thought I'd be defending GoW3, but I have to say, that game was certainly better than this, even with its laughable "REVENGE!" lines every 20 minutes. Starkiller's clone is a pretty boring protagonist, and doesn't do nearly as many interesting things or have as many good fights as he did in the first game. The whole game feels rushed, and I knew things were only going to be going downhill after the first 5 minutes when Darth Vader appeared and has one of the worst James Earl Jones impressions ever. I would've taken will.i.am, complete with auto-tune, over this guy. Combat got repetitive fast, and I was using the same two combos over and over to take out most of the enemies in the first few levels and the last ones. A giant ship or walker's launching missiles at you? Deflect them with your lightsaber, as stupid as that might sound. A big armored droid with a shield giving you trouble? Use the Force to take off his shield, hit him with it, then hit him over and over until a QTE pops up where you'll press X, square, and then watch as Starkiller does a 5 second combo all by himself and takes out the droid. You'll fight a lot of these droids, and it's always the same combo. In an action game, the combat should never be boring, and it shouldn't get so bad to the point where I'm praying that I can just Force Push one of these things off a ledge so I can save some time and move on to the next area. There wasn't any challenge with the enemies or bosses. In fact, just like in GoW3, I had more problems with platforming and being able to tell if I was going to make a jump or not. On the harder difficulties, I was already used to playing the game so that the 'improved AI' and more damage didn't affect gameplay much. Heck, you might as well set it to Hard right from the get-go since Normal's so easy. And for anyone wondering about the other God of War similarities, you can click both analog sticks in to go into this crazy attack mode and dish out tons more damage (you'll rarely use this, trust me), there are falling stages just like GoW3's, and the QTEs try so hard to be cool but fall flat each and every time. Again, don't think I loved GoW3 by any means, as I gave it a 3 out of 5, but at least the presentation there worked for its theme. With a Star Wars game, a lot of what's here felt out of place.

I didn't care about the story one bit, and the funny thing is that there's not really any option in going light or dark side until the end, where you can pick one of two options and get either a light or dark ending. Both endings are pretty lame, and I felt ripped off by the story in the end. TFU2 doesn't have much going for it unless you're a die-hard Star Wars fan. It has fairly good graphics, though some of the character models in cutscenes look really weird. The music is the same Star Wars-esque stuff any other SW game gets, and is hardly memorable. There's some DLC for the game now, which adds a tiny bit of time to the 6 hours it takes to beat, but even then, you have to pay for that separately. I can't believe this thing is still selling for full price most of the time, and that anyone bothered with what's easily the worst collector's edition of a game this console generation. If you're really curious about this game, just borrow it from someone who was already suckered into buying it. For the trophy hunters out there, there are a lot of easy ones to get with this game, but your time is best spent elsewhere.

So why the 2 out of 5 if I hated so much about it? Well, the game got so boring for me that it came to a point where I was laughing at how dull it was. It's like that scene near the end of The Protector with Tony Jaa, where more and more thugs are sent to beat him up, eventhough he clearly goes through all of them in a matter of seconds. The same was happening here with Stormtroopers.

Edit: I totally forgot to mention this, and I have no idea how- there's a game-breaking glitch towards the end of the game where you have to remove a battery from a turret. By the time you reach it, there's a 99.99999% chance it'll be destroyed by outside interference from a TIE Fighter. MANY other people have the same problem, and as a result, a lot of people still haven't been able to complete the game. Good luck with that, as there isn't even a patch to fix it.

I got this for my 9-year-old for Christmas. He played through the game in about six hours and hasn't shown any interest in playing it again. After watching him play, I am not sure I have an interest in even trying the game. It was very repetitive with a weak story.

What a shame! I haven't been this disappointed since the season finale of the Sopranos! I absolutely loved the first one and waited in anticipation for the sequel, hence all the more disappointed I was at the short story, 'lean' graphics, tidious gameplay and cheap storyline. This sequel had so much potential, how could it go wrong? I am sad. So sad:( I want my money back!

The original Force Unleashed was far from being a flawless game. It was repetitive, fairly short, only showcased a small portion of the Star Wars galaxy, and had some significant gameplay quirks. The sequel not only failed to address these issues, but somehow found a way to amplify most of them.

I'll start with the positives. The Force Unleashed 2 is a beautiful game. The environments have an open, epic feel and the character models look good. The facial animation isn't great, but it wasn't in the first game either. The voice acting is brutal for the most part (did George Lucas direct the cutscenes?). The sound design is top notch, the game sounds just like the movies. Gotta love hearing John Williams' score while slicing up stormtroopers. The sound and graphics really come together in the cinematics and the player could be convinced that they are watching a theatrical film at times. Now if there was only a cohesive story to support those cutscenes we would be have something.

There is no question that the plot was what made the first game special. While it was cool to crank the Force powers up to 10 and take on the Empire, it was the narrative that made the original stand out. You could tell that the developers wanted to tell a story that fit into the Star Wars saga. It worked with great success to bridge the original film with the prequels through careful writing. Sadly, this game does not.

There are spoilers here, so if you want to experience the pile of garbage that is TFU2's plot for yourself please skip ahead. I spent almost all of this game without a clue what my character's overall goal was. It felt like about 10 different writers were asked to come up with ten minute's worth of plot and then these were pasted together and sold to consumers as a game. Starkiller wants to escape. Starkiller wants to find his mentor. Starkiller wants to find his girl. The whole "is he or isn't he a clone" plot device did not work, I never found myself caring if he was the original guy or not. The inclusions of Yoda and Boba Fett were not handled well. It was great to see the notorious bounty hunter make an appearance, but I seriously don't get to fight him? Who thought THAT was a good decision? He wouldn't have made a more interesting boss than some mindless robot? I found the entire Dagobah sequence terrible and borderline insulting to Yoda's character. If felt like the inclusion of both of these characters came down to somebody on the design team raising their hand saying "people will love this game even more if Yoda and Boba are in the game". And they would have been right if they had simply DONE SOMETHING with either of them! You never see either one of them outside of the cutscenes which in my opinion is unacceptable. TFU 2 and the prequels effectively taken the cold and calculating Darth Vader I remember from my youth and turned him into a stumbling and indecisive buffoon that appears to abandon his plans about five minutes after making them.

The gameplay felt like the original. The "Force rage" element was a cool addition, but the developer's decision to include a "win button" was a poor one, magnified by the fact that there was only one animation to represent it. Same goes for the quick-time events, each type of enemy gets eliminated in the same manner with the same button sequence. It all gets very repetitive pretty quick. The fact that you only get to visit three planets (one twice, another is almost entirely presented via a cutscene) and a starship doesn't help break up this monotony.

I'd feel a lot better about the Force Unleashed 2 if it had been distributed as two or three downloadable episodes. The fact that I paid full retail means I have to label myself a chump. If the developer was committed to the Starkiller's character then maybe they should have continued the alternative history that the first game's DLC presented. The story here not only fails to add quality content to the Star Wars canon, it manages to tarnish the events that are associated with it, most notably those of the original game. The canon ending of the first game had such a strong emotional impact on the saga and the sequel pretty much renders it ineffective. From a narrative standpoint they Star Wars universe would have been better off without TFU 2. And sadly there appears to be more installations of this franchise on the horizon. Hopefully LucasArts learns from the mistakes of this game.

So I really enjoyed the first Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game. I know there were plenty of people that had plenty of bad things to say about it but it was just fun to play and cool to have the force abilities. The 2nd installment in the series, in my opinion, keeps some things right and goes wrong some other ways.

Let's start with the bad...I like to end on a good note.

*The story was okay. It didn't keep me as gripped as the first and the quest for Juno got a little old after a bit.

*There were only a few levels. Although the levels were long and had variety along the way, would have been nice to have as many diverse locations as SW:TFU.

*Targeting was still a bit touchy.

*Move list limited

*Pretty short, I think I finished the game in about 6 hours. Would have like at least 10.

The Good

*Graphics and sound were fantastic. I only had one moment of clipping on the video. The environments looks incredible and the pre-rendered scenes have very good facial movement.

*Dual light-sabers...nuf said.

*Some pretty neat boss battles.

*It was fun.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. I've only been through the campaign story and completed it with the light-side ending. Gonna try it again and go to the dark side. In the end, the story was a bit linear, the levels beautiful, the game too short, the content flows from one level to the next. If you enjoyed the first game, you will probably have fun with this fun. If you didn't like the first...you won't like this one either.

Anyway, I pre-ordered so I'm looking forward to using the $10 video game credit on something else.

I held off on getting this game because of all the negative reviews, in a way im glad i did because i got it on the cheap, but i also wish i purchased it earler because its a fun game. I wasnt a huge fan of the 1st, but i love this one. The graphics are decent, nothing to jump around about, but i have no complaints about anything else. the contolls are easy to use, the sound is great and i love the story to it. Its a great Star Wars game that you can get on the cheap and most importantly is that its FUN to play, which is what its all about in the 1st place, or should be anyways.....