224
rate

Ars is terribly disappointed in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

September 18, 2008 in Reviews comments 18

After seeing previews of the game in action and playing the demo, Ars can't believe what happened to Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The retail version is really messed up, there are glitches and bugs everywhere.

While there are tons of problems with the game, they note that it doesn't even feel finished. The camera can get in your way and there is even a bug in the final boss battle!

One can only guess what happened to The Force Unleashed.

To finish off the bosses you have to participate in quick-time events, and while I was assured that if you failed one of these you could just kill the boss and not get to see the cool cinema, that wise bit of design was cut; failures now force you to retry the combination of button presses again and again.

With some enemies it's hard to tell if you're hitting them at all, which is hard to explain considering you're carrying a fracking lightsaber. The places to use your force powers are also insultingly obvious, which huge chunks of the levels growing blue to show you have to interact with certain places. Major scenes that have been hinted at and barely shown leading up to the game end up being broken or anticlimactic. Don't get me started on the menus, which are also annoyingly slow and take way too long to load. When you find leveling your character painful, something tragic happened during development.
tyranitar24 via arstechnica.com »
Favourite this article Add source
| More
Report!
News story attached to:

Comments

Register as a member to subscribe comments.
  • 1
    Seproth Sep 18, 08
    I've played for about four hours and only ran into one glitch.

    Camera can do some stupid things though. Follows the boss in boss battles more than it follows you which makes it harder than it should be.

    It's really quite fun though. I'm not sure why people are so angry.
  • 0
    nflsmc Sep 18, 08
    There's a glitch in the final boss battle of Gears of War, but nobody complains about that.
  • 1
    Zero and X Sep 18, 08
    I found only a few miniscule glitches, ones that dont even really matter, the game itself is fun as hell.
  • 0
    Drogo Baggins Sep 19, 08
    I've heard that many things don't work in the game, and sometimes enemies don't even realize you're there.

    And, in the final mission, for the bonus objective, it just says "*default text".

    It's like they just decided to stop working one day.

    I heard all of this from X-Play, and they're a pretty valid and respectable source, especially since they showed these things happening in videos.

    My guess is that those of you who haven't ran into any problems just got lucky, or te guys at X-Play just got unlucky, but I'm sure they tried several copies of the game.

    I wanted this game to be good soooooo bad, too... The storyline looks amazing, but that seems to be the only amazing thing about it.
  • 1
    Final Blade Sep 19, 08
    And you're going to believe them? Honestly who cares what they say, don't make that a reason to not get the game.

    Im sick and tired of these hate TFU articles.
    • 0
      Drogo Baggins Sep 19, 08
      Are you replying to me, Final?

      If so, then yeah, I'll believe X-Play. It's not like they hate Star Wars. They've had a few full episodes dedicated to Star Wars, and they even had an episode recently dedicated to news/info on TFU before it came out.

      They really wanted the game to be good, but were very disappointed.

      Ann I also believe them because, like I said, they had actual video of all the things wrong with the game that they found.

      I'm not hating on this game, and if you like it, that's perfectly fine. But I don't want to spend $60 on a game that I've heard mostly bad things about from my usual, and pretty reliable sources. I almost always agree with X-Play, unless I like a game much less than they do, which would give me even more reason to not get TFU.

      Also, I'm not a fan of Star Wars, so it's not like I feel a desperate need to play this game. I just hoped the gameplay would be awesome, and I've heard it's the worst part of the game.
  • 3
    HisServant77 Sep 19, 08
    Wow, there is definitely a lot of hate toward the game . . . Randing from no dismemberment, to button sequences, to a few glitches and so forth. But apart from glitches, the complaints are only personal opinions of things within the game that they don't like. They don't complain about button sequences in games like . . . GOW, do they? Or no dismemberment in R&CF:TOD even though there's weapons that shoot saw blades out of them.

    So, the only thing that I can give them, is glitches. And then, not everyone has those glitches, so to be more objective did they play several times to see if the glitch appeared each time? Otherwise, it's kinda worthwhile to note that it might not happen for everyone . . .
    • 0
      Drogo Baggins Sep 19, 08
      Well, to be fair, the button sequences in GoW might be done better than the ones in TFU, and R&CF:TOD isn't a good example of a game that people don't complain over no dismemberment in, since it's a cartoony game.

      DMC is a better example, IMO.

      But, back to the button sequences, from what I've seen, the ones in GoW1/GoW2 seem much more involved and really make you feel like you're in control.

      Like, there's a part in TFU where you pull a ship out of the sky. That part should be awesome, but all you do is fight some guys off of you, target the ship, slooooowly rotate the analog sticks in accordance to the prompts, and repeat. That seems much more boring than any of GoW's button sequences, but, then again, that's one of the few I've seen, so that could be as bad as it gets, for all I know.
    • 0
      Final Blade Sep 19, 08
      Exactly the point im stating. Drogo listen to HisServant, he knows what he's talking about as well as me.

  • 0
    Newcloud Sep 19, 08
    i ran into a good few glitches i used a force push on a few trees it took a few seconds for them to blow
    i got trap inside a piece of metal and later a piece of metal came towards me it stuck on me i ran around trying to get it off but didn't mind that its the target system i dont like i try to grab a badguy and he grabs something else... but i still love the game tho its a tone of fun...
    ohh and i dont like vaders voice i dont no if the acter from the movie play him he just doesn't sound right imo
    • 0
      Final Blade Sep 19, 08
      It should be the same. I mean it sounds like him to me.
      • 0
        Newcloud Sep 19, 08
        i could be wrong but i watched the old movies the day before i got the game
        and it just doesn't sound right but those movies a years old the sound of his voice must have changed or something.. anyways i think im reading a bit to much into this
        • 0
          HisServant77 Sep 19, 08
          Well the original trilogy I think has James Earl Jones doing the voice of Darth Vador. Episode Three though, I think has someone else do the end voice of vador.

          I don't think James Earl Jones doesn't do the game though.
        • 0
          Zero and X Sep 24, 08
          James did the voice for Vador in EP 3 aswell actually.
    • 0
      Drogo Baggins Sep 19, 08
      The guy who does voice-overs for TFU's Darth Vader, is the same guy who does the "Chad Vader" videos, Matt Sloan.

      So, no, it's not the original voice.
      • 0
        Final Blade Sep 20, 08
        quote Oh yea
        "This guy is incredible, the BEST Vader in a video game or movie since James Earl Jones. I did not hear one line uttered from him that did not sound spot-on."
        Best Vader ever.
  • 0
    BANDITO ATTACK Sep 19, 08
    i played it, and i didn't see what all the hype was about. :\
  • 0
    Killosity Sep 24, 08
    Hmm Same. Its an ok title. Nothing amazing compared to whats to come for each console. However some of the hatred for the game is a little saddening.

This news story is archived and is closed to comments now.