STAR WARS: Force Unleashed

Star Wars has had a busy history, staring in 1977 with the released of Star Wars (later named A New Hope) and two more movies in 1980 The Empire Strikes Back and 1983 The Return of the Jedi which makes what people call the Original Trilogy, over the next couple of decades the Star Wars universe exploded with comics, books, TV shows, toys, more movies (that many fans will till you don’t exist) and even video games. While even the video games have a busy history the one we're looking at today is one of the most recent called The Force Unleashed.



First to start off, the story is pretty interesting told through 2 Acts. It puts you into the role of Darth Vader’s “secret” apprentice named Starkiller (voiced by Sam Witer of Smallville fame) during the period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. You’re essentially instructed to hunt and kill several Jedi through the first act, using your powers to slice, fry, and throw your enemies and ending that first act with some epic light saber battles. The first Act is decent with good set pieces, though the boss battles can be extremely frustrating. The second Act starts out with “something happening” and now you’re helping the Jedi. But for some reason once this happens half the second act takes place on planets you’ve already been too except now there “evil”. It’s surprising they did this with a whole universe you could do, you do go to Bespin but for some reason you don’t go to Cloud City but rather to some sort of hovering port down and to the left of the city where you can clearly see it. The ending is pretty good filling some good gaps in Star Wars lore, including some stuff I didn’t think of which Star Wars fans should like.



The game play like the story is interesting, for the good and bad. The force is extremely fun to use, you can use the force to pick up and throw next to anything that isn’t nailed down. Though while it is fun to use it is extremely hard to master, with throwing an item or enemy with perfect accuracy in the heat of battle without A LOT of practice is next to impossible. Other force powers include force lighting and force push. You also have use of your light saber which is your primary weapon which Star Wars games continue to treat like a baton. You can earn or find orbs which can be used to upgrade you force powers, health and energy, as well as you can gain combos via these orbs though there useless as just hack and slash will work just fine and getting the combos are such a pain in the ass you won’t bother. Missions are pretty standard and nothing special to them, they’re pretty much just hack and slash through enemies and some mini bosses (which are beat through a button pressing quick time event) to the end boss with some nice eye candy to lead you down an unfortunately linear path. In conclusion this game does show promise, with it’s interesting story and use of force powers.





The Good
• The force is really fun
• Story should suit Star Wars fans
• Nice visuals

The Bad
• Force is hard to master
• At times frustrating

The Ugly
• Continues to treat light saber like a baton


All Images obtained from www.giantbomb.com

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (single player)

Operation Flashpoint is the unofficial brother to 2001’s Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and a “cousin” of the ArmA series. This game follows it brother and cousin in its tactical warfare via its game play and setting. The setting of this title is of the fictional island of Skira which is based on the real life island of Kiska which is located on the western end of the Aleutian Islands off of Alaska. The game paints a picture of an island that is has switch hands from China to Japan to Russia since 1905. The game states that due to a massive economic downturn in China that they have decided to attack and attempt to occupy the Russian Federation held Skira which happens to be oil rich. The Russia Federation asks for the United States assistance, so the U.S government sends a force of Marines to help which starts our game.




The game has you play has a Special Forces officer as well as a regular Marine Sergeant as you take back the island. These characters as the rest of the “cast” are forgettable, but of course with most tactical shooters the story takes a back place to game play. This game does attempt to have a story (though thin) which comes out as plausible so I have to at least give them credit for that. The game has you jump back and forth from the characters as you take destroy radar to enable air support or weaken defense so that American armor can progress, you even take a couple of town back, as well as a airfield and even a naval base. Unfortunately though it’s over to quick, with 11 missions and on normal can be completed in roughly 10 hours.



The game play is pretty normal for tactical shooters, with the standard emphases on tactics rather than run and gun. You’re given command of a fire team with 3 team mates that you can give a variety of orders ranging from there Rate of fire (hold to fire free), to how they stack up on you (tight or apart via radial menu which is bitch to use in combat and can be awkward. The A.I is okay, nothing special or horrible there, though I noticed you’re squad mates speed varies and can be annoying such as when you need to run to an extraction point and your men are basically hobbling along, and when you want them to assault a position they move like snails and just take pot shots at the enemy till you say fuck it and do it yourself. The enemy is okay as well, nothing special, nothing great, and nothing more to say about that. The game also let's you drive/fly a variety of vehicle's ranging from HUMVEEs to an Abrams tanks, and even gunships like Apaches and gunboats. Unfortunately driving sucks, any thing with wheels feels like you're on white grass with any movement over 5 MPH can send you out of control. Flying just feels awkward which too me a while to use and just like driving. To fight the Chinese threat you use a variety of weapons both American and Chinese. These weapons are well done with the sounds and the effects spot on.



The Good
• Great graphics

The Bad
• Too short
• Driving/flying controls suck

The Ugly
• Plausible yet thin plot

Alien Verus Predator

The Alien Versus Predator (AVP) game series has been around for a while, since it’s entrance in 1993 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System it has been on most major consoles and of course the PC. Most game involve you can play as three species in three campaigns, as well as multiplayer featuring standard death match to species on species death match. Now anybody who familiar to the AVP series knows the three characters that you play are Earth’s Colonial Marines, the honorable hunters Predators, and the vicious Xenomorph.




The latest installment is no different its framework. With its standard multiplayer and story, though it does nothing to progress it or innovate it. The campaign though is too short and unfulfilling. The game progress nicely and I did enjoy the way it mixes views of the events. I’ve always enjoyed how AVP2 mixed the story with its characters.





The game play is pretty standard, with the species playing how they usually do. The Marines play like a pretty standard shooter, the Alien ply strictly melee and the Predator mixes both. Unfortunately the game does melee poorly, feeling more like a fighting game with blocks and counters rather than passed AVP games which treated melee with a hack and slash approach.



Now with multiplayer I’m gonna to admit I didn’t play, mainly as I have little interest with it. So I’m sure people will say I didn’t get the full effect, which I probably did. But from what I played on the demo and what I’ve heard, I didn’t like it. But I’m sure some people didn’t like Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer so I guess different strokes for different folks





The Good
• Good feel to it, the game has the right AVP feel to it.
• Does the Marine campaign well

The Bad
• Feel’s incomplete
• Unfulfilling

The Ugly
• Does melee poorly

Over There

This weekend I finally broke my Xbox Arcade cherry with Signal Studios TOY SOLDIERS. I do not regret this decision as it was well worth is 1200 points cost (roughly $15). This game is extermly fun not just from my gamer part but from my history lover part as well. The game puts you in the role of a Commander of British or German forces on the Western front of the war and has you protecting your Toy Box (base) from invading forces.




The game has you pick from a variety of units to defend your base, staring with machine guns and barb wire, and going to mortars,gas and flamethrowers, artillery and anti-air. You gain money from kills or destruction of enemy property. You can use your money to buy more defenses and upgrade your current defenses. The upgrades make your defenses more powerful and changing them such as making a Maxium machine gun into a anti-vehicle weapon, all of which are historical accurate. As well as defense units you can use tanks to bring the fight to the enemy.



The enemy also has a variety of things to throw at you. Each side has essentially has the same defending and offense units (expect tanks for some reason) but are side and historical accurate. The offensive units that the enemy uses ranges from simple troops which in WWI fashion just run over the top and towards your base, these can be easily be cut down with Gas/Flamethrower or machine guns, though in large numbers 20+,they can overwhelm and many can get through if your base is not properly managed. Next in offensive is Calvary which like infantry can overwhelm your defensive, then armored cars which can be dispatched easily with artillery or mortars which can take care of tanks as well. Lastly airplanes (fighter,bombers, and for some reason helicopters) can only be taken out via anti-air.



Mixing RTS elements with tower defense elements and putting this game into a WORLD WAR I setting this game makes an interesting part of my collection and I hope that they continue with this and make a American and Russian campaign DLC with maybe like 6 mission's each or so. Maybe they might even go into a WORLD WAR II setting as well.

http://www.signalstudios.net/toysoldiers/