Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was not a perfect game, and you only need to play the Star Destroyer sequence to know this to be true. However, the game was backed up by a pretty compelling story to keep you interested in case the gameplay ever fell short. I can’t say any of that about the sequel… other than the fact that it’s not a perfect game.

Star Wars: Force Unleashed II isn’t a write-off as a game, it’s just disappointing for anyone who played the first and figured the storytelling quality would carry over. If your main concern in this game is the story, then you will simply want to avoid it and save yourself the rage blackouts. All told, it probably took me between five and six hours to beat this game pillar to post. There are some challenges for you achievement hunters out there, but the game itself is wildly unpaced and feels place like it takes place in a much smaller galaxy than the first game. Gone are the lush environments of lurking dangers and exotic beasts, they are replaced by mostly metal.

The long and short of the story is that Vader has cloned Starkiller repeatedly because he was so strong in the Force, but the clones keep going mad. The Starkiller you play as has survived far longer than the rest and maybe, just maybe, you’ll do Vader’s bidding. Of course, that goes sideways and Starkiller takes off, jumping out a window, committing white-armored genocide, and then fleeing to find Kota. That’s about as much as I can tell you before I spoil anything, and since the story is so short, spoilers must be kept to a minimum. By the way, the questions this game will have you asking don’t get answered, so you should probably avoid asking them altogether.

However, if you’re one of those people who skips cutscenes so they can get back to eviscerating Stormtroopers, your ship has come in. If your complaint about Starkiller in the first game was that he wasn’t powerful enough, LucasArts made this game as a love letter to you. Starkiller is now a force of nature. He can crumble TIE Fighters into tiny balls and throw them like baseballs, he can use the Jedi Mind Trick to make Stormtroopers throw themselves off ledges, and his two lightsabers are just terrifying. When fully leveled up, the Starkiller mash-attack combo is a sight to behold; he becomes a whir of limbs and death, and it’s pretty sweet to watch. The game controls far better, and picking up the enemy or thing that you want has been made easier by the inclusion of a white outline around said item.

In terms of graphics, they have been given a huge polishing. In cutscenes, Starkiller looks incredibly lifelike, down to pores on his nose, and even the in-game cutscenes look much better. Enemies have arms, legs, and even heads separated from torsos during a saber toss or flurry. The boss fights in this game are bigger and badder than their predecessors as well; unfortunately, some of them feel long and without enough repetition to keep you engaged for the 30 minutes or so that some of them take. The enemies look amazing though, so at least you’ll have something to look at while mashing the dash button.

The sound is exactly what you’d expect from a Star Wars game; from the scrolling marquee when you hit “New Game” to when the credits roll, this sounds like Star Wars. The addition of more screams and the dialog for the Mind Trick is also a nice touch, although the dialog as a whole seems to be a little more hammed up than in the first game. Gone is the confused, somewhat stoic Starkiller, only to be replaced with a wisecracking, smartassed Starkiller. Every time Kota gives him a (very over the top) plea, Starkiller replies with something in the vein of, “I’m a Jedi, not a scruffy nerf herder!”

In the end, whether or not Star Wars: Force Unleashed II is going to be worth playing for you is based solely on what you look for in games. If you loved the gameplay of the first game and would love another go-around with a better iteration, then this game will not disappoint you, although I’d suggest paying less than sixty dollars for it. If you’re like me and you love the Star Wars canon and the stories that fit in it, then this game will probably disappoint you because it never feels full. This can probably be laid at the feet of Starkiller feeling just so powerful that he’s unstoppable, instead of him being a young Jedi struggling with the choice between light and dark while on a journey of self-discovery. Hopefully, the sequel to this game (trust me, there’s going to be one) gives us a story to go with the vastly-improved gameplay.