Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Wii)

This is not the Wii lightsaber game you're looking for.
9/23/2008 6:16 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

One of the first things you thought when you picked up a Wii remote was, "Where's my lightsaber game?" You'll still be thinking that after playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on the Nintendo Wii.

This is a port of the PlayStation 2 version, adapted to play with all sorts of persnickety Wii controls, like thrusting the Nunchuk to Force Push, flicking the Wii remote to Force Dodge, wagging it to the side to Force Lightsaber Throw, rotating the controllers to Force Lock, raising the Wii remote into the air to Force Deflect, and snapping both controls downwards to Force Splooey. You'll get Force Elbow by the time it's all over.

Frankly, all the Wii-specific controls are a bit exhausting. For how regularly you'll use your Force powers, and for how you have to jerk around the Wii remote just to swing your lightsaber, this is a classic example of how sometimes less is quite enough when it comes to Wii-wagging. Then there are all the quick time events at key moments, when you have to match on-screen instructions to get past scripted cinematics. It's as if the developers were bound and determined to make this as Wii a game as it could possibly be, and then some!

There's a stripped-down version of the story that's the best part of the next-generation versions on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The basic plot involves a young boy raised by Vader as his secret apprentice. Once he's grown up, Vader sends him out to hunt down fugitive Jedi, but he also seems to be doing a little inter-Empire subterfuge on Vader's behalf. Hence the opportunity to slaughter Stormtroopers left and right. But behind these machinations, you'll find some strong characterization of the different players, including the apprentice, his droid sidekick, his pilot/love interest and even Vader himself. The genius of the Force Unleashed storyline is that it taps into the things that made Star Wars good back when it was good: shame, betrayal, redemption, family, love, destiny and the storytelling insight to realize that Galactic politics, spaceships and aliens were just a backdrop.

For a Wii game, the graphics are passable. Considering this is the same version of the game used for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, it doesn't try anything too ambitious graphic-wise for the Wii. All the various settings with their breakable bits are here, and all the characters get their due much more than their scaled-down counterparts did on the PSP. You won't confuse this with the next-gen versions, but it's nice to see the world of Star Wars realized on the Nintendo Wii without having to pop in a Rogue Squadron GameCube disc.

Unfortunately, the presumably added value on the Wii version isn't the cool historical scenarios from the PSP version. Instead, you get Duel mode. This is a fighting game played between two players in the same living room. It's built to scale the level so that both characters are always onscreen, and it looks terrible, with confusing level layouts and hard-to-read combat. It handles even worse. It's a pain to move your characters around the level given the scaling camera, which makes various environmental hazards even more hazardous. Good luck getting the power-ups and trying to line up your attacks with your opponent.