Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

In which Pooh goes on a Jedi rampage and kills many, many things.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 3

Wise Yoda looks down on the masses at the top of a fountain in front of LucasArts' San Franciso headquarters. Inside the complex's many buildings, there's enough memorabilia to make a hardened Star Wars fan drop to his knees and begin weeping: Just on a quick sweep, there's an R2-D2 model used in the original Star Wars trilogy, an Admiral Ackbar model lovingly encased in a Lucite tomb, full-size Darth Vader and Boba Fett models decorating the lobby, and an in-house coffee shop deliciously named Javva the Hutt.

A place of business should not -- should never -- be this cool.

Today, the LucasArts compound is abuzz. Visitors gather from everywhere for a momentous unveiling. LucasArts is showing off its first truly next-generation Star Wars videogame.

Today, LucasArts is unleashing the Force in the grandest way imaginable.

The Force Unleashed tells the story of Darth Vader's secret apprentice as he roams across the galaxy, wielding the dark side of the Force, attempting to kill the last of the Jedi Knights. The story takes place between the events of the third and fourth Star Wars films ("Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" and "Star Wars: A New Hope," respectively) and serves as a bridge between the three prequel movies and the original trilogy.

It's been a long time coming. LucasArts showed off a technology demonstration to select members of the fourth estate at the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo, one that featured concepts to be used in The Force Unleashed. There, the company unveiled two licensed technologies featured within the game, and whet collective appetites with a full-motion video featuring pre-rendered footage of an ominous, lightsaber-wielding man and woman who performed evil stunts using the Force. The video showed the male Jedi lifting Stormtroopers into the air with the Force, then torturing them with Force-powered lightning. For the finale, the Jedi used his powers to lift a Stormtrooper, slam him into the ground, pick him up again and, when his foe had grabbed on to an elevated grate, rip the grate from its foundation. It was heady, heady stuff.

These elements and the technology would combine to create the basis for The Force Unleashed. Now, in 2008, some two-plus years after the fact, the game is finally ready to be shown.

This is the first game in the Star Wars universe whose protagonist is a villain, but The Force Unleashed's Project Lead Hayden Blackman says that all is not as it appears to be. He promises twists and turns and a theme familiar to the Star Wars universe: redemption. "While you'll start as Darth Vader's secret apprentice, that's not necessarily how you'll end the game," he says.

A sea change, so to speak, may be in order for the apprentice. Although originally kept in isolation by the fiendish Darth Vader, the apprentice will have the opportunity to travel the galaxy. In doing so, he'll begin to interact with other characters, and LucasArts has created two new allies just for the purpose of developing the apprentice as a human being. A robot named Proxy serves as a sidekick and friend to the Apprentice; the female pilot Juno Eclipse may become his love interest.

When Blackman shows off The Force Unleashed, it's possible to note two distinct technologies at play. First, Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) allows for realistic rendering of materials, which means that glass will shatter when exposed to extreme force; metal will buckle, bend, and finally explode; rubbery items jiggle, sway, bounce and wobble appropriately. It's what powers the game's Force-based effects and lets the apprentice, say, smash his way through a giant metal door.