I’ve been watching the progression of this game since its first tech demo that was released several years ago. That demo was showing off the DMM (Digital Molecular Matter) technology that Lucas Arts had been developing. Slowly year after year I’ve seen videos, screens and full on demo’s being played at the Game Developers Conference. Like many other developers and Star Wars Enthusiasts’ I have been waiting for this game for a very long time.

STORY

The next chapter in the Star Wars saga, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, tells the story of Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, a mysterious figure trained by the menacing Sith Lord, to hunt down the last of the Jedi.

Set in the dark times between Episodes 3 and 4, the story is both a continuation of the prequel trilogy-exploring the aftermath of Order 66, which called for the immediate execution of all Jedi, and focusing on the continued rise of Darth Vader-and a direct bridge to the Original Trilogy. The Force Unleashed will forever change the fate of the Galaxy and explain key plot points that directly lead into events in Star Wars: A New Hope.

The Secret Apprentice’s journey takes him across the Galaxy-from the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk to the junkyard planet Raxus Prime and the mushroom-covered planet, felucia. He is aided in his dangerous missions by a loyal sidekick PROXY-a prototype holodroid with amazing abilities, an alluring Imperial pilot named Juno Eclipse. The Apprentice will clash with powerful enemies, including the spirited Zabrak warrior Maris Brood, Jedi Master Shaak Ti, and General Rahm Kota, a hard-boiled Jedi soldier who senses that the Apprentice is destined to become something far greater than just Darth Vader’s servant.

TECH

The meat and potato’s of The Force Unleashed (TFU) is the multiple engines working simultaneously to give you arguably the largest implementation of dynamics ever for a video game. It is simultaneously using 3 different engines that have to work together at the same time.

Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) is a technology that we’ve never seen In games before. Simply put, it makes objects act as they would in real life based on their matter. For example, if you shot a wooden board with a shotgun you’d get splintering and cracking. Certainly a different result than if you shot a block of concrete or a pane of glass. In the past this was faked by giving objects specific breaking points or destruction states. DMM gives you accurate results based on an objects matter. These results are not predetermined and are unique each and every time. Even the way plants and organic life sways in the wind is determined by DMM. There are no animations what so ever driving this in the game. It is simply matter reacting to its environment.

The Havok Engine- which handles your run of the mill everyday objects. Meaning when you throw an object on the ground it impacts the ground and will roll around or act as it would in the real world. This is not new technology and we’ve seen it implemented in various forms for many years. As time progresses however the amount of objects we are seeing react at once continues to rise as well as effect game play and new and interesting ways.

Euphoria- Last but not least Euphoria is a new behavioral-simulation engine. It is designed to give characters a self preservation type of intelligence. That means when you hold a character off of the ground he will instinctively try to balance himself or reach for surrounding objects or people to grab onto. Believe it or not if you hold him still long enough he actually will balance himself and begin to shoot at you again. If you hold him near another object or person he will instinctively reach out and grab that object and hold onto it. This can create a bit of a chain reaction where you are holding onto a character that is holding onto another character. You can daisy chain these events into exciting unscripted events. No matter how many times you do this, it is unique each time.

THE DEMO

The Force Unleashed is loads of fun right off the bat. Even when there are you enemies around you are constantly surrounded by objects that you can pick up, throw, or rip off the walls. Even if you have no reason to be doing this it is incredibly fun never seemed to get old for me. I know it’s childish, but let’s face it. We are playing video games. No one ever accused us of growing up.

I’ve played through the demo on every difficulty level multiple times and I’ll probably play it again before the night is over. You are given a few basic skills in the demo. You have the ability to use your light saber of course. But more importantly your force powers range from the ability to hold objects/characters off of the ground, the force push as well as force lightning.

The combat can be as simple or as complicated as you want it. If you want to charge into a room and pwn everyone Ninja Gaiden style then you are more than welcome to do so. It’s definitely fun but it’s only a small percentage of its potential. If you start thinking outside the box a bit you realize you can do some incredibly fun things. Holding an enemy off the ground for example way off in the distance and then throwing your light saber into his chest while he’s suspended in the air. If you want to really add insult to injury you can then throw him into a wall or a pile of explosive tanks. In one instance I actually held a storm trooper into the path of a tie fighter and let it fly into him. Taking out the tie fighter and the trooper at once. It really is full of endless combinations and creative ways to complete your mission. In short it never got old. I feel like I could just throw guys into walls over and over again for hours and I don’t think it would tire for me at all.

I though the cinematic were surprisingly poor. The characters just didn’t read that well to me and the facial animation in particular was not very good. In the opening cinematic we see the main character up close and even his eye blink is bad. When he blinks his eye lids even his lower eye lid follows a bit which is incredibly wrong and yet so full screen. But in the game none of that matters. I did expect more but the game is not about it’s cinematic. It’s about the actual game. The environments/ lighting looked good. Not amazing. Not great but good. Considering how many dynamic objects you have in the world you have to cut them a bit of slack in other areas. Lighting that many dynamic objects causes difficulty etc… The reflections looked incredible. I suspect they are rendering the entire world twice and faking it by mirroring the entire level under its self. But I’m not positive. Either way it looked really sharp.

All and all one of the best demo’s I’ve played this year. I am eagerly awaiting its Sept. 16th release. May the Force be with you.