Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Demo Impressions

The playable demo of LucasArts' newest lightsaber flinging action-adventure title recently hit Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.

The game - slated for release on September 16th in North America - showcases Darth Vader's secret apprentice as you complete various missions as the apprentice under secrecy and with no witnesses: meaning you get to kill anything and everything you see.

The demo allows you to traverse an imperial star ship in search of a Jedi master as you destroy everything in your path.

And I mean everything.

The plethora of destructible objects and environments is outstanding as you can force grip and throw crates, people, and other objects and hurl them in nearly any direction to witness a fanfare of explosion and carnage.

Many of the game's basic abilities are available in the demo such as force grip, push, and lightning and your character will be able to "level up" allowing you to gain experience for stylized play as you dispatch foes.

The game looks to have a combo system with many combinations resulting from any variation of button mashing and utilizing your various force abilities.

The control scheme feels very fluid and logical for a hack-and-slash title and will feel right a home for fans of the genre. However, camera controls feel slightly loose and over sensitive at first, but comes naturally in time.

Visually, The Force Unleashed is a very crisp and polished title with nice detail in both character models and environments. Having said that, I found a few glitches at times such as when my character's clothes started to flail randomly upwards in a brown mess.

One of the most refreshing aspects of the game is both it's use of new "rag doll" physics and an original score.

The true might of your force abilities is felt by an incredibly fluid physics engine that manipulates the environment around your actions to bring a new level of legitimacy to your actions.

Also, one of my biggest pet peeves with LucasArts appears to be resolved with The Force Unleashed. The game appears to have an authentic and original musical score. Too many times have I played a Star Wars title while hearing the same classic scores from the films repeated over, and over, and over again. A new score is certianly a refreshing change.

Nevertheless, the playable demo of The Force Unleashed still makes the game feel like just another hack-and-slash, action-adventure title with a leveling system. One way that this title could avoid a mediocre fate would be to integrate an interesting story and allow for gameplay that keeps the flow fresh and interesting.

Be sure to look out for this one when it hits store shelves next month.