Tuesday, October 12, 2010

TFU II Demo Review (Xbox360)

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The Force Unleashed 2 Demo has been released for the Xbox 360). Overall it is a great demo. It has a few little problems here and there, but shows off all the hard work Lucas Arts has but into the game perfectly. The demo starts with Lord Vader and Starkiller talking about visions. The cutscene animations are flawless. Subsequently you are given 2 crimson lightsabers and ordered to take down a few proxy driods. This is the basic tutorial of the game. The last droid to take down mimics the persona of Juno Eclispe, Starkillers love interest from the first game. Unable to strike her down, Vader proclaims Starkiller a failed clone. A brief flashback warns Starkiller that Vader will attempt to kill him since he has no further use to the Dark Lord. Blasting Vader with a jolt of sith lightning, Starkiller excapes the training tower on Kamino and free falls his way to freedom.

The Good
         *Wonderful Visuals. Lucas Arts maximized the way the game looks and feels 10 fold compared to the first game. The cutscenes are borderline real, they look better than some animations in movies.
         * Crazy Combat.  The lightsaber combos are amazing, although it is a hyped up version of the combat of the first game with an additional lightsaber, if you attempt diffrent moves and combos it becomes an entirely new concept of combat. The dismemberment adds a wonderful touch. (Note the sabers are upgraded fully in the demo, dismemberment might not happen at the start of the full version game untill you upgrade them)
         * Improvements. Lucas Arts has improved thier product greatly compared to the first game. They fixed the camera, they even let you adjust it in the options menu, which is another great improvement. You no longer have to wait 30 seconds to go to the gameplay menu's or to upgrade your saber. The game is less glitchy than the first one. Lucas Arts has mastered the use of DMM, Havok, & Euphoria creating a wonderful experience at the end of the Free Fall. The Ai in the demo is much better compared to the first game. Troopers realistically take cover and hide from the duel sabered sith. If you dont pay attention, you might get flanked by a couple of troopers and get killed in an embarrassing way.
     
The Bad
        * Slower gameplay. The games pacing is a little slower than before. The Dash isn't as fast, nor does it move the character as far . What would be better is just to bring back Force Speed and replace the Dash move. Or during Force Fury the Dash move rushes you foward 10 or 15 meters blowing through all those in your way. The lock-on feature also slowed you down greatly. In the first game, using Dash while locked on actually dodge an attack, instead of moving you two feet left or right and still getting hit.
       * Force Grip. Some may say that Force Grip was too difficult to use in the original Force Unleashed, for that reason Lucas Arts redisigned it. It is much easier to use in the sequel, but if you mastered it from the first game, you may feel that it isn't as good. During the fight with the carbonite war driod, I gripped the carbonite grenade and attempted to throw it at a stormtrooper near the war machine. After 10 attempts I finally gave up, everytime the grenade was redirected back at the Driod and not to the trooper where I had aimed. On the bright side, when you upgrade grip you no longer have to hold down both triggers to lift up three enemies into the air.
      
The Ugly
There was no any major issues in the demo. A couple of glitches here and there, and a bug might have a dead trooper stand up after he dies before dissappearing. But that can be expected in any game. One thing that wasn't too pretty was Vaders cape. After being shocked by Starkiller, the cape unrealisticly stuck and shifted above Darth Vader shoulders. However, this was the in-game cutscene, whereas the cinematic scene with Vader looked just like the movies.


The Verdict
The Force Unleashed 2 Demo recieves a solid 9.3/10 or A-
If you dont press anything at the Start Menu a brief glimps of the full product is shown. If the rest of the game is anywhere near as good as the demo, than Lucas Arts may have a Game of The Year contender in their hands.


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21 comments:

  1. sounds like a good review from yourself, i do have seen alot of bad aspects (points) from this demo, which most like would be the same in the final product. so get ready for alot of complains, to me the combat, gameplay, graphics are important of course they are, but also is the story and ive been hearing alot of rumors about it like the ending and im not loving it at all.

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  2. Played it. Aside from minor aesthetic differences, I see nothing new and was sorely disappointed by the original. Although, it is a demo. I'll give LA the free-fall sequence. That was cool.

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  3. Sounds like you guys didnt utilize its full potential.

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  4. need the demo for PC !!!!!

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  5. Can't understand why Lucasarts decided to have a Nintendo DS version and not a Sony PSP version. The PSP is way better in terms of gameplay and graphics. A big disappointment in my opinion.

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  6. Hey William , ds will sell (or not) and disney owns lucasarts u fill in your own blanks there cus all disney games come out where 360 and nintendo

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  7. Good review, I just hope that they don't do a GOTY edition and sell it for $10-20 less than the original with all the add-ons while people who originally bought the game at full price have to spend $5-10 on new costumes and levels.

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  8. My only issues on the 360 demo is the animation of the lightsaber throw when your trying to impale on object you have in force grip, it just looks wrong. Along with the mind trick voice that sounds like stakiller's attempt at a sith yoda impression.

    I'll give some leeway to the new targeting system. and the new AI makes the game more entertaining. And the AI has a few fun little quirks, i'm not sure if it was just a visual glitch but on one of my deaths one storm trooper yelled "we killed him!!" and proceeded to start clapping.

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  9. Luca William Rohr (from facebook)October 13, 2010 at 1:55 PM

    Hey Knox!

    Your review is plain amazing. Even though I can't play the demo I agree with everything you said. To bad I got used to TFU 1 grip. You think I'll be able to adjust ? ^^

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  10. you know i played the demo several times already since i downloaded it on my ps3 and the clitch and problems people mentiond where minor and wont be enough to sway me on not buying the game i loved the demo and cant wait for the full game especially the collecters edition. because the visuals and game play in this force unleashed rocked

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  11. OMG I just put the game on pre-order. YES! and
    I played the demo! ITS AWESOME!!! Did you know there is suppose to be action on the very first mission when you play!!!

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  12. I just played the demo on my PS3 at home after waiting a month and a half from playing it at Celebration V and it was 5 times better just because of the start and I have to say LA made the Free Fall easier in the new demo then the CV demo which dissapointed me. Overall though cant wait for full Collectors Edition which I preordered 2 days after I went to CV and I really cant wait for my kriffing MIMOBOT of Galen

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  13. One more thing, did they push the game up 2 days or is Starkiller mind tricking me.

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  14. its awesome! i played it today!!!

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  15. How do you play the demo? Please not xbox live!

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  16. very well done. three problems though:
    1. you hold ur lightsabers oddly lol (diffrent, like more closely to ur body, it looks wierd. also with the lightsabers, they dont look as cool as TFU1. they are like more "thinner"

    2. The grip. not as cool or realistic as TFU1. nuff said

    3. i can only put this one way without making myself look wierd:
    everything happens WAY too fast, like, unrealistically fast!

    overall grade: 9.4/10

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  17. Ok guys, I added the little trailer that shows on the demo if you dont press start

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  18. Played the demo and IT WAS AMAZING... the only thing that i miss from the firstgame is the ability to link lightsaber combos together. by combos the main one im thinking of is clicking X, Y, B (360 controller) to link sith slash with the saber sling

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  19. Yeah i missed that as well, they changed that so you could end your combos easier

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  20. I played it too and didnt like that you could lift the enemies with one button what happens if you want to kill one of them and not all of them???Also they sould add FORCE CHOKE on the buttons L2 + X(PS3) or LB + A(XBOX 360)Then you could have another force power :)And if you press it on force fury you could Force Choke all the enemies and one last thing (i have other dissapointments too but are minor and many)I didnt like , like the 1st game that when you Gripped an enemy you and actually IMPALE SMASH BURN HIM WITH LIGTHENING or just kill him he didnt just hang in the air he was still moving screaming and shooting when you didnt move him!And he is supposed to be dead ,thats all (for now).>>> Knox if you share this dissapointments with me please let LUCAS ARTS know of this and the other complaints of some other funs if you can contact them since you are a big fun of SW! <<< :) :) :) (Oh and for not being a big crying baby i realy liked the visuals and the new combos in this game i actually use the sabers(liked that you can move while defending)Espacialy the 4-Squares (pause)4-Squares (PS3 Buttons) one! :) :) :)

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  21. Choke is Vader's Power. And it seems to me your complaints are mostly unwarrented. You could "Grop, impale, smash, and burn a trooper with lightning" They still grabbed on to each other and shot you while u held them there, its just when you kill them they drop guns.

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