I recently picked up these games and to date I have finished one play through of Star Wars: TFU and almost finished the story mode of LEGO Batman. And I thought that I would share my likes and dislikes
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Likes: Well, for the most part this is a good game, one of the more solid games for Star Wars to come out in a while. In it you can collect Jedi Holocrons, and some of them will be crystals that can change the color of your blade and others that will give you advantages. You gain different costumes with every level you complete and from holocrons, so that if you go through the game again you can do do a little customization. There is strategy needed to defeat bosses and some of the more powerful enemies. The graphics are great, especially during the cinematics featuring Vader or the Secret Apprentice. And it give an interesting plot line that bridges the two trilogies (and yes, this story is canon, or at least until George changes his mind yet again).
Dislikes: Unfortunately, there are a lot of things in this game that could make it much better. One of those is the camera, there is no good way to control it and more than a number of times I thrown, the camera didn’t change and I lost all my bearings on where I was (quite a few times I even wasn’t on the screen, nor the enemies around me). One would think that with as many adventure game made up until this point in time, camera issues would be so basic that they could avoid this. And it wasn’t even like they were trying something new and it is a bug in a new program, it was just poorly programmed.
Another thing is the difficulty. I’m the kind of guy that starts on easy, figures out the controls and the lay of the game and then builds up to the highest difficulty. I have to say that this is one of the hardest easy levels I’ve ever played. One thing that makes it so bad is that if you get knocked down, not only to you possibly slide for four seconds before stopping and then taking another three to stand up, but the enemies can walk the distance and attack you just before you finish standing up and you can even block. What kind of Sith can’t anticipate and attack and block even while getting up? Some of the enemies, like the giant Purge Stormtroopers are just too hard to kill and and can kill you too easily. Even with my Force Lightening, apparently the only thing that will do significant damage, can’t kill it. And that is after I use up all of my Force Energy with its stat maxed out. I think it may be a while before I get up to the high difficulty, if I even try.
My last grip is the level design. There is just too much darkness and shadow on these levels, it one thing when you want atmosphere, it another when you can even tell where you are going or need to go. Also, the textures are so few that there are times where you can’t even tell if you’ve moved or where you were before. Another thing, there are place in all levels that you need to use you force powers to continue, but there are problems with that. The first being that some time you don’t even know what force power you need to you where you get trained that to get through a door you just use your force push. Then you come up to a door and it doesn’t work, but you know you need to use a force power because there is blue aura around it. So you try them all and if it happens to be the force grip, then you may use it and not even that will help you. That’s because using force grip is flawed because it used the camera controls. So you could try all that you might, but it could take you a goo while to figure out how to bend that door open.
All and all, like I said it was a good game, if you want like Star Wars games or you don’t want to read the novel of graphic novel for the story, pick it up, but be prepared for possible frustration all dependent on what difficulty you choose. Otherwise, I would say rent or borrow.
LEGO Batman
Likes: This has all the great qualities of the LEGO games before it: Fairly simple, but fun and lots of things for you to go back and play through again and again. Plus, it Batman, but even more so, it seems to be based more on the animated series. The score is the same, the opening is almost a perfect LEGOization of the shows, and other than the comics, is the best resource for a video game. Also, You get to ply the story from both the heroes’ standpoint and the villians’ stand point.
Dislikes: While I haven’t played LEGO Indy, I have gone through LEGO Star Wars a few times, as you know, you usually can’t get all the secrets in the story mode and have to go back through free play where you can change your character to get through obstacles. In the Star Wars version, I remember that I didn’t have to get through nearly all the episodes before I could go back, this one you do. Also, the boss battles and progression through parts of the level are not intuitive and you get confused really quickly.
This one really does have everything going for it and if you enjoyed the other LEGO game, pick this up. If you haven’t tried them yet, pick this up too. It’s worth the cash and everyone will enjoy it.
