The Force Unleashed II *SPOILERS*

Knight Joined: 10 Apr 2011 Posts: 112

Sadly to say, this was garbage.

Oops, another hater. Wink

No, I hear you. I just have trouble complaining about it to that extent, since it is Star Wars. But it was pretty bad. Sad

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Knight Joined: 06 Apr 2011 Posts: 309 Location: Sofa

I haven't played it, but the novel made it seem like it had potential.
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The novel was much deeper than the game itself; and, obviously, it had the chance to be in places the game could not be. That being said, the game did improve on the gameplay from the first, and added some fun modes, but that as about it; the story was much less solid, the game still felt a bit repetitive (although the new powers and Force Rage abilities were a plus.) I enjoyed it, although I would probably caution others to buy it cheaper than 60, for the next-gen version, anyway.
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Master Joined: 21 Mar 2010 Posts: 816 Location: Maryland

Yeah, it was pretty darn bad. Couldn't finish it. And I liked the first TFU story idea well enough, but there was nothing in this one that interested me.

I wasn't particularly thrilled with either TFU novel. They both felt kinda flat to me.
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Master Joined: 22 Dec 2010 Posts: 1846

I played TFU1 through before reading the novel, which I recommend for anyone that hasn't experienced that story -- if you know the story though I guess it doesn't matter, but the sort of twist halfway through is pretty good in a cinematic form. I thought the novel was pretty bad, and regretted buying it, and wished I had returned it before the opportunity to do so passed. It just describes what happens without expanding upon it in any way, except for a few brief Juno interludes. But Juno can't really do anything because she's accounted for through TFU1, unlike in TFU2 where she's unaccounted for throughout most the game, in which Williams was able to do more with her.

I read the TFU2 novel before I played the game, because I had been pretty much deprived of Star Wars for about six months to that point and my cousin wasn't going to be available to do an all-nighter with the game. I thought the novel to TFU2 was vastly superior to the first novel, and ALMOST made the story feel like it didn't simply exist to perpetuate the game.

The game itself is so fragmented I actually recommended that my cousin read the novel before he played it because the novel makes sense of what's happening in the game. And then the big scenes in the game, like when Juno first sees Starkiller, are simply handled so much better in the novel than in the game. In the novel you actually are in Juno's head, whereas in the game all you see is her reaction, which is crap. The same thing happens with the "twist" at the end involving Juno.

I think Blackman kind of mailed it in. He left LucasArts after the game was finished, and I sort of wonder if maybe he intended to do more for the game but decided he was leaving while writing the game so basically thought "Well, after Dagobah we'll just do the Salvation and Kamino again." I also think that he originally intended it to be like the Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions where they're two movies that are one story; TFU2 and TFU3 were going to be two games with one story, but he left without doing TFU3, and I don't think they're going to go with whatever he had planned because last I heard they were taking their time plotting the third game out.

As for the gameplay of TFU2, it's a rental. I don't think Redbox started carrying games before TFU2 was released and so doesn't have it, but that would be perfect if you have a Saturday open because you can definitely beat the game in one day. The two lightsabers style is okay, but the game would have had more depth if you could alternate between Starkiller's old style and the dual style, and given some pros and cons to the two. Back when the first game came out I thought that was the problem with the combat: pretty much every other game in the genre has more than one weapon. Since the lightsaber is the ultimate weapon in Star Wars, I can see why they wouldn't want to give you something else, but if you had some sort of variety between a single blade, two blades, or the double bladed lightsaber, or included different forms you could switch between with different attack patterns, that would improve the depth immensely.

I like the world design. Cato Neimodia definitely feels like a Star Wars location. Kamino is a believable look at the planet under the Empire. But that's really it. The Salvation was generic, and Dagobah wasn't really even a level. And the game suffered from the same problem as the original Halo, reusing the same levels.

And as much as I like Starkiller, he shouldn't have been revived as a character unless something was going to be done with him. I think it's very much likely he's going to die in TFU3, because there has to be a reason why he isn't considered a threat by Vader and Palpatine. The Empire Strikes Back makes it very clear that Luke is considered the only threat to them; Starkiller is out of the picture. And even if they do have him survive somehow, he has to be out of the picture for the OT anyway, and given that the post-ROTJ EU is already forty years past that point, I don't see what there is you can do with the character, unless you're going to go the Luke Skywalker and Shadows of Mindor route and write some book with him set in-between Bantam books. And Nick Rostu's appearance in that seems kind of like a loose-end anyway, so it's really not anymore satisfying than wondering what he was up to after Coruscant Nights. The same would apply to Starkiller IMO.
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