I downloaded and beat The Force Unleashed demo last night, and a couple more times today.  The game is quite fun, though certainly suffers from some problems.  Despite the issues, the game demo is incredibly fun and I can see why the Penny-arcade guys would play it through 7 times.  The first time is throw away.  You are learning the controls and environment.  After that, you begin to learn enemy timing, dodge moves, when to attack and when to be defensive.  Your badassness begins to show through.

**The game is challenging while making you look unstoppable.**

Let’s hope it continues throughout like that.  There are a few other points to cover…

The first and foremost is the QuickTime events trigger too quickly during the boss fight.  You are prompted to press X to begin, but X is what you are pressing anyways so you never see this prompt.  Instead you are greeted with Press ‘A’.  Of course, you are still mashing X and will fail this quicktime event a couple of times before you realize what is happening.

One thing they do right is environmental interaction.  Everything can be interacted with or destroyed except a few crates used for throwing.  Electirc attacks work well on robots….and people.  Thorw is over the top, but looks and plays great (leaving you vulnerable as you use it).  Doors bend under pressure.  You can force lift someone up to a ledge until they grab it, then gently let go and watch them hang their until their arm gives out.

The core gameplay is standard God of War action, but the engine that runs it allows for lots of little touches.  It plays like a last gen game with a really slick coat.  This is, of course, just a demo.  The full game looks like it could take a step beyond this and really improve the genre.  In fact, it plays like PsiOps.  Which, if you didn’t play, shame on you.  That was a great game.  One thing it did right was controls: every power has a button.  There is not need to cycle through an inventory.  You simply press the button and you’ll use the action.  It also gave you Force Lift/Throw and placed you on platforms stretching over hazards, explosive barrels, etc.

You can imagine the fun had there.

The camera is tough to control, and all 4 shoulder buttons are important (which means hitting all of them is a bit difficult with only 2 fingers up there).  Still, with practice, this is pretty easily overcome.

The hints at story and characters actually look good.  Could be a decent star wars story since KOTOR.

Anyway, anyone with a system should download this free demo and give it a boot.  I’m tired.  If I think of anything else in particular.

Don’t hesitate, or I’ll find your lack of faith disturbing; don’t delay, or I’ll sense much conflict within you.