Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Observing PS3/360, playing Wii, chatting to producer.
The Wii Saber
While much attention will undoubtedly be lavished on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, we were also intrigued by the Wii version, which launches on the same date (as do various other platform versions, such as the PS2). Upon picking up the Wiimote to play, we were immediately struck by the fact that while the Wii version does look very weak compared to the PS3/360 versions, the impressive gameplay has been surprisingly well converted.
Certainly, the physics and AI haven't made the transition intact - but the Wii version fakes it remarkably well, replacing complex physics with nicely hand-tuned animations and more simplified interactions. The trade-off, of course, is that you get to wield the Wiimote as a lightsaber, an experience many Wii owners have been crying out for since day one.
Based on our hands-on time with the Wii version, we suspect that some of those people will be a little disappointed. You simply don't get the direct control of the lightsaber that many people crave - certainly, it responds to your movements, but a left swing of the Wiimote simply triggers a pre-programmed left swing attack in the game, rather than mimicking the exact swing you're doing.
On the plus side, however, the game cleverly divides its controls between lightsaber attacks on the Wiimote, and Force powers on the nunchuk - a system which works really nicely. Lifting someone into the air with the nunchuk, before flicking the Wiimote to impale them with a thrown lightsaber, is a natural and enjoyable movement, as is thrusting both controllers downwards to fire off a Force Repulse and push enemies backwards. Although there's a fair bit to learn, the controls do feel accurate and natural - and our disappointment at not getting to directly control a lightsaber faded pretty fast.
The Wii version also ships with a big chunk of exclusive content, including several entire levels which won't appear in the PS3 or 360 versions, and we were pleased to note that even the levels they have in common are significantly different in the Wii version - playing to the strengths of the Wii console and its controller, rather than just lazily porting Xbox 360 content to a platform that isn't designed for it.
Crucially, the Wii also has the only multiplayer mode of any of the versions of The Force Unleashed. A duelling mode pits two players against one another in a free-roaming combat arena, picking up power-ups and hammering one another with Force and lightsaber abilities in a manner that actually reminded us a little bit of classic fighting game Power Stone. There are loads of classic Star Wars characters to choose from, and the whole thing is pretty good fun - we can't see it becoming a staple of the hardcore beat-'em-up fraternity, but it could certainly be a laugh to pull out if you've got Star Wars loving friends about.
Talking Force
Unfortunately, we can't talk in quite as much depth about the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions right now - we'll be bringing you full hands-on impressions of those in the coming months. In the meantime, though, we did manage to corner one of LucasArts' production team, Cameron Suey, to chat to us about how the PS3 and 360 versions are coming along - and to explain one of the most controversial decisions the team has made, the complete lack of any multiplayer options.
Actually, that's something we believe really strongly in at LucasArts - you've got to give everybody all their options at once, so they're not holding out for another version that doesn't come out. It also makes it feel like this huge event in Star Wars - so it was absolutely necessary for us to have them all come out, all at once.
Between the Xbox 360 and the PS3, if we've done our job right, they'll be indistinguishable. We really wanted to make the same sort of polished, high-end next-gen experience on both those versions.
It's a difficult decision to not do anything - you want to put everything you can into a game. However, it was a pretty easy difficult decision, if that makes any sense. We knew that to really make the fully polished story experience that we wanted to make, we had to focus on that single-player experience. It definitely was a good choice, I think. It's easy to have a game that's just okay, with a multiplayer that's just okay - but we really preferred to have that powerful single-player experience.