Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Meanwhile, some of the game's more complex moves are created by combining existing powers from your arsenal. One of our favourites is introduced right back in the tutorial level, when you learn how to lift up Wookiees using Force Grip and then fling your lightsaber through the air to impale them as they hang helplessly. It's hard not to cackle when you're doing it.

More powers and combos are, unsurprisingly, unlocked as you progress. Your character, the Apprentice, essentially levels up as he goes along, with each level giving you more points to spend on improving your powers. The interface for these upgrades is fairly heavy-duty, with tons of different abilities made available as you progress, along with power boosts for your starting abilities. There's some tantalising stuff in there, although sadly we didn't have an opportunity to play with any of the really high-level powers you'll be throwing around by the end.

As you progress through the earlier levels in Force Unleashed, the game's graphics remain hugely impressive, and the physics and AI are given an opportunity to play out in increasingly large arenas. The Apprentice's first mission, on board a large space station, sees you fighting off hordes of Rebel and Imperial troops (you are a secret agent, so you need to kill all witnesses - Imperials are as much your enemy as Rebels), and gives a good example of how LucasArts makes the game difficult for a character that's essentially a superhero. Throw enough minions at him and he'll have to find a clever way out or sink under their combined weight.

The biggest problem we see after an hour or so of play is that the developers have been tempted to break the game's own rules in order to create "better" scripted events. One such event, where you fight an AT-ST walker in a narrow space, is hugely frustrating. Despite the range of powers available, the AT-ST is only really susceptible to very specific attacks, and in a game with a physics engine this good that's pretty feeble. As you try to work out what the designers wanted you to do, all you can think is how much more fun it would have been if you could slam the walker's feet out from under it with Force Push, or whatever. Momentarily that freedom has been taken away from you.

The same approach is visible in other places, too, and it could be the game's undoing. That being said, the code we played was unfinished, and the core is already fantastic - the Force powers, physics and AI mesh to create hugely entertaining encounters that adapt to everything you're doing seamlessly. Hopefully the designers can bring balance to the scripting before the game's September release.