Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

Once the game itself is running, however, LucasArts is mainly trying to do the Force powers justice, and that brings us back to Euphoria and DMM, both of which have had a considerable tweaking this time around. Simply put, the kind of stuff you see unfolding on the fly in The Force Unleashed II puts other games to shame: Storm Troopers cartwheel through the air, limbs flailing, TIE Fighters bounce off girders leaving nasty dents, and platforms collapse unexpectedly beneath droids sending support struts swinging and cables spiralling.

Best of all, when the chaos unfolds, you're generally at the centre of it all, and you'll have more tools at your disposal this time. Force Grip, Force Push and Force Lightning all make welcome returns, and you can now combine them for fun and profit - Push with a little jolt of electricity has some fairly amusing consequences, for example. To encourage you to be creative, there are far more props sprinkled around the environments in Force Unleashed II, and experience points are newly available for particularly elaborate kills.

Elsewhere, you can enjoy the delights of the new power, Mind Trick, which allows you to target enemies and mess about with their heads. Each category of foe will react differently apparently, and half the fun comes from letting rip and seeing what you get this time: a bit like those hanging-claw amusement arcade cabinets, but for psychoses rather than plushes.

Common Storm Troopers just march stoically off the edge of platforms before falling to their doom, while other villains might blow themselves to pieces, possibly setting off chain reactions, and yet more will turn on their allies. You've also got a new fury meter to take into account - a bold theft from Quackshot for the Megadrive - that slowly builds up as you play, and can then trigger a murderous rush of explosive damage against multiple on-screen enemies.

All of your arsenal will get a decent airing as the game explores locations ranging from Kamino to a hazy, orange-skied barge planet whose name I missed while quixotically lending a colleague my pen.

And it's not only the Force that has been unleashed afresh, either: the melee combat has been entirely rethought, with new combos and animations that make the most of the fact that the Apprentice now wields two lightsabers at once - excellent for running through baddies attacking from multiple angles, and presumably pretty handy if he has to unexpectedly guide any 747s to some nearby terminal gates too.

Enemies, meanwhile, have been reduced from around 100 distinct types to around 25 or so, but they're more strongly differentiated in both animation and behaviours. New jet pack troopers swarm through the air trailing clouds of smoke and linger just outside of reach, while improved AT-STs lob rockets from across the map and need to be tackled quickly before the whole thing gets out of hand. Best of all is a huge shielded droid who wants to freeze you with Carbonite before his minions then smash you to pieces: nasty, pretty, physicsy stuff.