Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Hence, then, the title of the game - The Force Unleashed. For this game, Lucas gave the team permission to go crazy with the powers of the Force, essentially re-imagining one of the most fundamental parts of the Star Wars universe. The Apprentice's powers are completely out of proportion with anything seen before in the films or games. The start of the latest trailer shows him crashing an entire Star Destroyer using the Force, and gameplay segments we've viewed demonstrate an astonishing capacity for flinging enemies about, ripping up environments and generally making an awesome mess.

LucasArts' aim with the game, you see, was essentially to make a superhero game in the Star Wars universe. They considered a number of possible scenarios which would enable that kind of gameplay (at one point, they had a concept involving a wookie warrior - we'll be the first to put our names on the petition to get that one made some day) before settling on the fact that the Jedi are already the superheroes of the universe, and their superpower is the Force. So what if you took that power and re-imagined it in a scaled-up, jacked-up form?

What happens, in essence, is a whole lot of really stunning next-gen physics. The Force Unleashed taps the advanced NaturalMotion physics system, and combines it with new technology created internally at LucasArts. The aim: to accomplish one of the toughest tasks in game design, creating effects which aren't possible in the real world but still seem realistic and solid to players.

Lethal Force

From what we've witnessed, the team has done a fine job of this. The first Force power to be updated - the nail-biting trial for whether the game would work at all, the producer confides - was Force Push. In previous games, this has been a relatively sedate wave of the hand which sends foes and objects flying through the air.

In the hands of the team at LucasArts, Force Push becomes an entirely new beast. Enemies pushed backwards by the Apprentice's power react as if they have been hit by an invisible cannonball, hurled backwards in a brutal, bone-wrenching display of power. They smash through pillars, through sheets of glass or piles of objects. LucasArts have done their job well; it looks realistic. Incredible, fantastic, and downright painful, but certainly realistic.

Emboldened, the team tackled other powers. Force Grip, seen in the movies when Vader chokes a recalcitrant Imperial officer, becomes an invisible hand which lifts enemies and hurls them around the room, smashing them into solid objects until such time as they stop moving and twitching. Force Repel is an extraordinary power which pushes a bubble of pure energy outwards from you, hurling enemies and objects backwards, cracking walls and smashing anything remotely fragile in sight.

Other powers are promised - being a dark-side character, The Apprentice will have access to Force Lightning, for example. More interesting, however, is the promise of combo attacks which allow players to string together their various Force powers to great effect. Combining a force attack with the use of the lightsaber is one such combo; combining two Force powers together will also be possible, such as mixing up Lightning and Push to create a deadly, heat-seeking ball of energy.

The game isn't afraid about throwing around its next-gen credentials, either. The NaturalMotion physics have been combined with an advanced materials system created by LucasArts themselves, which ensures that every object or surface in the game breaks, shatters, splinters or bends realistically. An advanced AI system gives your foes a sense of self-preservation which will make them hang on to nearby objects - or each other - to avoid falling to their death or being dragged off by one of your powers. And the whole thing, of course, looks absolutely gorgeous in its PS3 and Xbox 360 iterations.

Fans of the wonderful Jedi Knight series, however, may be a little disappointed to hear that the team has no intention of recreating that game's crowning glory. "It's not a duelling simulator," the producer says firmly. The game is designed to be easy to use; its core attacks are context sensitive, and the team focused on the key idea of the player doing something cool-looking and relevant whenever they pressed a button.

This resolutely mainstream approach carries through into other aspects of the game, too. Since it's designed as a new chapter in the Star Wars saga (and it'll be supported by an enormous range of licensed products which LucasArts normally reserves for its cinematic creations), it's important to the team that everyone should be able to see the story through to its conclusion. As such, the game is reportedly short enough to play through in two or three decent sessions; no 25-hour epics here, then.