Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II XBox 360 Review

The first Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, was a game that had the intent of reviving the Star Wars series with a character as powerful and deadly as Darth Vader himself. Starkiller was the most destructive force around and in the end the player was allowed to choose between the path of light and the path of darkness, but in a subtle way. The game’s story was well written and executed, but the gameplay mechanics were plagued with control and camera issues. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II takes place several months after the events of the first game where the original Starkiller died at the end of the game. In The Force Unleashed II, Darth Vader is busy attempting to create the perfect clone of the original Starkiller, but has trouble with the clones going insane and having memories of the original Starkiller. The game starts out with a new Starkiller clone, which is plagued by memories of the past and his former love interest from the previous game, Juno. When Darth Vader orders him to kill a robot disguised as Juno, Starkiller is unable to do so and Vader is forced to kill him since he is of no use. Before Darth Vader is able to kill him, Starkiller stuns Vader and escapes. The plot continues with Vader trying to lure Starkiller out in order to assassinate him and Starkiller trying to find out if he is a clone or the real Starkiller.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II has four difficulty levels from easy to unleashed and has nine fairly small levels of gameplay. After completing the campaign, a player can replay any of the levels, view a databank consisting of information about characters, view concept art, and view cinematic sequences from the story. The game allows players to upgrade powers through the collection of special items, but the character is so overpowered from the beginning of the game that upgrades are rarely necessary unless playing on the hardest difficulty level. In addition to the regular Force powers from the first game, Starkiller has a few new abilities as well such as a Force Fury, Mind Control, and others.

Overall, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II improves upon the control issues of the first game, but lacks a solid story. It seems as if the sequel was just made to bank on a new franchise with no thought put into expanding the story. The first game had Starkiller die and instead of creating a new character, Lucas Arts decided to create a clone and a mediocre plot to go with it. This game is definitely not a purchase, but worth a rental just for the fun of being Starkiller again, but without the buggy gameplay of the first game.