The dark side is strong with this one.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was a pleasant surprise. It wasn't the deepest game, but it had that undeniable Star Wars charm. Best of all, the story was excellent and filled in an unknown part of the series' mythos while staying self contained. The game became the best selling Star Wars game ever and a sequel became inevitable. The Force Unleashed 2 has arrived with far less fanfare than the original. Where the first game had a massive marketing push with comics, a novelization, cameos in other games, and endless airtime for its commercials, the sequel has none of that. You would think that the sequel to a game that garnered so much success would have just as big of a release as the original, if not bigger. After playing through The Force Unleashed 2, I can see why it doesn't.

The end of The Force Unleashed made it near impossible for Starkiller, Darth Vader's secret apprentice, to come back. But this Starkiller is a clone, one in a long line that Vader has been trying to perfect. The problem is that the advanced aging process has made them retain the memories of the original, and it isn't long before Starkiller has escaped and gone looking for his love from the first game, Juno Eclipse. Despite such an interesting premise, the story is a complete mess. Rather on focusing on the interesting question of whether it's actually possible to clone a Jedi, the plot focuses on Starkiller's single-minded quest to find Juno. By the time it came to an end, I was left wondering if there was even a point to the story. There's no grand revelations, no character arcs, nothing to make it feel worthy of Star Wars canon. This is hurt even more by the fact that both the light and dark side endings make no sense and create enormous plot holes. While I would not normally harp so much on a bad story, the first one had such a great character arc that it made the game better.

The Force Unleashed 2 plays exactly how you'd expect it to. Starkiller is an extremely powerful Jedi with access to a wide range of powers and dual lightsabers so you'll mostly be cutting through waves of enemies. All of the powers from the first game return including Force Lightning, Force Push, and levitation. Beyond those, there's only two new abilities for Starkiller to utilize: the Mind Trick which can force enemies to turn on one another or commit suicide and Force Fury which allows him to go into a rage and power up all of his attacks for a short time. Both are fun to play around with for a little while much like the other abilities, but it won't be long before you become bored. Enemies can always be beaten using the same strategy and though the game tries to mix them up to force you to use different methods, you'll still make it through with little trouble. Larger enemies can be taken down with a quick-time event once they're weakened, but they quickly wear out their welcome. The battle system is not deep or rewarding in any way and I was feeling the monotony about two hours in. The fights are typically broken up by small platforming sections but thankfully these don't occur often. The controls are unresponsive, usually taking a second before registering the input. Every jump would take me several tries just because I was moving faster than the game was recognizing. It's never an issue in combat but the scant platforming will drive you mad.

The game is also broken up by a few moments that break up the monotony. There are some truly exciting sequences such as the fight against the Gorog and the opening assault on Kamino, but that's about it. Nothing else stands out in a significant way, not even the final boss. The final boss is perhaps the most disappointing part of the game as he was a boss in the original as well. In that fight, it truly felt like two superpowers were clashing against one another. Here you have to slowly chip away at his health as he runs away and sends minions after you, barely ever attacking himself. It's so easy and so boring that I let out a cry of anger when I realized that he was it. The end of the game. The ending comes so quick that it will likely leave you wondering what the developers were thinking. There are only four distinct levels in the game and one of them is merely used to set up a story sequence. By comparison the first game had seven levels, three of which were visited a second time. The Force Unleashed 2 feels absolutely rushed with the game only clocking in at around five or six hours. There is a challenge mode which will unlock new costumes, movies, and other extras, but it's not going to lengthen the amount of gameplay by a significant amount.

Much like the rest of the game, the graphics are all over the place. In general, they look good with characters animating realistically and having a well detailed appearance. Some of the locales are also great to look at, especially Kamino with its constant rain and lightning storms. The level design, on the other hand, comes across as lazy with many areas looking almost exactly the same as others. There was a time when I left the game, came back, and ended up going back where I came because I had no way to tell the difference between old areas and new ones. The game is also filled with graphical glitches that don't necessarily make the game bad but point at a lazy effort. Every elevator ride made Starkiller's clothes go rigid and stick to the floor and a cutscene I watched no less than three times had a character sink into the floor up to his ankles. It wouldn't be bad if these were isolated incidents but they happened every single time.

Fortunately, the sound design is as good as ever for a Star Wars game. The music works in every instance and all of the voice actors reprise their roles and do an admirable job. I just wish they had better material to work with. Strangely, there were moments when the sound seemed to drop away and become distant which made me think that it was designed that way, but when I reloaded that same section the sound levels were normal.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 comes across as a lazy effort or maybe the signs of a developer that had little inspiration for this sequel. Every aspect of the game has problems and is detrimental to the overall experience. I was genuinely looking forward to this game, but I came away completely disappointed. If Star Wars fans are still interested, it can easily be beaten in a rental, but I highly recommend everyone else to just stay away.

Note: This game was reviewed on Playstation 3