Nerds That Geek Gaming Flashback - 'Star Wars: The Force Unleashed'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

It's been quite a wonderful time to celebrate if you're a Star Wars fan. After all, Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm and all the rights that go with it has provided us with new and quality stories from that galaxy far, far away. But while we are all basking in the glory of new movies and new adventures...we often forget there was a downside to the 'merger', the end of Lucasarts. 

Yes, if that name sounds familiar, that's because it was the gaming division of the Lucas empire, and for many years it provided us with one incredible game after another. In fact, for quite some time there were plenty of people who essentially believed that the games released from this company were of a high enough quality that they would in essence serve as the sequels that we once thought we would never see on the big screen.

The Lucasarts era spanned many years of gaming, and well, perhaps we will revisit the entire franchise another day considering how many titles they released in their time, but for today, I'd like to focus on one of the last games released under that banner, one that managed to bring the power of the Force and the experience of becoming a Jedi or a Sith into the modern gaming era; 2008's Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

---

This was a game with a story as rich as its graphics that took us into the vastly unexplored era between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, where we are introduced to a man known only as Starkiller...who just so happens to be Darth Vader's secret apprentice. His duty is simple, to hunt down the last of the Jedi and remove them from the galaxy. That is of course the basics to the plot, and well...it's best we leave it at that because this is a story that is incredibly immersive and needs to be experienced.

Because as I mentioned before, this game is all about allowing you to choose a path between the light side and the dark side and it does that in stunning fashion. While you are allowed to yield a lightsaber and slice away with that, it is not an end all be all weapon. It must be used in conjunction with the Force to accomplish your goals and it doesn't take long for the game to draw you in on that alone. Suddenly you're working hard to master every Force power available just to see what kind of amazing things you can do in combat, and along the way you must make the choice of following a path of righteousness or a path of evil and when you add that, next generation graphics and a story worthy of the silver screen, you're left with one of the finest games that Lucasarts ever created. 

Thankfully, this is a game that can still be played today courtesy of the wonder of the internet and your respective poison when it comes to gaming consoles or online services and well, it's one you simply have to own if you're a Star Wars fan, love an engrossing story or simply want to harken back to a different era in gaming, where the story mattered above all else and great care was put into every single facet of a game. They just don't make them like this anymore, but at least we can go back, and enjoy the wonder of tales like this, one more time...

---