*walks in happily, humming the TFU theme*

So yeah, I've not been here much for the last two weeks... a good deal of that is because of The Force Unleashed, which I bought for the Xbox 360 on the day it came out and haven't stopped playing since.

It's really good. But with that is also a small bit of bad. I'll outline the main points.

The story is easily the greatest aspect of this game, gameplay aside. They did such a good job of bridging the two trilogies, in a way that other mediums could not. Many characters that you'll recognize are in the game... won't say who... and the ending brings some revelations that are very surprising. This, of course, is if you choose the Light Side ending. That's the one that was canonized; WIN. The Dark Side ending is somewhat different, and I've not yet experienced it, but it's not canon. So if you're looking for story, take the Light Side first.

For the most part, the combat is awesome. As advertised, the Force powers are completely over-the-top, which makes the game really easy at first... but later on, you need those powers. A little more variety wouldn't have hurt, but it's fine.

The difficulty... ouch. The first level, the VERY FIRST level, is hard. At least the boss is. From there, you get a brief respite, and then it just goes up. And up. And up, until you're constantly dying. XD Now, some of the enemies in this game are rather annoyingly challenging, but after a while, you get into the groove and take them out easily. (Mega-upgraded Force powers help in that area, too.) As for the bosses, they are VERY hard. Usually they take me within an inch of death for the first three bosses... for the major bosses towards the end, I die quite a lot. So in that area, it's good.

The levels. They're nice and long, and they offer tons of save points at ideal locations. So the layout is good. As for the locations themselves, you'll find yourself revisiting planets throughout the game. However, the maps change each time... on the second round, they're considerably darker. As per the plot, it actually makes sense. The detail they put into these settings is awesome; you get to see some planets more in-depth; ones that weren't explored much in the movies, or planets that weren't in the movies at all. And of course, the occasional battle station. *cough*

Characters. They made up a good host of both old and new characters, and the mix of these is what gives the story its awesome elements. Seeing Prequel Trilogy characters about to be killed by Original Trilogy characters, or else taking your bridge-character-of-an-Apprentice meeting both kinds, is rather cool.

The cinema and cutscene quality, versus the game quality. Unlike most other games, they are hardly different at all, and in a good way. While the cutscenes are amazing in quality, with realistic movements, good lighting/graphics and such, the game almost matches this. There are just a few of those small graphics glitches that are nigh-impossible to avoid in a game, especially one as huge as this.

Which brings us to... the new technology. There was huge hype over this. Digital Molecular Matter, first of all, applies real physics to the game environment. Surprisingly, there was little execution of this. The best part to test this out is in the opening level of Kashyyyk, where there's tons of trees you can snap. In the rest of the game, glass, wood, and stuff is hard to come by. However, there's plenty of metal that you can dent; and, if necessary, completely bend out of shape so that you can get through. And it's not preanimated; you can blow it any which way from any angle, and it bends realistically 'til it can't bend no more.

As for Euphoria (the program that infuses the AI with human characteristics), this was done very well. It didn't have as much shine-time as it could have, but it was awesome. The Stormtroopers all run and hide when they see the big bad Apprentice coming towards them... they look up over their cover to catch a glimpse of their doom, before you Force-Push the cover directly into them. When they're about to fall over the edge, they grab onto the railing and attempt to hoist themselves up.... Then, when you Grip them and attempt to finish the job, they reach out to their brethren to try and latch onto them... except you don't care, so you take the two dangling Stormtroopers and throw them into a wall, where they slump down and lose all movement. For the most part, it's well executed.

Havok. That thing that apparently makes all the levels random, and all of its materials destructible... not so much. I don't know as much about this particular program, but its effects weren't obvious enough to warrant more comments.

Music and sound effects. The work of John Williams and Ben Burtt. It's awesome. Duh. Oh, but that new Force Unleashed theme that they composed just for this. Absolutely amazing. It blends in with Williams' work easily.

I can't think of anything else... but hopefully this gave ye some good insight.

DN, Newly Discovered Game Reviewer, Signing Off

And No One Cares