The Force Unleashed

One of the things I do in my spare time is play computer games. When Star Wars: The Force Unleashed came out I was ecstatic, being a Star Wars fan who breathlessly waited for every SW game I could get my greedy little hands on, it seemed to good to be true. Amazing graphics, a whole new style of gaming, the trailers built the game up until I could barely wait until it came out. Then it came out. On the Wii. Then on the X-box. Then...nothing. No pc version. I was outraged! As one of the loyal masses, it was incomprehensible to me that they wouldn't make one for the computer. Didn't they know that there were millions of people out there that didn't own a console? And then the real blow hit. They said they weren't planning on making a pc version. Not planning on making a pc version? What did they think we pc gamers were? Chopped Liver?! I had money! I was willing to spend it!

Eventually, my disappointment faded. I mostly forgot about TFU, only a few looks of envy at those who owned both a console and the game. Then one day, I visited my brother. He was complaining that TFU wasn't working. Huh? He owned a Wii but never played it, and he certainly wasn't going to shell out 50 bucks on a game for it. Then he told me that he had bought the pc version from Steam and was having problems with it. I was flabbergasted. I went home as quickly as I could and googled it. Sure enough two months previously, they had made a collector's edition and had grudgingly made one for the pc. I immediately counted my money and took off for Walmart. They had just gotten their new games in and I frantically scanned the shelves. Not there. After asking a saleswoman about it, I had to retreat in defeat. They didn't have it. Thankfully, my family went to the mall the next day. In the mall was a very small game store. They had one copy left and willingly sold it to me. Well, I was done with my shopping and was ready to go home. No such luck, I shopped for another 4-5 hours before my family finally packed into the car and went home. Once I got home I went directly to my gaming computer, an E-Machine that was somewhere around 12 years old and surprisingly enough ran almost everything I wanted it to. No dice. The graphics card laughed at me. The launch menu wouldn't even pop up, only a slick little sign that said my graphics card wouldn't even try. Well, I had one last hope, my 2 year old laptop that wasn't by any stretch of the imagination a gaming computer. he graphics card stunk. I gave it a try and messed with the graphics until I got into the game. I watched the cut scene, giggled at finally being able to play Darth Vader, and then...No dice. Once in game my computer wouldn't run the graphics, there were to many gloriously beautiful and moving parts for it to run. Defeated, I uninstalled TFU and made a resolution to save money until I could buy a new computer. With no job or allowance, that could take me several years.

I offered to let my brother borrow my copy, because his was still not working. Then I thought, if I'm letting him borrow it, why don't I just go over there and play it? Well, it turned out that my 5 year old niece has an Acer that's better than either one of my computers. After about 3 hours of installing and patching the game, I went in. The game worked! But, there was a little problem, it ran in slo-mo. Literally everything in the game ran in slow motion, it was playable but annoying. I finally turned to graphics down to 800x600 the lowest it would go. It worked perfectly! I spent 2 hours that night playing, and then came back at 10 the next morning to play for another 10 hours straight. In that time I realized, Aspyr, the makers of the game, had basically just taken the X-box version and made it work on the pc. The controls were very strange, and I actually ended up hooking an X-box controller to the computer and playing with that. Though I got used to the strange controls, I decided the game wasn't nearly as great as it was built up to be. The strange controls, the save game function not working correctly, the time I glitched and got stuck in a wall, all stacked up until it was almost to annoying to play the game. Keyword: Almost. The story is pretty cool, the planets are beautiful, and they let me unlock new lightsaber colors. I'm hoping to find the black one soon.

All in all, I'm still planning on finishing the game, but I am seriously disappointed with LucasArts. I really hope they do better with The Old Republic, the Star Wars MMO that will be coming out sometime in the next few years. Hey, I'm planning to get a job, just so I can pay for a subscription to that one. Don't disappoint me.