The Force Unleashed – Rao Dao Zao

Chris McPhail and I have been working through the Star Wars fanchise in its cinematic chronological order in our audio/video podcast Close, But No Biscuit of late. During one clip that didn’t make the cut, I was raving about The Force Awakens (as I am wont to do) but accidentally said The Force Unleashed instead. Twice.

Obviously it got me to thinking about that game. I accused it of being hideous fanfiction the first (and only) time I played it, but in the light of the even more hideous fanfiction of The Force Awakens… Maybe it’s not so bad? Maybe its story, crass as its foundations might be, actually… kind of works?

We are on full spoiler alert today, but The Force Unleashed is from 2009 so it should be safe by now.

Continue reading “Blog 699: The Force Unleashed” →

Or “The Expanded Universe Unleashed”. Or “The Author Self-Insert Unleashed”.

I had to pretty much crawl on my knees like a dog to survey the pitiful PC game selection at Game, but at least they had a single full-height wall rack (even if the top was padded by being the top ten chart) instead of the five games stuck on the end of the counter I found last time.

There wasn’t much to look at, and I’m not particularly interested in Fallout: New Vegas (could be a candidate for a cheap GOTYE once they stop releasing DLC, though… call me in two years) or StarCraft II or any god damn MMO, so this one game that looked almost like it might be worth playing was a hard-won victory. And I’m well over-due some playing instead of modding.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition. I dread the Expanded Universe, especially when it dares to stamp all over the glorious films that do actually exist as this one so gleefully does. For some reason, I still picked this game up and braced myself for impact.

Some spoilers ensue, but the terrifying implications the plot applies to the original trilogy will remain unprinted.

Continue reading “Blog 420: The Blog Unleashed” →