Just finished playing it a couple hours ago (360 version)... so here's my impressions of the game so far...

***spoilers for those of you who haven't downloaded it yet, so skip over this post***


Great presentation... visuals and sound effects are top notch and are faithful to the original movies... only detriment is Vader's voice not being done by James Earl Jones, a big disappointment as his voice work as Vader is probably the most iconic thing about Star Wars.

As for gameplay... it's a mixed bag. On one hand the force powers are awesome! Being able to pick up aything that isn't bolted to the ground (and even some stuff that is!) and flinging things hundreds of feet away never gets old, and using Force Lightning and Force Push makes u feel like you're some type of god.

On the other hand though, targeting enemies and throwing stuff at them isn't always accurate, and the camera can be a bit fidgity when you're holding something and getting ready to fling it at a bunch of stormtroopers. Plus, you're force meter empties WAY too fast.. after 3 or 4 times picking up something and throwing it you usually have to wait for it to recharge. Hopefully in the full game you can level up your force bar.

Lightsaber combat gets the job done, although seeing a lifebar over a Stormtrooper's head and having to take a few whacks at them with the lightsaber for them to die does make it just a tad unrealistic compared to the movies, but obviously this was done to keep the game at a Teen rating... nevermind the fact that there's hacked off limbs and decapitations in the movies and they're only rated PG LOL.

Anywho, the one major issue I have with the way the game plays is the unbalanced nature of using the force power vs the lightsaber... all of the enemies you face in the demo level all fire projectiles at you, so you'll be constantly using your Force Throw and other force powers to take them out from a distance. There's no point in using the lightsaber to take enemies out unless they're right on top of you, and its only real use is to defend against laser fire. Now, the problem with this is, as I mentioned before your Force Power meter empties pretty damn fast, and more often than not you'll be trying to pick stuff up or fling an enemy across the room when nothings happening, and then you have no choice but to rush the enemies and take on some fire while you wait to power up again. This was especially cumbersome during the AT-ST boss battle, where you're taking on some serious fire and you need to rely on your force powers to take out the stormtroopers quickly as well as stun the AT-ST before it obliterates you with its blasters and serious stomping skillz.

Seriously, all that thing did half the time is stomp around, and even if you are nowhere near its feet, as long as you're on the ground when it stomps you take some serious damage. Again, a little bothersome considering you're a Sith apprentice with ridiculous force powers and can withstand a serious amount of blaster fire as well as some big explosions. Another thing that kind of bugged me, for continuity's sake anyway, is that during the demo you can lift and throw imperial TIE fighters of all things, and with no problem at all, yet when it comes to a much smaller vehicle like the AT-ST, all you can do is use force-push or force-lightning to stun it momentarilly... i should be able to lift the damn thing and fling it to the far reaches of space! But i guess that would make for some short boss battles, so, sorry continuity... out the door you go! There's also some context sensitive combat too during the battle a la Resident Evil 4 to mix things up a bit, but it kind of feels thown in there and doesn't really add much other then a cheap way to finish off the boss battle.

Overall, the demo was good first impression of the game, but pretty damn short. Once you beat the AT-ST you might as well delete it from your hard drive cuz there's no point in playing it again. There's a short tutorial mode, but its over in a matter of seconds, so there's no point in checking it out more than once either. I'm still excited about getting the final game, I just hope that the campaign is pretty lengthy and that there's some changeups in the gameplay besides running from room to room killing everything in linear fashion as that could get repetitive pretty quickly.

dupe.

come again?

It was a duplicate thread. There were at least four "my impression of the Force Unleashed Demo threads" by the time you made this thread last night. Wasn't the overwhelming response an indication?

Ah, my bad... all I remember seeing were a bunch of "Is the demo up on XBL or PSN yet?!?" threads... plus it was late so I just said what I wanted to say and went to bed.

Really, you offered a unique take, but it should've just been a comment in one of the other threads. No big deal.