Archive for the “Game Review” Category


My thoughts on The Force Unleashed for the Wii

Posted by: kalskirata in Game Review

     Hello again blog readers. Wow, it’s been way too long since I’ve last blogged here at EUCantina.net and I need apologize for that. Your pal Uncle Kal was been doing some, shall we say “hunting” of late. I wish I had access to a clone or two that could slice into financial institutions and skim off …………. oh wait, I guess the question that needs to be ask about now is, “Which institution could I hack into these days that’s worth anything?” Haha ummm, okay, bad joke - sorry.

     I thought to get back in the swing of things, I would expand on the review I did for the EUCast special on The Force Unleashed for the Wii. I’ll still cover the basics of graphics, game play and story. In this case, I can expand my review now that I have gone further in the game since the podcast.

     Now I can hear you all asking “But Uncle Kal, I thought you’re supposed to do book reviews, what gives?” Well, I haven’t given up on book reviews. I’m in the process of my review for Order 66 that will be posted in the normal site. This is just my thoughts, expanded, on The Force Unleashed Game. Book reviews will still be my main stay here for the site.  So, let’s get started shall we??

     Again, I’ll start with the graphics. As I mentioned on the podcast I’ve had the Game Cube so I’m use to the Nintendo graphics and they work here. Yes, yes I know that I’m missing the nice rendered graphics of the XBox and PS3. Yes, the characters in the Wii at times do look blocky esp. the human characters. June Eclipse still reminds me of a female avatar from Second Life although at times the SL characters move better then she does. And still, the characters don’t blink enough for me - which can be very unsettling esp. Rohm Kota. Some really cool looking characters in this game are the Falucian Warriors, the Bull Rancor’s, the droids within the Junk Jedi Temple and the Shadow Guard within Raxus Prime - very nice. The atmosphere within the game is very nice as well. Using Felucia and the Nar Shadaa bar district as the examples, they are really impressive. Now, Super Mario Galaxies has outstanding graphics for this platform but you have to take into account the series. Realistic characters on the Wii have a long way to go.

     Now for the game play. I can expand in this area due to the discussion we had on our EUCast special and I’ve moved further into the game. As I mentioned, you need to have the Wiimote and nunchuk connected to work the game. As you play through the game you will find special moves/cut scenes that are played once triggered by moving the nunchuk or Wiimote up/down, sideways or at different angles. As you can guess, the moves triggered this way could be considered the killing move for each major character that you are battling. Naturally the Wiimote is for the “lightsaber,” jumping, moving the camera angle and main game controls. The nunchuk moves the Apprentice around and controls the force push, lightning and combos. One problem I have had with this game so far was in fierce lightsaber battles the camera angle has a tendency to “jump into” the character you’re fighting. The first time it happened to me it was confusing and it has happened in the game more then a few times. It’s freaky watching you fight - well - yourself. Also I do have to agree, and I know that it was taken out of the Wii version, I would have loved to have seen Euphoria at work in this game. Sure, it’s cool to pick up a Stormtrooper or Felucian Warrior and play quarterback to see how far you can throw them down a hallway or off a bridge. It would have been cool to see one of these characters reach for someone as they go over the side taking a poor innocent with them. The other thing that bugs me is the Wiimote when it comes to using it as a lightsaber. It is true that all you need to do is flick the Wiimote to move the lightsaber in game it. I would have loved to have some kind of true lightsaber type movement, especially the ability to jab. Lastly, please correct me if I’m wrong or my glasses need adjusting, I don’t remember the Apprentice holding his lightsaber backward. Now, I could have just over looked this because I’m so wrapped up in the game or my mind is playing tricks on me whichever comes first. :-) If old Uncle kal’s memory is having problems, please feel to correct in the comments. My poor eyesight could be at play here. 

     As for the story, it’s condensed. If you heard one of the previous podcast, you heard that I read the graphic novel and the book. I still believe that game play could have been expanded by bringing in a few things that where mentioned in the book. The lack of PROXY doing his “thing” or (spoiler here folks for those that have not read the book) the addition of the junk Jedi masters coming to life in the Junk Jedi temple would have been an added bonus to me. This could have easily made the game longer and included some great cut scenes.

     Now what sets this game apart on the Wii from the other platforms is the Battle Mode. You could think of this as a version of the Clone Wars Lightsaber game the will be coming to the Wii soon. Here you get to play a total of 27 characters in 9 arenas that cover the Jedi Temple, TIE Construction yard, Felucia and other places. There are five timed matches to this level and Force power ups available to help you get an upper hand on an opponent. If you need a workout, forget Wii Fitness, this level more then makes up for it.

     My final vote for this game - yes I believe it does live up the hype. If you have an Xbox or PS3 you probably get the better graphics but you probably don’t get the workout you get with the Wii battle mode. It is a fun game to play and I would recommend it. As for continual play, the Battle mode gives you the ability to see if a young Luke Skywalker cold take down a General Kota any other fantasy match-up you can pull together from the list of available opponents. on a scale of 1 to 10 with ten being best, I give this a solid 8.

     Thanks for reading this and as always questions, comments and like are welcomed.

     This is your Uncle Kal signing off, Good Night :-)

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Travelers Tales - Star Wars Lego the Complete Edition vs. Lego Indian Jones - Who comes out on top??

Posted by: kalskirata in Game Review, Uncategorized, tags: , , , ,

Well, finally <WHEW> another post for you all to read; my opinion on which Lego game is better. Is it Lego Star Wars Complete Edition or Lego Indiana Jones.

I’ll get to the point, Lego Star Wars Compete Edition, hands down :-)

Now, I’m not trying to be biased since this is a Star Wars website, oh no. I enjoy BOTH movie franchises and both Lego games. So here comes three big “BUTs” that concern the Indy Lego game.  The first “BUT” is how the game handles the “Cut Scenes” between each level. Second, to be politically correct in the Indy game, the story lines have been tweaked. Lastly, it appears that Travelers Tales was pulling anything or anyone from the Indy movie franchise just to give you more characters to play, not just Indy. Even with these three things that bug me, the game does have the Lego charm which makes it fun to play.

My take on the Cut Scenes of Indiana Jones. When you enter the Cantina in SW Lego, you have six doors in front of you that represent each movie. When you enter the room for the movie that you want to play, you get to pick from 6 “chapters” plus a bonus chapter. Once you pick the chapter you want; you enter the door, you get the scroll text (which you can escape out of the scroll if you want to) and boom, you’re in the game.

In the Indy game, you start out at Bernett College where you walk up to three maps that represent each of the movies. Here is where your adventure begins but it is also the spot that makes the game drag. Once you pick the map you want to play you then need to pick the Area you would like to go. For example, let’s say that you’re in the middle of the Temple of Doom story line and you need to get to “Area 4: The Gorge.” You highlight “The Gorge” on the map, and then (in Indian Jones tradition) you watch the red line (ala a plane flight) fly from your starting location (Bernett College) to each location that comes before “Area 4: The Gorge.” Like I mentioned above, if you play the the SW game you can exit out of the scroll at the beginning of each level. With the Indy game, you are stuck watching the red flight line go from Bernett College to your final destination. You cannot hit a button and escape the flight to get to your destination faster. Bummer :-(. Doing this once is fine, but every time you play the game it gets tiring. Why they didn’t add the feature to let you exit out of these cut scenes I don’t know but it’s needed here.

The second thing that kinda bugs me is the “tweaking” of the story line. Okay, okay I know that when the original movies where done, the country was not in this “Politically Correct” mentality. To tell you the truth, in my opinion, it blows!! But hey, we move on. The Nazi’s, Russians and any other thing that could be considered offensive has been stripped out of the game. And, I will contradict myself on this subject, it does not “really” bother me, yet it does on a small level. In a game like this, for kids and adults alike, that kinda of stuff is not necessary to move the game along or take away the charm. But, being a guy that grew up with the original movies ( like Star Wars :-) ), you miss the “feel” of Indiana Jones. Sure, some of original story line really couldn’t translate into the Lego game and I can understand the tweaking that needed to be done. Then there’s the ……….. Ya’ know, I better stop here because I will probably start to really contradict myself in this area. I um, better get along to my next point.

My third problem is there are “too’ many characters in the Indiana Jones game. Ya’, ya’ I can hear you asking me right now “How can there be “too” many characters in this game, I don’t get it???” Well, have any of you heard of the “Enemy Boxer,” “Enemy Radio Operator,” or “Sherpa Brawler?” Okay I know, I may be nit picking and pulling anything out of the game to knock it down. And, I know the “real” names of these characters had to be changed for “nice” reasons. But, in the SW Lego game, you know where all the characters came from and they “work” within the game. To me, and please understand this is my opinion, the game is too character heavy. Some of the characters, and again in my opinion, could have been left out.

Now, Travelers Tales is coming out with Lego Batman soon. To me, the amount of characters that will appear in this game will work, as it does with the Star Wars Lego game. To me, Batman and Star Wars can “stand” to have a ton of characters in each game because each of these “universes” can support them. Indiana Jones as a “universe” to me, can’t support a lot of characters because some of them could be considered “throwaways.” The Indy characters, especially the secondary ones, don’t last long in the movies to be memorable. The Batman game you’ll get to play the Joker, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Nightwing and so on. Star Wars Lego you get to play, Clones, Bossk, Luke, Chewie, Darth Maul and so on. You get the picture, for both of these games you KNOW the characters and they are a “part” of each universe.  And it works for these games, it doesn’t work for Indy.

Okay, now that I’ve spilled my guts about the three things that bugged me, there is that Lego charm in the Indy game. Indiana Jones movie in jokes are throughout the game along with the standard Lego mayhem and destruction. And, as you go through the game, you will find Star Wars Easter Eggs. 5 beloved SW characters make an appearance in this game BUT, once you find these 5, you cannot use them within the game. There are two “other” characters within the game that you can play which I will spoil one of them right now. That one character happens to be <SFX drumroll> Han Solo. The other one, well, I’ll let you figure it out on your own and then figure out “why” that character is there.

Well, I know that there is a lot more I could write about which I’m afraid I did, I could either lose whoever is left at this point or put whoever “is” left reading this asleep.

I’ll leave you all with the short version. This is still a fun game to play and if you can get by my nit picking above you will also agree. It is solid fun and it has not lost the Lego / Travelers Tales charm. But, once I get done playing this game, I can see myself turning it in for game credit at the local video game store and get something else. Star Wars Lego and if I do get the Batman Lego game, I can see myself keeping these and playing them from time to time.

Comments, questions, anything positive or negative is always accepted. That way I know people are reading these.

So, this is your Uncle Kal signing off. Now go to bed Ord’ ika, you have school in the morning :-)

Good Night All

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