There’s a certain sense of inevitability waiting at the end of the corridor. The young man’s parade boots echo sternly on the grated floor as he strides purposefully toward the blast doors. After a theatrical pause, the blast doors fly open and the snap-hiss of a lightsaber ignites the air with a sharp tang of ozone. With a nod, the TIE fighters in the hangar swerve into motion and systematically crush the scrambling stormtroopers clinging to each other for dear life. I’ve dreamed of this before.

Since early childhood I’ve been compelled by the darting lasers of interstellar battle juxtaposed with the serene mysticism of the Force–and I’m certainly not the only one. LucasArts has created a veritable empire, no pun intended, from the interest garnered from a simple desert farm boy’s destiny. Obviously the screaming TIE fighters, Mandalorian armor, wookiees, wry robots and promise of planetary destruction helped too, but since the spawn of Star Wars in the late seventies, we’ve seen three more (admittedly lukewarm) movies, PEZ dispensers, action figures, bed sheets, lunch boxes, over a hundred books, Legos and, more pertinent to this discussion, over seventy five video game titles.

I’m entirely stymied attempting to produce another franchise that has spawned as much collective hype and merchandise as Star Wars has–and I am totally a part of it. I have admittedly read almost all the expanded universe books, dressed up as Obi Wan Kenobi on one particular occasion, played both Rebel Assault 1 and II and TIE Fighter, obsessed over a mint condition Boba Fett action figure and own a lightsaber replica. So perhaps one can thus understand the intense anticipation I feel when looking toward a title like Force Unleashed that promises to trump the Force experience like “never before”.

After cleaning up the scratches on the film, fleshing out a few previously impossible to shoot scenes and completely upgrading the original trilogy to digital media, the next logical progression seems to be blowing the gaming industry out of the water. I haven’t missed any of the previous Star Wars titles, though I haven’t quite been sucked in. Most recently, Star Wars Galaxies emerged at a point in time when I was focusing exclusively on studies, Knights of the Old Republic was unplayable on a Macintosh computer, and Battlefront seemed best experienced when slightly under the influence with a group of friends. Force Unleashed, however, promises a fulfilling story line with an extraordinarily high level of interactability with the environment.

The player assumes the role of Darth Vader’s thus-far anonymous apprentice, a serious business young man with a penchant for stylish lightsaber handling. Yes, I was checking out his sword. The game aims to fill the gap between the third movie and the fourth at a point in time when Darth Vader sought to systematically destroy all Jedi in the galaxy. You, as the player, control his wayward apprentice as he hacks, Force throttles, and powers his way on a path toward self-realization, likely dismembering more than a few original characters on the way. Unfortunately, decent story line doesn’t make a game anymore.

In a world of “next generation” gaming where graphics and physics engines are being pushed to the extreme on new platforms like XBOX 360 and the ill-fated Playstation 3, a new title needs to look as good as it reads. LucasArts, however, was up for the task. To create Force Unleashed, LucasArts partnered with NaturalMotion (famous for Dynamic Motion Synthesis technology) for a chance to integrate “euphoria technology” with their Force experience. This new engine makes full use of the processing power of the newer platforms, essentially simulating real nervous-system responses for humanoid characters. What does this mean? Each play through will be a dramatically different experience; you have no real way of predicting how a foe will react. In a single scenario, a stormtrooper might A) run B) duck behind a stack of crates C) call for help or D) scramble to hold on to anything within his reach as he’s levitated. The entire idea is that game A.I. will function as a dynamic entity to interact with, which, of course, moves games away from the previous learn-the-encounter-and-move-on strategies.

Clever stormtroopers, however, weren’t enough to get LucasArts excited. In addition to the aforementioned A.I. changes, LucasArts teamed up with Pixelux Entertainment to take advantage of the physics engine they developed called Digital Molecular Matter, or, DMM. In most normal video games, matter does not break, bend or stretch in the same fashion as it would in real life; this lends itself for an unrealistic and occasionally cartoony experience. DMM relies on Finite Element Analysis (FEA), a structural mechanics technique that assigns certain values to physical elements–engineers might use it in a computer simulation to predict how steel girders will react under stress. Developers establish set values for each physical item in the game and, miraculously, the simulation engine translates those numerical values (I can only imagine how much calculus this requires) into real-world actions. Essentially, glass shatters like real glass, wood splinters, and rubberized items retain the same sort of elasticity as you might find in a rubber band.

Both of these systems will run simultaneously with the Havok physics engine, responsible for allowing realistic interaction between people and objects and made famous for developing ragdoll physics.

Rather than simply creating a story to play through, LucasArts seems to be giving players a chance to embark on an immersion journey through the Force, encouraging them to embrace the Dark Side and later, seek redemption. While Force Unleashed will be available on every platform under the sun, it’s pertinent to note that Euphoria technology and DMM will not be available on consoles such as the Wii or Playstation 2. Before I hear a collective groan from all the folks who haven’t gotten their $600 incentive check from t he government yet, take heart: Force Unleashed will include a variety of extras on what are considered nonstandard consoles. This may include taking part in the original Jedi Trials or (my favorite) dueling your friends with motion sensitive lightsabers via Wii remote.

Will the play actually live up to the hype? I’m banking on it, and I’m trusting in LucasArts’ ability to deliver surprising and groundbreaking new content. I’m slightly disappointed that I’ll be missing out on all the “original content” available in the PSP, PS2, DS and Wii versions of the game (which, incidentally, delayed the game from releasing in May of this year), but am content knowing that, by the time the game actually releases in September of 2008, I’ll be swinging my lightsaber on a 360.

Click here for the E3 2007 Trailer.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Previews, Game Design, New Releases, Fandom, Video Game Merchandise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.