Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition

It’s been several years since LucasArts first asked its fan base, “Would you be interested in playing as a Star Wars villain?” Apparently, this idea was met with some enthusiasm, and the result was The Force Unleashed for console gaming systems. TFU makes its PC debut with the Ultimate Sith Edition with its flashy new packaging and additional game content. Unfortunately, this updated release is just a few banthas short of a herd.

To its credit, The Force Unleashed does a lot of things extremely well. You don’t need to be a Star Wars junkie to appreciate the story, which is lavishly presented in high-quality cinematic sequences. The characters are brought to life not only with terrific voice acting, but facial motion capture that impressively conveys the fluidity of human emotion. For those unfamiliar, The Force Unleashed follows the adventures of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, who is exceptionally talented and trained as an instrument of the dark side. This makes the apprentice a true “wrecking ball” of the Force, indiscriminately blasting through rebel soldiers and stormtroopers alike.

Although dazzling as always, the lightsaber is not really the focal point of the combat. Most of the fun lies within the clever integration of Force powers. TFU is an action game at its core, and the available moves for the apprentice certainly reflect this. Hurling objects at your foes, electrocuting them with lightning, or simply blasting them into oblivion offers players the chance to channel quite a bit of aggression into the game. As you become increasingly skilled, you’ll be able to string powers together for devastating results; lifting a stormtrooper into the air, then impaling him with the lightsaber, might be one of the coolest things seen in any Star Wars video-game.

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EA stock tanks on Star Wars: The Old Republic fears EA stock tanks on Star Wars: The Old Republic fears

US markets are largely positive today, due in large part to positive earnings-season economic data and strengthening unemployment data, according to a consensus of financial reporters. However, such is not the case for Electronic Arts, which is trading down more than 6 percent after Brean Murray Carret & Co. analyst Todd Mitchell lowered the company's price target from $28 to $22.

As reported by Market Watch, Mitchell's reassessment of EA came about due to what he termed "creeping concerns" over the future of EA's recently launched massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

"Specifically, initial sales appear to be below expectations, and casual observation of early play is causing us to rethink our churn assumptions," Mitchell said in a note to investors.

Released to a strong critical reception on December 20, The Old Republic sold more than 1 million units during its first week of availability. That tally proved to be more than what EA could handle, as the game's launch was marred by long wait times to access many servers.

Mitchell's analysis of The Old Republic's situation isn't without its detractors. Speaking with GameSpot, Electronic Entertainment Design and Research's Jesse Divnich emphasized that it is far too early to measure the game's long-term potential.

"Some sell-side analysts have such bad tunnel vision on the market that they fail to understand the mechanics of the MMO vertical," Divnich said. "Whether MMO, console game, mobile, or social, each have a completely different business model. It is erroneous to apply success metrics from other verticals to the MMO market and that is exactly what a lot of analysts are doing."

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SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny

Up until now, Tekken has been the only massive 3D fighter to arrive on the PSP. Years ago when Tekken: Dark Resurrection arrived on the PSP, I praised it for being a superb game that brought the very same console experience into the portable world, complete with a story mode, endings, and all. So with SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny on the way, I expected to see that same kind of treatment. And while Broken Destiny delivers in many areas, it fails in one critical aspect...

...That aspect is a proper story mode that comes complete with individual endings. A mission-based mode called The Gauntlet serves as this game's core experience and quite frankly it's pretty terrible. Essentially the game pits you against numerous rivals, but instead of full fledged fights, you have to carry out specific tasks/requirements that are displayed on the screen in order to progress. Now, each one of these "missions" lasts, on average, about five seconds, with a select few going as much as 20. These "missions" will often require you to dodge an attack, block an attack, block then counter an attack, or dodge then counter an attack. Needless to say, these mission requirements are pretty repetitive and tire quick. Sure there's a mildly amusing story behind The Gauntlet, but it's not nearly amusing enough to play the mode for.

Now, as far the gameplay transition from console to handheld goes, SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny does everything just right. Just like how Tekken: Dark Resurrection found its way flawlessly onto the PSP, you can expect that same level of quality from Broken Destiny's battles, complete with its superb fluidity. In total, over 30 fighters are found in the game, one of which is Kratos, in addition to an all new fighter Dampierre. Kratos is one of the heavier pushes for Broken Destiny, as he is actually the most prominent figure on the game's box art.

Of course, naturally, Kratos was my first pick to fight with, and it felt absolutely fantastic to kick some ass with him. He retains all of his signature attacks from the game, and they're particularly awesome to pull-off, too. Also, thanks to Sony, Namco-Bandai had the proper help when integrating Kratos into the SC universe. In fact, from what I was told by a Namco rep, the Kratos model in the game is actually the same one found in God of War: Chains of Olympus, which is very cool.

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