Force Unleashed 2 Is Too Much

[Therumancer]

As far as the Jedi cloning thing goes, according to TFU II,

Spoiler: Answer to Jedi Cloning

A running theme through the game is that Jedi's cannot be cloned, which is why they theoretically can't just make an army of Starkillers.

which comes to a head when

Spoiler: Major TFU II Spoiler Alert

The bad ending reveals that in fact they have achieved Jedi cloning, which is revealed when Starkiller is killed by a clone of himself.

Well, according to "The Expanded Universe" (and one of the reasons I think it gets to be pretty horrible) I believe Timothy Zahn had The Emperor's Secret Vault being guarded by several cloned Jedi Masters, which of course raised the question of why he wasn't using these things for other purposes. It's been a while though.

It could be a sign pointing towards wanting to use Zahn's work as a basis for sequels. The implication being perhaps that if they had *just* achieved it, a few years wasn't enough time to create more than a handfull of controllable clones. It would also in theory allow them to pull out the "Starkiller Clone" at some point as a super-weapon, claiming it was in stasis or being stored in another vault/on guard duty or something.

I do notice that they did make some referances to video games in the Star Wars prequels, one that people were talking about was how General Grevious was injured at the beginning of the movie due to a beat down he allegedly received in a video game climax to prove it was canon. If George is thinking "long term" he might have something similar planned here.

It still makes little sense (I mean the whole bit in Zahn's writing from what I remember was very much a 'WTF' moment), but there you go.

 

[Jorpho]

Wouldn't the opposite of "design by committee" be an "auteur game" of the sort that was rallied against in Mr. Crowshaw's "Too Human" review? It would seem to me that both approaches can easily produce both deeply flawed and excellent games.

 

[Casual Shinji]

This is the exact problem I had with the Star Wars prequels (and to some extent, Spider-Man 3) : There's some much impractical shit happening on screen, that any tension you might've had just disappears.

In videogames this is not as much of an issue for me since I am the one who's actually doing all of this impractical, awesome stuff. However, games like TFU 2 and Bayonetta are so over the top, that any real sense of "impact" is lost aswell.

 

[csbears]

What TFU2 reminds me of is a child of about 7 or so who had seen some good action movie and was trying to play it out from his memory a week later. He doesn't remember any of the talking, the plot of the movie, or why he should like the protagonist but he does like to run around the room ranting, raving, and reenacting the glorious fight scenes. People like George in the game industry don't realize that small deliberate movements have the potential to be more meaningful than the most over the top bullshit in TFU2. Take a look at other games such as Mass Effect 1 & 2 ( I hate to compare TFU to ME but it's my best example ) they never had something that pulled me out of the game experience...not once. I took one good look at videos on youtube and turned my nose up at it...the bottom line is that TFU wasn't ~as~ geared toward the kids, but when George got the marketing numbers back he had a small seizure and went on a splurge. South Park got it right when they showed him raping the Clone Trooper and Spielberg raping Indie. My childhood memories will never be the same because these shit stains will always come to my mind as a smelly afterthought.

 

[KDR_11k]

It also tends to play into it that the most "awesome" things are just setpieces designed to happen no matter what and completely ignore the whole game aspect. Plus giant bosses tend to be not nearly as powerful as their size suggests because of the no-gamer-left-behind policy so they don't play much differently from fighting a regularly sized dude who's tagged as "the boss".

 

[duchaked]

made some great points, which is far better than just bashing the Star Wars fandom like he did before

altho I'll admit, at my age I've already grown past Star Wars somewhat to the point where me playing FU2 was just to experience some momentary (and yes, very brief moments) of the Star Wars universe before returning the game back to Blockbuster

not exactly delving back into it all again 100% nor am I totally taking it too seriously, just getting what enjoyment I can out of this childhood fandom. guess this is one of the few things in life where I've learned to somewhat move on from haha...can't say that for some other things (like my ex, altho a part of me wonders the same for Yahtzee)

 

[Horadrius]

I completely agree with Yahtzee on this point. Willing suspension of disbelief can only go so far. Another example is the ridiculous assassin chase sequence in Attack of the Clones - the sheer mind-numbing implausibility of the sequence causes it to lose any and all tension (to paraphrase Mr. Plinkett's analysis), no matter how "awesome" it may be.

 

[Falseprophet]

I think the operative word is "restraint". All good musicians know that playing fast, or playing loud, or playing at all are not as important as the times you play slow, or quiet, or not at all. Without contrast, nothing stands out. I ranted about this last week with the Dragon Age: Origins "Sacred Ashes" trailer. The trailer was about a group of hyperconfident, snarky badasses with superheroic acrobatic abilities that laughed in the face of dragons. A far cry from the game itself where they turned out to be flawed, vulnerable human beings with hopes and dreams, who had to struggle for what they got. Sorry, maybe it's my parents' immigrant work-ethic, but I don't empathize with heroes who get victory handed to them (Harry Potter in Book 1). I prefer heroes who have to struggle and sacrifice to succeed (Harry Potter in Book 7).

You know what I miss? Dark Forces. You know the one star wars game that doesn't have any Jedi nonsense. Where you shoot stormtroopers with blaster rifles and throw thermal detonators at them? Seriously, that was a fun game. Why has the "non-Jedi" aspect of the Star Wars universe been so dismissed? Where are the stories about Han, Chewie, Lando, Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt?

This. To paraphrase Tycho of Penny Arcade, I'm more interested in the smugglers, pilots, bounty hunters, rebels and crime lords trying to survive in a universe wracked by an endless holy war between two sects of insane super-powered warrior monks, than those lunatics themselves.

 

[Imp Poster]

Force Unleashed 2 is a very curious case. There's a good ending and a bad ending (or 'light side' and 'dark side', rather, Star Wars does nothing if not run with a theme) and predictably the dark side is the shitty ending where you die and fail. But here's the odd thing. The entire last chapter of the game seems to be leading up to a twist at the end, 'cos all the other characters are going "No don't go that way some things are better off not knowing," etc. But are you ready for this, internet? The twist is only revealed in one of the endings. And it's only revealed in the bad ending. The one where you fail is the one where the story finds some payoff. How does that make any fucking sense?

If coinciding with the original Star Wars, Starkiller was meant to fail just like Halo Reach. Those guys were meant to fail. So it doesn't make any sense to have a good ending. Why? it is not like Starkiller is continued to the original Star Wars movie. And if he did, wouldn't that take away any potential of Luke Skywalker?

I am so at awe by the analogy Yahtzee made at the end between the Indiana Jones movies. Being a fan of that series, I was never able to put my finger on why the Crystal skull bothered me so much, but I think this is why it did. The realism compared to the realism of Last Crusade that's so great. I do remember the feelings in both the tank scene and the jeeps scene. One made your heart race abit and the other made you think something is wrong about it at the very least.

The problem with games like Force Unleashed 2 is a lack of editorial discipline, which is in turn a consequence of design-by-committee, the philosophy that is the source of all evil in mainstream media and which I have railed against for years. But what are you doing about it, mainstream games industry? What do I have to do to make you change? Shall I drop a swear? Will that do, you stodgy cunts? Or should I drop ten million swears until the words lose all meaning in my head? Worth a try, I suppose. Tune into ZP each week to hear me gradually work towards this target.

HAHAHA! I can't wait.

 

[A Curious Fellow]

This kinda thing reminds me of Dragonball Z, probably because it's the worst offender. Every new season upped the ante by, literally, not figuratively, upping the bad guy's "powerlevel" until "IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND" ceased to even be a staple of the show because it was a laughably low number.

That big thing what beat up a rancor like it was a gerbil.... Jesus, what the hell. I only need to take on look at that, and I can accede that there truly IS a peak to the mountain of awesome where a step further brings us down, a crest where up is impossible.

Things have to seem ever so slightly believable or else the audience will lose all grasp of perspective. Sure, for some people a never ending upward ramp is what they want, but for them we have several dozen crappy inexplicable anime series with 16 seasons each.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Another good article, and I really agree with a lot of your points. Things that are too flashy and ridiculous often end up being less cool and harder to take seriously, and the kind of one-upmanship you described has definitely been hurting action scenes for a while.

I think that the problem with a God of War style giant boss is that you only really deal with tiny pieces of it and then finish it in some ridiculous cinematic event that' not even close to anything you can do in normal gameplay. My favorite giant boss fights are actually the Arms Forts in Armored Core: For Answer, which really forced you to fight entirely unique enemies at least 100 times your size in normal gameplay. You never felt that the task was completely impossible, but at the same time you felt a very real sense of how dangerous they were and had to spend time selecting your strategy and equipment instead of fighting them the same way you did other enemies. The game had a ton of problems, but those fights really redefined what I think of when I think of giant bosses.

 

[Something Amyss]

You complain that those bosses are too big yet a few weeks ago you praised shadow of the colossus. I see a little inconsistency in your ramblings.

Yes, you totally schooled the collossi with minimal effort. Totally the same thing.

 

[A1]

I question your choice of words and even exposition this week, but I agree with the meaning: Stop turning everything up to 11.... million.

Anime is a good example of this... Particularly stuff like Naruto or Dragonball that suffer through abusive levels of power scaling, to the point where the "bit over the top fun fights" get mutilated into "meaninglessand absurd dick measuring clusterfucks".

The ultimate problem isn't necessarily that things go "too far" per say, it's that they simply go too far to still fit the established universe. Nobody questions that Superman can punch someone through a wall, but when a 12 year old kid on a realistically inclined show does it you start to wonder what the fuck.

I've wailed on The Force Unleashed series for this way too long to go on about it, but suffice to say that it's, at the very least, retardedly inconsistent. Based on the pre-existing Star Wars universe, even accepting the abortions that were the "new" trilogy movies (I, II and III), if Starkiller had ever existed then the original trilogy couldn't have happened, simply because Starkiller would be, hands down, the most powerful being in the entire fucking universe, and either he'd take over the galaxy for the dark side, or destroy the dark side for the light side. Yoda was some sort of never-before-seen force master, and he had to focus to levitate an x-wing out of a swamp... Starkiller drops a fucking star destroyer from orbit without blinking. Fuck you George, you mentally bankrupt whorehopper.

You really seem to be talking about anime in too broad a sense. There is a tremendous amount of variety in anime and anime is by no means any one thing. It's many things. I'm pretty sure that even Yahtzee would agree with me on this one. And if you are describing Dragonball and Naruto as realistically inclined then I really can't say that I agree with you. For example in the very first episode of Naruto the very first thing we see is a giant demon fox and in Dragonball we have things like dinosaurs that still exist for no apparent reason and cars that you can carry around in tiny capsules. If you want realistically inclined then I would suggest titles like Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade and Monster. Now THOSE are realistically inclined.


But on the other hand I pretty much agree with you about the handling of the Star Wars Universe. In recent years George Lucas and those who work under him have been doing WAY too much retconning. What really bugs me about The Force Unleashed II is the apparent total lack of respect it has for established Star Wars canon. News Flash to the people at LucasArts: Characters like Juno Eclipse and Rahm Kota are at best nothing but footnotes in the Star Wars timeline. Please stop trying to go back in time and establish otherwise. And complaints like this one are just the tip of the iceberg. But then again consistency really doesn't seem to be George Lucas's strong point. For example Leland Chee, the person in charge of maintaining the Star Wars continuity database called Holocron, at one point outright stated that George Lucas's view of the Star Wars expanded universe was "constantly evolving".

I really sorry to say, but this is one of the main reasons that I've recently been starting to lose interest in Star Wars related stuff.

 

[Mr Companion]

i dont exactly understand how a game can be "too awesome" i mean, look at Saints Row 2, that was ridiculous in almost every way but people accept that
or inFamous or Prototype, both very ridiculous but also a spectacle to be enjoyed.

besides that, i always thought directors were trying to go for less "flash" and "bang" because of the rise of "realistic" games like Cash-In Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto 4.

Yeah but in saints row 2 it was the little things that made it funny, like when you first walk off the prison boat and stumble across and old lady throwing a pimp face first into a lamppost. Its not realistic, or even physically possible, but at least you can comprehend the physics involved. Whereas what Yahtzee here is talking about is something like Just Cause 2 where you can stand on top a jet fighter at top speed 10 miles above a tropical island, place a lump of c4 on it, cleanly jump off, pull a parachute out of your arse then detonate the c4. There are so many things that should not work in that situation yet on screen it just happens and expects you to go along. And although the whole point of just cause is that you can do amazing nonsensical stunts I find the game demands far too much willing disbelief. If you clear out a whole military base in Just Cause 2 it looses all meaning because you used massive regenerating health, a rapid fire rocket launcher, a pouch of infinite parachutes that don't catch on anything and a grappling hook that is infinitely strong while somehow being unable to tear your arm clean off in the process. You didn't win a fight, you used an atom bomb to mow your lawn.

 

[Jiveturkey124]

As usual another excellent article that isnt meant for mere laughs but to actually change the industry, a true observation of human fallacies.

Yahtzee Croshaw is the John Stewart of Gaming, give it a couple more years and I see Yahtzee leaving the simple internet media and branching out into the public's eye.

 

[crimsonshrouds]

Yahtzee, im with you all the way on this one.

You didn't win a fight, you used an atom bomb to mow your lawn.

This is where i get bored in games.

 

[seekeroftruth86]

As usual another excellent article that isnt meant for mere laughs but to actually change the industry, a true observation of human fallacies.

Yahtzee Croshaw is the John Stewart of Gaming, give it a couple more years and I see Yahtzee leaving the simple internet media and branching out into the public's eye.

I look forward to that day. Yahtzee was the main reason I got into this site, and I've found it to be an incredibly insightful and respectful appreciation of gaming culture. And in Yahtzee's case, with lots of swears.

OT: I can't agree with Yahtzee more. Movies and video games are supposed to be about telling a story, either with compelling settings and characters in the former, or engaging gameplay and environmental immersion in the latter. This is why I'm such a huge Myst fanboy. It's so simple. As Douglas Adams put it "A beautiful void". There's nothing there! At least, not at first glance. Play the series and (think of it what you will) there's an incredibly deep narrative being told through such simple mechanisms.

But then, games like these, God of War, Dante's Inferno (a travesty on so many levels), and other over-the-top-robot-punching-dragon spectacles, you lose all meaning in terms of theme, mood, atmosphere, plot, characterization, and all other literary merits. I see video games as like interactive novels, or movies. If we want video games to be considered art, like these, we need to lay off the video game equivalent of a strip club. All looks, not touching, and expensive.

 

[Valagetti]

YZ, does have a very valid point. Also to add is, empathy. You can't relate as much as to Kratos, compared to a Heavy Rain character. Well Gran Turismo 5 is coming out tomorrow, so try relating to a Bugatti Veyron going 400km/h!

 

[moosek]

That was actually very insightful. I don't usually expect Yahtzee to put things in layman's terms, but the message of "too much awesome" is explained very clearly.