Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

While The Force Unleashed 2 has some nice graphics, it was something of a disappointment for me. It is shorter than the first, the dialogue worse than the first, the gameplay/combat is more tedious than the first, and the story is more lacking than the first. The game really seems like a step back. I beat the game the night I got it... in just a few hours. The first game was too short, this one is basically a joke. I don't understand the production company here... the shortness of the first game was probably the biggest complaint. Why would they make the sequel even shorter? I've played demos that were longer than this (and they were free). This is probably part of why the story suffered so much... it was too rushed and made to be a little farcical. About that: The story is very haphazardly put together and pretty cliche, even for an IP that has many cliche game stories. All your amazing power and you are just a clone. That isn't much of a spoiler, since it's in the demo and in the first minute of the game. Are the three flashes of memory you have your own? (Yep, that's about how much development the plot has.) Well, let's not bother with that yet -- let's just save the girl we think we might have fallen for in 10 minutes flat (hey, we beat Anakin's record!) and we might have maybe left behind when we may have sacrificed ourselves in that event that might have happened to us. Why not, it'll be fun right? What makes the story even worse is the awful dialogue. I got so sick of hearing Kota gripe that I wasn't doing something fast enough. His inane instructions were equally annoying, because I always knew what needed to be done before he opened his mouth. The combat starts out feeling smooth and fun. Some of the controls are slightly, very slightly, better than the first game. This game takes a step back, however, in that combat becomes repetitive very quickly. You basically only fight 4 baddies -- regular/flying troopers, shock troopers, force users, and robots. These are all recycled throughout the game. You basically have an "I-win" button as well, with the grapple. Doing it over and over gets incredibly boring, however. There is at least one memorable moment in the first boss fight, but you'll soon be forgetting it when you get back to the repetitive stuff. I also noticed that on the PS3 the game lags up quite a bit whenever there is a lot going on. This happened during regular fighting as well as on the final boss fight. Nothing says awesome when a Jedi gets up close and personal only to start stuttering. Still, there were some moments that made me think "hmm, that's kinda neat". The parts of the game where you are falling and using force powers to deflect or blow up stuff in your way was actually enjoyable. You would think with a game so short, it would be difficult to become bored. It still happened, at least for me. So, despite the couple of not-quite-saving-graces the game has, I would say it is worth a rental. If you don't get your hopes up too high you might have a bit of fun... but you won't get $60 worth.