Reviews for Star Wars The Force Unleashed

The average rating for Star Wars The Force Unleashed based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-09-08 00:00:00 Jordan Veelle Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is based on a video game of the same name. Most of the time, when I hear about a book based on a video game, I would cringe. Personally, I think that most of the time publishers are out to make an extra buck on a product. This is similar to Disney releasing multiple straight-to-video sequels of all of their popular movies; they don't care about the quality, because kids will beg their parents for it. Similarly, publishers know that hardcore fans of popular games will buy just about anything in order to get more material about their favorite time-consuming past-time. That being said, The Force Unleashed does not fall into the category of "trying to make an extra buck on a video game". One reason may be that it was planned along-side the game, and not as an afterthought. In fact, The Force Unleashed was planned as a multimedia "event". This included a video game, a comic book, a novel, and even a soundtrack. Each one gives a slightly different take to the story. Granted, the first few chapters felt like a video game. The characters hop from mission to mission with little more in between than someone telling them, "Here is your next mission". I could tell which parts were probably the playable parts of the game (meaning the fight scenes). I imagined that the first fight scene of the book was probably the tutorial fight of the game (you know, where they take you step-by-step through the controls). To be fair, I've never played the game, so I'm just guessing. But that's how it felt. This doesn't mean that the first part of the book wasn't well written, or that it wasn't interesting. But I didn't want to read a whole book like that. Luckily, I found that those first chapters were actually a necessary set-up for what turned out to be an excellent book. The author did a nice job of tying those first few missions into the rest of the story. By Part 2, I didn't want to put the book down. The book brings up fundamental questions about the nature of the Force. Can the Dark Side be used by someone who isn't totally evil? Does it always ultimately lead to corruption? These were some of the questions addressed. The book also ties in nicely to the origins of the Rebellion. If you ever wondered how that got started, this is the book to read. I'm glad George Lucas has finally opened this era of the Star Wars Universe up to exploration. It was off limits until Episode III came out, but now more material is being written during this time period, including a live-action TV show and several other novels and comics. If everything is written as well as The Force Unleashed, we have a lot to look forward to.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-05-15 00:00:00 Ezekiel Sabbath Before Disney released the shark jump that was The Last Jedi, Star Wars was a force to be reckoned with, and not just in celluloid form! Between bestselling books such as the Thrawn trilogy, the fabulous computer-animated Clone Wars television series, and computer and video games ranging from the critically acclaimed Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader to the various Lego titles, Lucas' space opera was more than just films. Were they all amazing? No...but, when done right, they were a wonder to behold. So, even though this is a literary adaptation of a video game, it was still enjoyable and well-written. If you think this would just be Pac-Man in book form, take it from this longtime geek: Gaming has come a long way since the '80's; now, many video and computer games have complex stories that rival New York Times bestsellers or Hollywood blockbusters. So, even if you haven't touched a Nintendo or PlayStation controller in a decade or two, if you're a Star Wars fan, you may enjoy this. It definitely whisked me into "a galaxy far, far away".