(continued from previous page) ...So while the force powers are great to awe over, the actual saber combat is something that might take away the fun for many gamers.

The Boss Battle with the Rancor was pretty interesting to say the least. This situation played out like a typical boss battle in the God of War games and ended with the player jumping into the Rancor’s mouth and bursting him open from the inside out. The whole room applauded with cheers which later became pouted gestures as Blackman described that what just happened will not make it into the final game as they are shooting for a "Teen" rating.



After the pre-visualization videos were over, the developers flipped on an Xbox 360 to demo some of Force Unleashed gameplay. Everything that was shown during this presentation was running off of Xbox 360 hardware, however, Blackman did say that for future LucasArts projects, they would like to use the PS3 as the lead platform.

“We need to use the PlayStation 3 as the baseline for the next project.” said Blackman.

The in-game build began taking place in a Tie-Fighter hangar. The details in this video weren’t as detailed as they are in the trailers, which was a bit misleading. There were very little specific particle effects and like the pre-visualization combat video, the lightsaber was a really weak weapon, only used to deflect blaster fire and showing off pretty basic moves. Again, this could be contributed to the fact that the game is very force related but still should not relate to a weak lightsaber system. Looking at the video very closely, I noticed that there will be combat bonuses when certain techniques are performed, such as multi-kill bonus and a crush bonus. Those were the only two that I was able to pick out; however, I am sure that there will be much more. The hangar looked very much like the inside of the Death Star, but also featured its own unique structures in certain areas. In this level, Darth Vader, has sent the apprentice to destroy a remaining Jedi. Vader does not want any witnesses so he has told the apprentice to kill anyone who gets in the way such as storm troopers and other Imperial soldiers. So this explains why the apprentice is continuously beating up on storm troopers, when he essentially is on the same side as them.

On the music side of things, Blackman commented that aside from music pulled from the Star Wars films, there will also be another 2 hours of original score provided just for the game, giving the title its own fresh appeal within the Star Wars universe. This comes as a huge sigh of relief as I feared that all of the music will just be a simple “copy & paste” from the films into the game. That is not true as The Force Unleashed will provide all new music from a symphony orchestra.

The presentation ended with a brief cinematic that showed the apprentice meeting up with Lord Vader after he had destroyed a Jedi whom Vader sent him after. The apprentice walks in and tells Vader that he has destroyed the Jedi. This is where Darth Vader asks for the dead Jedi’s lightsaber, as a token for his death. The apprentice kneels down before his master, and using the force, Vader summons the dead Jedi's saber to his grip. Then Vader turns to the apprentice and explains how his powers are growing and soon all of the Jedi will be extinct. Players will find that there is already a movement to rid of the Emperor, as the Darth Vader wants to rule the universe, with the apprentice as his right hand man.



After that, the presentation came to a conclusion with a loud applause from the large audience in attendance.