NOKIA GAMES

The Star Wars saga continues in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Mobile, which casts players as Darth Vader's "Secret Apprentice" and unveils new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy. The story is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. In the game, players will assist the iconic villain Darth Vader in his quest to rid the universe of Jedi – and face decisions that could change the course of their destiny.



Ah yes, Star Wars. You remember that, don't you? Big letters flying into the screen, the biggest space ship flying over your head that went on forever... and ever... and ever.... And Luke Skywalker, diving into the trench to destroy the Death Star, jinxing in the narrow space and avoiding the fighters, turbolasers and all the distractions along the way. What a guy.
Did you ever stop to consider how much fun R2-D2 had in the back of said X-Wing, flicking the occasional switch, keeping the engines running while being shot, and generally coming along for the ride, hitting the right buttons when asked? You have? Good - because that's how you'll feel playing 'The Force Unleashed' on N-Gage.

Now don't get me wrong, R2-D2 had fun, and I'm sure he was pretty comfortable and happy about his role in the Battle of Yavin - much as I'm pretty comfortable about my role in playing 'Star Wars: The Force Unleashed', released this week for the N-Gage. While the larger consoles such as the Sony Playstation 3 get a full blown 3D third person action title, the mobile version is, thankfully, something very slightly different.
Rather than directly controlling the actions and movements of your on-screen counterpart, you'll be automatically moved from area to area, running as required. When you get into a new area, you'll be combating the terrain, enemy troops, carnivorous plants, giant machinery, and all manner of fun stuff. But like a true Jedi, there are no offensive weapons - you have a lightsabre to block laser blasts with, and your force powers to give you offensive and defensive abilities.
This is where 'Cellweaver' comes in. Whenever you need to use The Force, you have to press a key sequence on your d-pad. You have five points on the cellweaver grid, representing the four d-pad directions, and the centre key, which you use to copy the shapes, then trigger each ability you have by hitting the right soft key, be it levitation, healing yourself or ye olde Jedi mind trick.

That healing power is actually one of the reasons that your job as some sort of living Force R2-D2 is pretty exciting, even though you have no real control over your character's destiny. When you've got 20 stormtroopers all piling into you, with blaster fire on all sides, you need to decide pretty much instantly if you're going to heal yourself, bring up your lightsabre to block, fire up a defensive force ability, or attack the group by lifting up a ten tonne boulder to drop on them from a great height. This is instant decision resource management, because your health is dropping all the time under attack.
Did I mention that using The Force drains you of Force energy that needs time to recharge? Thought not - it's an l world out there. Also, did I mention you're actually playing as a Jedi on the Dark Side (the Sith)? Because they're way cool and a lot better than the goodie-goodie Jedi knights.
Because, like most of the Star Wars games, there is a strong storyline running through this game, and while this sometimes makes you think that you're playing to see the next chapter of the story, as opposed to playing a game where you can make decisions with impact, it does work - especially if you are familiar with this style from other games.
All right then; Darth Vader has secretly trained an apprentice, Voldermort you, as a black ops weapon, and sends you on lots of missions to kill the remaining Jedi Knights and other awkward problems for the Dark Lord of Mordor.
This might actually be a problem for new people to the Star Wars Gaming universe... because it all feels like every other Star wars game and you get long cut-scenes (in many cases that can't be skipped), a certain style of doing things, and a rich universe that may or may not be recognisable from the films. Certainly the newer trilogy contributes more to the style than the original 1976-1983 trilogy.

If you were to lift out the Star Wars elements from this game - perhaps setting you as a wizard casting spells - then the good news is that you would still have a very nice mobile game. This is definitely a game which has had a lot of thought (cut-scenes aside) put into where it will be played. Each level is broken down into smaller scenes, usually taking place on a fixed background. These take maybe 30-60 seconds to play if played correctly, and whenever you die, you simply have to play that scene again. There's no complicated lives system, or having to start from scratch again. This may upset the purists like me, but sometimes games should just simply be fun. With your progress auto-saved, even exiting the game and coming back later gives you the option to jump back into the scene where you left off.
My only worry in this is that the linearity of the storytelling structure will mean you lose enthusiasm for the frankly B-movie style story that unfolds throughout The Force Unleashed, but for a piece of interactive fiction, this title is well thought out and well priced.
From an industry point of view, it's very nice to see the N-Gage attract a major name and brand to the platform. For N-Gage to do well, not only must it attract these 'known quantities' to the system, it must also keep them. It's no good grabbing a Tony Hawk licence if you don't get the updated title the year or two after it. Having Star Wars on S60 is good. Having a sequel will be even better (I know, it's always 'must do better' from me... but I make no apologies for that).
This is very much a game designed for a mobile platform. The designers have done their job, and I congratulate them on it. The graphics are clear and understandable, and all the people who will invariably go "ah but they're rendered in software and that's crap" seem to miss the fact that it's still just pixels on the screen at the end of the day. This is a title that doesn't need to throw millions of pixels around every second - it makes good use of the available resources, be it screen estate, CPU power, or even the reduced control set that's not quite ready for lightning-quick-FPS-arcade-style gaming.
Much like a Jedi using all the available tools to get a startling result, The Force Unleashed comes over well on the N-Gage, is a credit to all involved, it gets the job done, looks good, plays well... it's just a good all round package. There are faults, but they don't spoil the enjoyment of this impressive title.
I just wish they'd used MP3 instead of MIDI for John William's Star Wars theme tune on the opening 'A long time ago...'



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