Gamertell

Title: Star Wars: The force Unleashed Mobile
Price: $13.49 (N-gage pricing: 1 Day for $2.99, 7 Days for $6.99, Full Version for $13.49)
System(s): Mobile (includes *N-Gage, iPhone, iPod Touch)
Release Date: September 16, 2008
Publisher (Developer): THQ Wireless (Universomo)
ESRB Rating: Not Rated
Pros: Really nice graphics, classic Star Wars sound effects and innovative CellWeaver control scheme.
Cons: Physical design of device’s buttons truly effects the enjoyment and playability. Unskipable cutscenes, Midi soundtrack is instead of MP3. No lightsaber slashing action. Very short.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one thumb down; 78/100; C+; * * 1/2 out of five.

For the Mobile version of this much-publicized Star Wars game, the developers took a cue from the DS release and created a unique control scheme based on the physical nature of the system. All the smartphone incarnations of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Mobile rely on the phone’s number pad to tap out patterns to activate various Force powers. On the iPhone and iPod Touch, you use the touchscreen to draw similar patterns.

It’s innovative and sometimes fun but not quite the action-filled, lightsaber slashing game you’d expect from the Star Wars franchise.

Walk on the Dark Side

Like the console and handheld versions, the game’s story stars Darth Vader’s secret Dark Side apprentice, simply called Starkiller. Unlike those versions, you don’t get to play the game’s intro as Darth Vader, although you will play in many of the same environments and it is also a single-player story-based game taking place between Star Wars: Episode III and IV. Vader has sent out to eliminate all the Jedi cranky Vader can find and you must kill everyone en route to each level’s Jedi boss.

It is a ride-the-rails game where Starkiller automatically moves from area to area, standing ground until every opponent and puzzle is completely defeated. You cannot control the direction of Starkiller at any time, only the powers he will use.

It’s essentially a single-player adventure puzzle game with a control scheme, called CellWeaving, that loosely resembles the DS version. Each Force ability is activated by a specific pattern of key presses (or, in the case of the iPhone and iPod Touch, finger swipes) and patterns over each opponent’s head. Each opponent has a small circle above their head with a pattern glyph that corresponds to a key combination. Get it right and you perform a Force ability on that opponent or object. Get it wrong and they will likely zap you and you’ll lose some health.

As you progress, more Force moves become available and opponents become more challenging. Environments are well-rendered background images with animated 3D elements on top including Starkiller, opponents and movable objects.

Before each boss and between levels, you must watch unskipable cutscenes that mix the 2D and animated 3D elements along with scrolling text to tell the story. This is also the most truncated version of the Unleashed story likely to conserve phone storage space.

Size Matters Not. OK, Maybe Sometimes

The CellWeaving control scheme is certainly the game’s most innovative feature but it also proves to be its biggest offender depending on the type of phone you are using.

For example, to heal you press four keys in a diamond shape. Assuming you keep your phone oriented up (since you can flip the game in any direction), you would press 4-2-6-8-4 to complete the diamond and completely replenish health. If you have a phone with a flat keypad, such as the Nokia N81 (which I used), it can be quite hard to hit the right buttons since there are minimal horizontal - and not any vertical - ridges between the keys.

Hitting the wrong key can either mean your Force pattern is broken or not completed, draining your Force power and leaving you open to attacks from your supposedly targeted opponent. Instead of pressing the bottom row of numbers, I often unintentionally slipped too low and pressed the two symbols and 0 keys. Playing by touch - since it’s hard to look at both the on-screen patterns and the keys -  either requires an intimate familiarity with your phone or a more tactile-friendly keypad.

The game’s overall difficulty seems to be skewed a little high so that the Normal level will result in exhaustively repeated defeats even at the first Jedi boss. Bump it down to Easy and the game becomes playable and just a little more enjoyable but, since the game is relatively short, you may feel cheated by the length that much sooner.

Otherwise, the game looks great. The background art is quite nice and the 3D elements are rather well rendered for such a small screen. The only bummer is that the sounds are in the tinny midi format to accommodate more mobile devices instead of a more ear-pleasing MP3 option.

Touch the Force, Just a Little

There are a lot of Force powers and the CellWeaving control scheme is a great idea but, again, the physical limitations of some phones can result in less landed combos and more Game Overs than is enjoyable. Since the iPhone and iPod Touch utilize the touchscreen, I can only imagine that it would be a much easier game to play since dragging a pattern is far more intuitive than groping for hard-to-feel buttons.

Also, because there is no character control, this is really more of a follow-the-pattern game than an action game. They completely eliminate the joy of slashing a lightsaber and you are, instead, matching key combos to cast Force spells. It’s hard to get too far passed the idea that you don’t get to slash an opponent with a lightsaber - the coolest handheld weapon in the universe - in the game.

If you have the right phone, at least give the trial version of the game a look. It makes for a decent story-based adventure and I suspect CellWeaving will soon be adopted in many more games.

The game does get some bonus points for the CellWeaving scheme and graphics since, even though the backgrounds are 2D, the parts that move are 3D and look really good for a cell phone game. The ride-the-rails limitedness, overall short length of the game and physical difficulties (for some devices) keeps this from being a wholly fun game.

Product Page [Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Mobile] Read [Nokia Symbian Themes] Also Read [All About N-Gage] Also Read [PocketGamer]

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Check out the gallery: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Mobile screen shots