The Collective UNLEASHED!!!!

Hey you know that new Star Wars game that came out last week? I already beat it.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (PS3, XBox 360, Nintendo Wii)

George Lucas' most recent way of getting money out of my pocket comes in the form of The Force Unleashed II, the sequel to the 2009 game in which you took control of Darth Vader's secret apprentice Starkiller, aka Galen Marek. Hunting down jedis in the original game was a blast, even if the game needed a little more time to hone its combat and difficulty. Oh, also, Starkiller died at the end of the game (or at least at the cannon ending to the game).

So how can Starkiller be seen in this game, flinging around TWO lightsabers? Easy. Cloning. Yes, in a move that nearly destroys all logic in the Star Wars universe, Vader has secretly been attempting to clone Marek, a move that has been very time consuming due to the fact that it is apparently impossible to successfully clone someone in tune with the force. However, Vader succeeds, and right from the get go things go awry, as the possible Starkiller clone escapes, attempting to track down his love from the last game, Juno Eclipse.

The dual lightsabers LOOK cool, but don't affect the combat much

Yoda's blink and you'll miss it cameo

What follows is essentially the first game, just with tighter controls and combat. In all honestly, Lucasarts should have either released this game as a downloadable add-on to the first, or waited another 4 months to give the game a better story. Many parts that were seemingly promised in the trailers and prerelease hype of the game are nothing more than cameos in the non-playable cinematics (COUGH Boba Fett COUGH), and many cool ideas, like Dagobah cutscene, would have made interesting levels.

Besides the story being waaaay too abridged, the game is also alarmingly short. I bought the game last Tuesday, and after playing maybe an hour or so here and there I had already defeated Vader and received both the light and dark side endings for the game. The game is just under 6 hours, which is a shame for all of the awesome abilities that you can use in the game. Speaking of which, all of your force abilities are available right from the get-go, but you also get a new "Jedi Mind Trick" ability, which allows you to make your enemies turn on one another with hilarious results.

I don't want to sound like I'm hating on this game, I'm just extremely disappointed with its story and length. As a fan of the original's characters and story, I had very high hopes for this sequel, and perhaps they were too high. As it stands right now, even die-hard Star Wars fans should avoid this sequel until it's placed in the mark down bin.