Games: "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II" Oh, well, where do I start? Probably with the first game, eh?
I liked it. I really, really liked it! Ok, the quick time events were fuckin' annoying but it had a great story, cool characters (funnily, I liked Kota a lot) and a bunch of sweet moves. I had thing for how they told the story of the startin' fight against the Empire, the foundation of the rebellion and the secret apprentice of Darth Vader. What brings me to Starkiller himself.
I was definetively keen on him. I always sympathized with the rebellious ones and characters that seem to be the bad guy but they're not. So yes, Starkiller was right up my alley. Yunis and me played the game with a lot of enthusiasm and we eagerly awaited the second game after seein' this smashing trailer. And on Halloween, we got it...
Two days ago, Yunis and me got the xBox from her brother and he already had the game, so we decided to spend Halloween with playing "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II", since we're both not so much into Halloween parties or running to the door every five minutes to open it for annoying kids.
Like I said, we eagerly awaited that fuckin' game for months! After seein' the trailer, we were so hungry for more! It was like "Gosh, look at that, the graphic is so cool! Sweet moves! What, I'm using
two lightsabers now? Really? Awesome! And I'm a clone? What the hell? "
We hoped that the story of the first game would be completed. That they would tell us how Vader managed to clone a Jedi, how the rebellion went on and all of this stuff that would finally lead to the beginning of the old movies. But you know what? Way off the mark! Nothing!
The game starts with you (Starkiller) being a prisoner of Darth Vader. From the very beginning, it is told that you're a clone and the only survivor. The other clones before you died but you have some flashbacks of your former life that happen from time to time so you're remembering some attacks like Repulse. After discovering you're not the original Starkiller anymore, you flee from Kamino by jumping out of a window after killing everything and everyone near to to. The flying escape is pretty cool animated 'cause you have to dodge objects and lightnings by shoving them away woth Force Push or by just destroying them. Oh, from now on, you use two lightsabers. Sweet, huh?
I like double lightsaber action. Already did in the old "Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy" game from 2003.
Well...where were I? Yes, escaping. After this, you gotta find your old master, Rahm Kota (the blind guy from the first game). He's imprisoned on Cato Nemoidia where he's about to be executed. As expected: he can watch out for himself by killing every executioner they send to him. Nevertheless, you gotta save him...
So you travel to that planet, got yourself in trouble by not knowing some secret codes for whatever section and have to fight your way through stormtroopers and other enemies like killer droids, mecha arachnids and so on. When you finally reach the arena, you and Kota reunite (he's not too surprised to see ya; just talking about you not really being a clone) and have to fight once again - against a rea~ly big thing, bigger as a rancor. And you know how rancors look like. But that thing is...well, bigger. Much. Another flying fight follows.
After escaping from Cato Nemoidia (with Kota), you wanna find Juno Eclipse (your love interest and starship captain from the first game). She's no longer loyal to the Empire but now one of the first commanders of the rebel alliance. The problem: you're going to Dagobah (whysoever; no profound explanation) and find Yoda which has only about two sentences in the whole game. He tells you that your destiny is clouded or whatever and than you gotta go into that cavern we all now from Luke's little self-discovery trip in the movie. You have to push X from time to time to prevent an unreal Vader from killing you but there's no gameplay at all in this sequence. You can only walk down a long straight path, do this X quick time event and the Dagobah level is already over. Your self-discovery trip just includes your fear of being a clone after all. Yippie. Oh and a nice little premonition of Juno getting killed in an attack.
So you leave Dagobah (without ever talking to Yoda again), fly to Juno's starship (might be the Salvation; I'm not sure) and want to find her even if Kota tells you it's a stupid idea and you should help the alliance instead of searching for one single person. You're too much in love to listen to him, so you start to charge the whole ship, destrying almost everything in your way just to find Juno nearly dead and kidnapped by Boba Fett.
So you follow her quickly back to Kamino (yeah, back to Kamino, no new level) where Vader is already waiting for you after some nice fight-and-destroy action again. Gotta say: these killer droids are a huge pain in the ass. And the quick time events...argh! But well, you finally face Vader and some ugly, only half-finished clones of yourself and when you did it, a cutscene comes straight ahead.
Darth Vader uses Juno to blackmail you by threatening to kill her if you don't obey him, she clearly disagrees, tries to kill Vader with a lightsaber, he pushes her out the window, she falls down about 30 metres and dies. You hear me? She
dies ! Obviously.
Starkiller snaps, defeats Vader but before he can kill him, Kota stops him from doing so by telling him they want to interrogate Vader about Imperial stuff and by peddling the line that he could finally find out if he really is a clone or not. Now you can chose: light side, dark side. Yunis and me chose light side so we didn't kill Vader. 'kay, Kota and some others imprison him (that's all one massive cutscene!) and you go some steps to check on Juno. She's still obviously dead, folks, d-e-a-d! Like dead!
But when you take her in your arms, she suddenly opens her eyes (they were open when she hit the fucking floor after a 30 metres-fall, staring lifeless into the damn sky), says something like "Oh, we're alive" and you live happily ever after. Somehow. 'cause now - the bloody fucking game is
over! You just get another tiny cutscene where Lota talks to Leia, you face the fettered Vader, telling him you let him live, then you see Boba Fett's starship follow you (where did he go after kidnapping Juno, I ask) and when you start to think "Yeah, now Vader escapes and slays the whole crew, I fail to stop him and then I have to fight Boba and after that, the Empire will win and I might finally die so we can lead over to 'A new hope'" the credits are charging your screen.
I mean: hello? No explanation if you're a clone or not. No explanation why Juno's still alive after she was definetively dead. No explanation how Vader escapes and manages to kidnap Leia so Luke has to save her. No explanation what happens to Starkiller after this stuff. I guess they wanted to keep that for a third game but this was a big disappointment!
Conclusion:
There were very cool basics. They had good ideas like having flashbacks to learn new skills you already knew in your former life as original Starkiller. Or like using two lightsabers. The 'flying and fighting at the same time' aspect was nice to watch and made it feel a bit like DMC or something similar. You know, exorbitant action, sweet moves, way away from reality but funny to play and watch. I like this. And when you first do it, it's pretty cool. Like on Kamino. The big monster boss on Nemoidia was hardcore, too, even if it's somehow ridiculous that the great Luke Skywalker had problems to kill a rancor but the unknown Starkiller beats all records. But no complaining, nice thing anyway.
So you start the game with enthusiasm, hoping for answers and about ten hours of gameplay. The first levels make you gape but at least on Dagobah you get disappointed. Already said: you just walk down this path, hitting X.
The same level twice (Kamino), a way too long bossfight with Vader (the same moves again and again and again and...) and then this sudden end. After 6 hours or so.
When the final cutscene came, Yunis and me sat in front of our screen, gawping in disbelief. Whe both thought, this was just the first half of the game, but no. This
was the game. Completely.
I expected more. A lot more. At least more hours of gaming and more answers. The graphic was epic but the story and the always recurring moves ruined it. The jumping parts annoyed the crap out of us. About 15 minutes to get somewhere just by jumping in circles. Woohoo ...
And this where the first game was really good. I'm disappointed. This was my most awaited game this year and this was just ... lame. C'mon LucasArts, you can do it better! But we're suspecting them to only give new levels by downloading. More money, ya know.
Dead performance.
essence of this year's first literary festival «Meridian Czernowitz», which is to mark the 90 anniversary of the birth of poet Paul Tselyana, was in the German poetry. Therefore, it seems to me logical to make it poetolohichnyy comparativistic and analysis. It was at the level of Ukrainian within one program and, at first glance, few among them, so the festival came out pretty chaotic. However, the chaos had its laws relating to the history Chernivtsi city and most places of Festival events were held. Chernovtsy, formerly "the city bookstores, hometown Tselyana Paul and many others poets who wrote the German, Ukrainian, Romanian and Yiddish adding more comfort with modern poets. They feel comfortable and natural as in the glorious Opera House and in the rustic fitted fast food restaurant "rapidly" in a newly built neighborhood and in abandoned cinema "Ukraine". Multi-language poetry as the task was to restore something broken while a new one.