Discussion of Force Unleashed storyline (Spoilers Duh...)

[Darksider]

that's right.

It's not direct low orbit, Kota uses the force to rip the command center off of the facility and send it down into Nar shadda's atmosphere halfway through the fight, so he's not entering the atmosphere anywhere near it's highest point.

I think they're already inside the atmosphere before he gets tossed out the window.

[Mad]

perhaps there was some sort of atmospheric containment field around the observation room for the duration of the DS1's construction, or maybe palpatine likes to take a stroll on the Death Star's surface or something.

There would have to be some kind of atmosphere just outside the Death Star, based on the fact that Marek and Juno were talking with the exit ramp open just before Marek jumped down into an uncompleted section. (Well, it could have also been a containment field on the shuttle like the Falcon had in ESB. But Marek jumped out, implying more air. I didn't catch if his clothing was flapping or not during the jump.)

As for Marek surviving the vaccuum of space, I got nothing. Does the novel say anything about him protecting himself with the force?

Vader did say that he "rebuilt" Marek. Marek might not have even been breathing when he was thrown into space.

I know Rahm Kota was able to survive an unprotected atmospheric re-entry from low orbit above Nar shadda.

They had already entered the atmosphere at that point. Anakin already survived something similar, though he wasn't injured as Kota was.

[Darksider]

Vader did say that he "rebuilt" Marek. Marek might not have even been breathing when he was thrown into space.

Do we know how long Marek was left floating in space? Perhaps vader had some droids or something ready to pick him up.

[TK-984]

If anyone's interested in watching the cutscenes, some one has compiled them all on youtube and has included rapidshare links to a higher res version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GssQ_kaV8-4

I personally like the atmosphere of the game world: the Wookiee slaves, the pre-rebel troopers with Kota looked fuckin awesome, etc. Everything else was pretty damn "meh."

[VT-16]

Vader basically does what he did to Shira Brie 5 years later, picks him up in space. He actually seems to have a droid ready, because one arrives to retrieve the apprentice.

[Zac Naloen]

Surely what happens in the "game" is just game mechanics and can be ignored?

It's all about the cut scenes. Which quite clearly show Vader has little more than Cosmetic damage and Palpatine is not hurt at all.

Reads more like they let him win in an attempt to turn him, but he was a little more powerful than they expected as he held them off just long enough for the rebels to leave.

That's how I interpreted the end anyway.

[VT-16]

That seems to be about it. For all the visuals, Marek did nothing to the two Sith Lords themselves. Apart from Vader's armor in the previous duel.

[NecronLord]

It's surprising that Vader can apparently operate in the enviroment without his helmet. And the dark side ending was... surprisingly dark.

[Zac Naloen]

It's surprising that Vader can apparently operate in the enviroment without his helmet. And the dark side ending was... surprisingly dark.

Actually, if you look at one of the apprentices earlier suites, I think the Raxis Prime one, you can see he has a vader type breathing apparatus attached to it.

That seems to suggest that the only necessary for breathing part is the lower part. The rest of the Helmet is for the eye enhancements and for show.

[Rommie2006]

Yeah, that was pretty stupid too.

meh. It just puts a new upper limit on jedi durability

Windu fanboys can rejoice at least Windu now has a reason to survive.

[Darth Hoth]

Because KJA and Traviss were pure comic book/game authors?

There's no need to strawman the entirety of the EU by swinging its worst authors into the fray. A lot of the EU (before the Vong shit) was good, with a few turds in the mix.

The same could be said for Crimson Empire, and plenty of other comic books and games (recently, KOTOR both game and comic, and what about X-Wing and TIE Fighter?).

Um, you seriously do not consider Crimson Empire wanky and convoluted?

[Stark]

Windu fanboys can rejoice at least Windu now has a reason to survive.

Someone needs to make a list of all the Jedi that survived until the immediate pre-ANH period. It'd amuse the shit out of me. I bet Quinlan Vos is still around!

[Darth Hoth]

Agreed with this point. The thing is, these pieces of crap in charge now try to cherry pick old Star Wars characters and lore and insert themselves into the universe, like we have here with this game. This is classic Mary-Sue. The Dark Force (who's weally a good guy!) user who could beat the shit out of Vader and Palpatine with one hand tied behind his back.

Good thing Yoda wasn't there; he'd be flusing Yoda's head in the nearest toilet while battling a batallion of stormtroopers.

Bah, the things he did would have made Yoda flush himself down in fear!

But what really grated at me was not the Marysueing or wank, but the fanservice. Most of it may not be news anymore, but it is my pet peeve. Rancors? Executor? Death Star? Jedi women dressing up as exotic dancers? Captain Cleavage? What the fuck?

And a holodroid that, from the cutscenes, looks like it is transsexual. . .

[Illuminatus Primus]

Um, you seriously do not consider Crimson Empire wanky and convoluted?

It doesn't shit on continuity and its betters with lol look game character as strong as Luke/Anakin and founded Rebellion! lol. And somehow the Big Three being exposed to Palpatine openly then going back to continue some career. And the Death Star being AGAIN exposed before ANH (and now the Executor took a decade to build too I guess).

[Vympel]

I liked TFU's plot when taken alone, but of course it doesn't really fit very well with the overall mythos or continuity - i.e. Within the game, Starkiller besting Vader and Sidious was understandable, but it's a pretty bitter pill to swallow in total continuity.

What bothered me about the game the most was that Starkiller's conversion from dark to light didn't ring true. You don't get raised from childhood by Darth Vader to a young adult and turn out as anything other but a malignant sociopath, I'm sorry. Just because he met a blonde woman with boobies doesn't change shit.

Playing the game as a malignant sociopath with few redeeming qualities would've been refreshing (never mind making the game even more like God of War than it already is) unfortunately it seems that since TIE Fighter we've not seen any game where your unapologetically playing for the bad guys- it's always about changing sides, and it's getting fucking old.

Imagine, instead, that the plot went pretty much as is but with a completely fucked up version of Starkiller, a genuinely bad man, and it ended with you fighting Vader - heck, the QTE happens, you're gonna kill him, blah blah blah - and then the game takes over and Vader fucking kills you. End of story. You had a good run, but you're fighting the Chosen One turned Sith Lord. Luke Skywalker, you're not.

That would've been refreshing.

Anyway, the game was still fucking fun. I've finished it twice.

[Stark]

Yeah, the whole characterisation of the apprentice is weak; he's pretty much just a regular guy with a lightsabre and a scowl. Not only is he hardly an evil assassin, he's plot-retarded. As Vympel says, the pilot in TIE Fighter was more sinister, and he was just a pilot. He never even solved a series of simplistic platform puzzles!

While the X-wing plot was an exercise in fanfiction, what happened to the tone of TIE Fighter? What happened to games that were fun action games, but also had an interesting, political and stimulating story? Can Publius make the plot to TFU less retarded?

[Lord Revan]

first off I'll say that I've not played the game but rather only seen the cut scenes linked earlier, but to me it seemed that Starkiller was trained as a weapon, meaning the reason why he was able to defeat the people he did was to due being better or at least good enough at that single aspect of the Force/Sith training, kind of like why Darth Maul was able to defeat Qui-Gon Jinn in TPM (Maul wasn't nesserly stronger then Qui-Gon but Maul was better at fighting other Force users).

also I thought Palpatine always knew who the "big three" were, but was unable to do anything about them in public without having it backfire on him.

[Lord Poe]

Oh Wayne, if you haven't already you should watch movies of the end-bossfight QTE stuff. It's so hilariously stupid on every possible level. You'll see what I mean, it's tasteless and juvenile in the extreme.

What's QTE?

[Stark]

Sorry, 'quicktime event'. It's the stuff in games where during an cutscene or non-interactive section, the game flashes up buttons to press in order to continue. In TFU, after you beat down a bosses lifebar, it goes into a QTE where you have to press A, X, etc in order to perform the absurd series of 'finishing attacks' to kill them. The extraordinarily huge amount of damage these people totally laugh off is silly in SW, and more so compared to the 3-4 hits it takes from a decent enemy to kill you.

[Ford Prefect]

To further explain, because I like any oppurtunity to talk about quick-time events, the idea is that it gives player interaction into what is otherwise just a cutscene. For example, in God of War, a button press shows up and pressing it in time results in something cool happening on screen. Though it is becoming increasingly, and at times annoyingly, common in games, I like it as a concept. It basically means that you are never taken out of 'finishing' a boss, as taking its lifebar down to zero does not trigger a hands-off cutscene, though truth be told they aren't usually difficult unless you they're poorly designed. Also, the stuff you end up doing is pretty cool in a rather juvenile way, but I'm fine with that.

Strictly speaking, while I like some of the crazy shit which happens in a lot of quicktime events (one of the positives I could get out of the fairly average game Heavenly Sword was that it had some really cool QTEs), at the same time it is in-fact ridiculous to see them in Star Wars. I mean, okay, yeah, it's kind of cool to drop some multi-ton cylinder things onto Darth Vader's head, but at the same time I can't help but feel that this would probably fuck him up a lot harder than it actually does. I never had this problem in God of War because I'm a raging fanboy, but watching Darth Vader basically get crushed then shortly thereafter get up and have another go is a little weird in my head.

[Stark]

Don't forget if you fuck it up... it just sends you back to the beginning of the QTE. So it's just 'constantly flip out and roundhouse this guy to the head until you get it right and he dies'. I don't consider the TFU QTEs particularly difficult, interesting, or useful; they're just nerdservice WOOT I IZ STRANGLIN VADOR stuff. Many other games integrate the QTEs much better than this.

[Darth Hoth]

Um, you seriously do not consider Crimson Empire wanky and convoluted?

It doesn't shit on continuity and its betters with lol look game character as strong as Luke/Anakin and founded Rebellion! lol. And somehow the Big Three being exposed to Palpatine openly then going back to continue some career. And the Death Star being AGAIN exposed before ANH (and now the Executor took a decade to build too I guess).

It is stupid for all sorts of other reasons (hell, just fighting in that armour/helmet is rather silly), and Royal Guards are Wanky Wank (these guys fight like JEDI and easily defeat Storm Commandos with guns with their KEWL swords, lol). Kir Kanos is pretty Mary Sue himself. And it is responsible for a few, erm, strange depictions (e.g., the ISD going Base Delta Zero; the artist seriously has no idea whatsoever what gigatons of orbital bombardment should look like).

Of course, I am by no means saying that it is anything like TFU, on which I pretty much agree with your assessment. The politics were abysmally retarded ("Right, I Bail Organa will fund this Rebellion and you will give us ships Garm, and you Mon Mothma will provide us with troops, isn't that a nice and clear division of labour!" ), not to mention the continuity murder. And the constant wanking of Starkiller was appalling; it seems Organa and Bel Iblis were just his minions:

"If you are willing to lead us, then we will join your Alliance."

"Are we ready to finish what He started?"

(And the H in majuscule is no typo; you can hear it clearly in the video. . . )

[Vympel]

Don't forget if you fuck it up... it just sends you back to the beginning of the QTE. So it's just 'constantly flip out and roundhouse this guy to the head until you get it right and he dies'. I don't consider the TFU QTEs particularly difficult, interesting, or useful; they're just nerdservice WOOT I IZ STRANGLIN VADOR stuff. Many other games integrate the QTEs much better than this.

Pfft. Fuck QTEs. TFUs got the best QTEs ever, because I don't fucking DIE when I get their simon says button mashing shit wrong. It's just a cool reward, not lame ass fake difficulty like God of War (which don't get me wrong is a better game than TFU, obviously).

[Ford Prefect]

Pfft. Fuck QTEs. TFUs got the best QTEs ever, because I don't fucking DIE when I get their simon says button mashing shit wrong. It's just a cool reward, not lame ass fake difficulty like God of War (which don't get me wrong is a better game than TFU, obviously).

God of War has had very few QTEs which result in instant death. Chains of Olympus had two in the final boss, for example, but they were perhaps the easiest to appear in the game (I think the Colussus stomp could kill you instantly but failing that would be like failing opening a door). Usually the penalty is a health loss, and the hardest QTEs have no actual detriment apart from having to do it again. TFU's QTE's struck me as being basically effortless, so as you say it's just a bonus way to do cool stuff. This is getting pretty off topic, though.

Incidentally, I understand that the dude in charge of production has made the comment that Starkiller's abilities are what he envisions what Luke would have been capable of had he accepted his father's offer to train him in the ways of the Dark Side. This has annoyed a friend of mine, who made the comment that 'no one is as powerful as Luke'. While I actually share this sentiment to an extent, at the same time I don't see the problem: for example, Starkiller has been trained almost his entire life in the ways of a Sith, whereas Luke is basically an adult and would, by implication pick it up a whole lot faster. And simply put, I have no problem with Starkiller representing a general marker for what Dark Luke could manage simply because this does not mean that he would be more powerful. That is simply 'Luke as Sith' and I see no reason to assume that 'Luke as Jedi' would be any less powerful. Drawing on the Dark Side does not necessarily indicate 'more win', as Obi Wan still defeated Anakin.

And honestly, while I recognise that some Force users are more powerful than others, at the same time discussing the relative power levels of Jedi and Sith like they're absolutes is kind of off-putting. Even shounen-action manga like Bleach does not treat its power levels like absolutes, but merely rough guidelines. Personally, the idea of Starkiller beating Vader, who essentially shrugs it off* rankles considerably less than the Darth Revan masturbation which crops up. Sure, Starkiller defeated Palpatine in a duel and started the Rebellion, but REVAN WAS POWER and looking at him was like looking into the face of the Force! Starkiller will probably end up with a similar cadre of fucktard fans, however.

Pubilus is going to go Mozart crazy when he tries to fit this into continuity though.

*I have not seen RotJ in a long time. When Luke moves in for the killing blow but then relents, isn't Vader basically cowering on the ground in fear? He just gets up again in TFU - twice. As STRAK says, it's not just Starkiller who is a ludicrous superman.

[Vympel]

You should remember that the game is still a game. The over-the-top force powers in the game aren't how they are in "reality", the book doesn't follow them, for example:- in the game, you grab a fully functioning Star Destroyer and crash it. In the book, Starkiller is able to re-direct a crashing Star Destroyer. It's still pretty insane, of course, but theyr'e still of an entirely different power level. And of course the QTEs aren't in the book (i.e. I just dropped a shitload of columns on Darth Vader and he got up again and kept fighting).

As for Starkiller's powers, all the Jedi in TFU have insane powers. Starkiller's father drops TIE Fighters on Vader in the first level, for cripe's sake. Starkiller's still very powerful, obviously ...