Posted: Saturday 11th October 2008

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed recently enjoyed a release across all major games consoles. The game topped the sales charts across the boards so it's no surprise to find the game making its way to the mobile platform. Does it live up to the standard set by its console counterparts?

The Force Unleashed is a surprisingly good mobile gaming title. As with the console version, the game follows the story of Darth Vader's secret apprentice Starkiller. Skipping over the Darth Vader intro of the console game, The Force Unleashed takes you straight to the action and has you battling opponents left, right and centre. In order to defeat enemies, you must weave the pattern that hovers above their heads. You do this by pressing the correct buttons on the phone keypad to join the dots of a weave pattern that appears at the top of the screen. This gets progressively harder as more and more enemies come at you simultaneously and of course it gets harder as you work your way through the game.

There really isn't a great deal more to The Force Unleashed on mobile but there is one fruatration. You can't actually move your character at all. During every level, Starkiller stays in the same spot and all you do is weave the shapes that appear over your enemies heads. You have no way of moving out of the way of enemy fire or protecting yourself. This is a bit of a shame as being able to control Starkiller would have been a nice bonus.

Between each level there are cutscenes to help progress the narrative and keep you engaged with the storyline. These aren't skippable so repeated play may become a little too repetitive.

The Force Unleashed is a decent mobile game and the innovative control system marks it out from the pack. The weave control is unique and also very challenging and marks a new way of playing games on mobile. The Force Unleashed isn't as good as its console counterparts but it is a worthwhile game in its own right.