Despite the awesome advances in high-def graphics and killer surround sound, a lot of people still don’t even think about playing videogames on their home theater systems. But today’s games offer A/V performance that often exceeds some Blu-ray Discs, while delivering excitement that lasts far beyond one or two viewings. If you’re still on the fence about bringing games into your theater, LucasArts’ The Force Unleashed might finally get your attention. (For more on the game, see Drew Thompson's first-look review.) Few franchises have the passionate fan base that Star Wars has. In fact, the fourth largest reported religion in England and Wales in 2001 was “Jedi.” Between the movies, books, comics, cartoons, games, and toys, fans can never seem to get enough.
Fortunately, you won’t have to camp out in line for weeks to enjoy The Force Unleashed, which launches on September 16. Even though it’s a videogame, Unleashed has all of the Lucas organization’s considerable power behind it. And whether you’re a casual or hardcore gamer, or you just seek out anything related to the Force, the latest installment in the Star Wars saga will give you plenty to get excited about.
Wanting to see how LucasArts had come up with a game that’s just as impressive on a high-def, 7.1-channel home theater setup as it is on a gaming rig, I ventured out to the company’s San Francisco headquarters in the Presidio to talk to the people behind it and see how its various elements were created. After finding the right building (I was told to “Go through the glass doors past the Yoda fountain”), I got to talk to nearly everyone involved in making The Force Unleashed, and to see and hear almost everything that went into its development.
Whether we’re talking about a movie or a game, slick graphics and explosive sound can carry things only so far. Ultimately, it takes a compelling story in order to be entertaining and memorable. That’s what the development team behind The Force Unleashed was looking for back in August 2004 when it began working on what would become “the next Star Wars game.” The team brainstormed concepts and ideas for 6 months until it finally nailed down the story. The result is so intriguing and powerful that even non-gamers will be chomping at the bit to play — or just watch. The hook? You get to travel the galaxy as Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice and carry out Vader’s bidding using the Force in devastating ways you’ve so far only imagined.
Besides fleshing out events that take place after Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and lead right up to Episode IV: A New Hope (the original Star Wars film), The Force Unleashed answers some questions that have fascinated fans for over 30 years while offering some awesome gaming moments. Although the design team had freedom to develop the story, George Lucas’s approval was required for certain aspects — specifically, pivotal plot developments revealed in the game that will shake the canon and bring new understanding to events in A New Hope.
Lucas also wanted to make sure that players understood the characters and their motivations, such as how Darth Vader would act as a master and how he would treat an apprentice. The game also explores the relationship between Vader and the Emperor, who, according to project leader Haden Blackman, “basically considers Vader as somewhat broken following his duel with Obi-Wan on Mustafar at the end of Episode III.”
After creating a pre-visualization that demonstrated how the game would look and feel, Haden and team headed to Lucas’s office at Skywalker Ranch to make their pitch. (Blackman remembers cranking the sound until it practically blew Lucas’s hair back.) Lucas liked what he saw and gave the mandate: “Go make that game.”
While Unleashed does have a gripping story, it is a game and so has to be fun to play. But rather than make another button-mashing, lightsaber hack-and-slash adventure, Blackman said that his team created gameplay that revolves around “over-the-top powers” — in other words, “kicking ass with the Force.”
Whereas the Star Wars movies have shown the Force used with restraint, Unleashed throws the governor away and encourages players to confront objects and enemies and not just push or pull them but repel and lightning-blast them into submission. For instance, you can snatch up a group of Stormtroopers and launch them hundreds of feet, or you can reach out to a TIE Fighter and send it crashing into other ships, destroying them all. Of course, no Force user would be complete without a killer set of lightsaber moves, and the game serves up wicked combos aplenty. As the child of two Jedi, the Secret Apprentice has “the potential to be the most powerful Force-user ever,” according to Blackman. “He’s up there with the top tier.” Impressive. Most impressive.
A defining moment in the game that demonstrates the Secret Apprentice’s massive power actually came about by chance. Concept artist Amy Beth Christenson related, “I overheard someone asking Haden how powerful you would be, and he said, ‘You have so much Force power, you could pull a Star Destroyer out of the sky!’ That stuck in my head, and I had to draw it.” Watching the finished scene made me want to beg Lucas to get back into the movie studio: “Go make that film!”
For my first demo, I was led into LucasArts’ Premier Theater, which has 298 seats, a 50-foot screen, and the latest Christie D-Cinema digital projector. Besides being used for screening films being considered for Academy Award nominations, the theater is also the site for weekly team meetings and testing, to see how the game holds up in a true theater environment.
I assumed that Unleashed was developed in 1080p, but designers told me that the in-game technology is already pushing the next-gen consoles to their limits, and that graphics were held to 720p to keep the frame rates up and the animations smooth and cinematic. Watching the trademark Star Wars opening text scrawl on the massive screen, I felt like I was about to watch Episode III.5. Graphically, the game looks spectacular even when blown up to 50 feet, so rest assured that it will look stunning in your home theater regardless of its screen size. In fact, the high-def, widescreen vistas beg to be shown on a large screen!
Unleashed wastes no time thrusting you into the action, opening with the dramatic image of Vader walking out of an Imperial Shuttle, his black cape billowing behind him as laser bolts crackle by. He has just landed on the Wookiee home world, Kashyyyk, in the midst of hunting down rogue Jedi around the galaxy. With that, control of Vader is handed over to you, giving a glimpse of the awesome powers and true potential of the Dark Side that will be available later in the game. After single-handedly decimating the Wookiee resistance using phenomenal Force powers to blow apart anything in his path, Vader eventually encounters the character destined to become his Secret Apprentice — and the exciting story is underway.
Sound is a huge part of the Star Wars universe, in both music and effects, and Unleashed received the full theatrical treatment. While John Williams’s original themes are present, Mark Griskey composed more than 90 minutes of new music for the game. Griskey’s compositions do a wonderful job of being original while still transporting listeners to that galaxy far, far away. Unleashed also has the distinction of being the first videogame ever recorded on the main scoring stage at Lucas’s Skywalker Sound, using an orchestra of 80 musicians. (The Skywalker stage has been used to record the scores to Iron Man and the three most recent Star Wars films, along with many other blockbusters.) Griskey told me that composing a score for a game poses unique challenges. “The experience is totally interactive and non-linear, and the music needs to be able to change and react to what the player is doing in the game,” he said. “Also, you have to make sure that it doesn’t sound boring or repetitive when it’s heard over and over again as the player is wandering around the environments.”
The game renders discrete multichannel surround sound on the fly, using not only the films’ signature soundtrack moments but also ambient and atmospheric elements that add layers to the experience. Furthermore, new software was created allowing the game to dynamically mix audio in real time, adjusting levels for environments. Thus, ships sound louder when you’re outside them than when you’re inside, explosions that happen inside have more impact, and the volume of the music ramps up and down as needed to create tension.
Audio leader David Collins, who also voices holodroid sidekick PROXY, was responsible for mixing the game’s sound, which includes nearly 20,000 effects files and more than 3 hours of in-game dialogue. Listening to the game at reference level while sitting at Collins’s “Mix Pod” produced wall-to-wall surround, from ambient forest sounds to TIE Fighters screaming overhead, depending on what the game action called for. Right from the opening LucasArts logo screen, sounds explode into and all around the room, making you want to crank up the volume and immerse yourself in the adventure.
Graphically, Unleashed was designed with high-def home theater gameplay in mind. And the widescreen format gave the design team a lot of creative license. Art director Matt Omernick explained: “Widescreen really comes down to the fact that we now extend what the viewer can see by 280 pixels on each side of the image. This allows for a more immersive vista of the worlds and the action that helps nearly every aspect of the game, from art to design.”
Running on an Xbox 360, the demos I watched displayed highly elaborate backgrounds and lighting effects, revealing details that add realism to further draw you into the experience. Minute effects like wisps of smoke or ripples in puddles as you run around help convince you that you are the Secret Apprentice. I asked Omernick how HD resolution helped improve the game’s design. “It allowed the artists to provide more information to the player in more creative ways. For instance, we can use the resolution to add small lights that flicker to subtly guide the player to where he needs to go. We’ve always had the ability to put in interesting details such as scratches on armor, dew on plants, and bumps on surfaces that suggest sand or pebbles, but we didn’t because the resolution never allowed these details to show up. It’s very rewarding for the artists to be able to actually execute on that level, knowing it will be seen.”
Over 60 minutes of high-def cinematic cut scenes also help move the story along. “If you think about it,” Omernick mused, “not only did we build a really fun and exciting game, we also created an hour-long CG Star Wars film.”
In 1999, Lucas won the development rights to 15 acres of the Presidio, an ex-military installation near the Golden Gate Bridge. After construction on the Letterman Digital Arts Center was done, it became the new home to both Lucas’s special-effects powerhouse Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and to LucasArts.
The Force Unleashed is the first project to exploit the synergy of having these companies under one roof. The close cooperation allowed the Unleashed team to create a new set of programming tools on top of ILM’s existing technologies. For instance, actors’ likenesses were captured using ILM’s “clone cam,” resulting in ultra-realistic-looking characters.
The processing horsepower of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 also allowed two new technologies to complete the next-gen experience. Pixelux’s Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) helps create more convincing gameplay by making objects react realistically to the forces being exerted on them, based on the objects’ shape, weight, and size. Glass shatters, wood splinters, stone crumbles, and steel bends, but realistically and differently every time. This was evident when watching plants move on Felucia depending on what level of Force was applied to them — or when watching the Apprentice repeatedly hurl Stormtroopers into a steel door until it became dented and then bent, ultimately collapsing under the onslaught.
NaturalMotion’s Euphoria gives characters “biomechanical artificial intelligence” — a virtual central nervous system that controls the characters’ muscles. Enemies have a sense of survival and use the environment to seek cover or hold onto objects to keep from being Force-pushed into oblivion. This produces more realistic, unscripted responses and death “animations,” making each encounter unique. Enemies will also team up to fight together, creating a greater challenge for the Apprentice, especially as the difficulty ramps up in the Sith Lord and Sith Master settings.
The Force is being unleashed simultaneously on all major gaming platforms — PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PSP, and DS — so you can enjoy it regardless of your allegiance. While the story is similar on each system, gameplay has been tweaked to take advantage of the strengths of the various platforms. For example, only the PS3 and Xbox 360 use DMM and Euphoria. Wii owners wield the Wii Remote as a lightsaber while using the Nunchuk attachment to unleash Force powers. “Wii players really will feel unleashed because of the control scheme,” Blackman said. “It feels like you’re actually connected to this Apprentice character through all the motions you’re doing.” The Wii version also features a Duel mode where players fight each other as a variety of characters, using settings from both the classic and expanded Star Wars universe.
The PSP version includes a Lucasfilm-approved Historical Mission mode that lets players relive classic moments from the six movies. Encounters like Vader vs. Luke from The Empire Strikes Back and Obi-Wan vs. Anakin from Revenge of the Sith are reinvented with over-the-top, Unleashed Force powers.
You’ll encounter more than 100 characters (and 50 enemy types), including familiar figures like Princess Leia and Senator Bail Organa. But as Blackman noted, “[Lucas] wanted us to focus on creating new characters, including a love interest and a comic sidekick.” Key among these is Jedi general Rahm Kota, the crazed Kazdan Paratus, and the dual tonfa-saber-wielding Maris Brood. You’ll also explore many cool environments, from a TIE Fighter factory to Cloud City to the galaxy’s garbage dump, Raxus Prime.
Consistent with the Star Wars films, The Force Unleashed’s overall theme is redemption. Ultimately, only you can decide your fate and that of the galaxy, and how you play will have an impact on the world around you and determine the game’s outcome. (No pressure.)
Gaming in high-def transforms Star Wars from a passive, watch-from-the-sidelines event, into an adrenaline filled, multi-sensory overload by transporting you into the action. Jack your game console into your home theater and grab your controller to take your theater to the next level. May the Force be with you!