Choose sith lord difficulty, why not i'm a masochist.
opening crawl
The jedi are all but gone and the empire is hunting out the last.
A jedi has been found on the wookie homeworld of Kashykk
One of the nice things about the game is that for each enemy you kill you gain an unseen amount of xp points. Once you have gained enough you are awarded one of three orbs, for force power, combo's and talents. You can get a bigger health bar faster return of spent force energy, new combo's and increase the power of your force offensives.
At the start of the game your character is pretty wimpy, however by the end of the game, a bad ass. You will need at least two playthroughs to get the full set of powers upgraded to the max. Possibly the best bet is to play on easy and then hard etc. to build up your range before doing the hardest difficulties. Though you can grind for xp in the training rooms i think.
Mission 1
We are playing as Darth Vader. OPening cut scene shows a shuttle leaving a star destroyer and landing amongst a raging battle. Vader stomps out looking huffed and throttles an imperial chief for the hell of it.
Once we have control usual movement and camera controls with left and right stick.
X swings the lightsabre forwards, there are many combos to be unlocked during the game.
A jumps, twice to double jump and left bumper dashes while in the air or on the ground.
Left trigger blocks. While holding down block the x y and b buttons become sabre throw, force lightning shield and force repulse respectively.
B sends a wave of force energy forwards, holding it before releasing stores it up and makes a bigger wave.
When you approach an object you can use the force on it becomes targetted. Pressing right trigger picks up the object which can then be moved around using the left and right sticks.
First up I force blast two wookies, we are told to use the force push on the big wooden door which once charged up blows the door away in spectacular fashion.
trees can be chopped with the lightsabre, nice touch.
I progress through the area, wooden structures on the side of mountains and hills, some nice views of the raging battles going on below. Tie fighters zoom overhead constantly.
Beginning to get the hang of the controls, there seems to be little threat here in this training level.
We come to a large clearing with a huge hut and a jedi tells us we cannot enter. Vader and the jedi duel. We can use lightsabre and force push, but can't seem to grab and hurl this one about. After wearing him down mostly using lightsabre attacks his energy falls, we then have a quicktime event sequence where vader throws the jedi around the clearing and finally into the hut. Following for the kill Vader senses another jedi, it seems to be a small boy, who displays strong force powers. Vader kills the jedi Master/Father and stormtroopers and commanders come in. They are about to shoot the boy when Vader intervenes and kills them all.
Flash forwards to the boy grown up as Vaders apprentice. Vader gives him his first Jedi hunt as graduation ceremony to becoming a full Sith Lord.
Vader tells the apprentice to kill all on board the ship where the Jedi is, including the imperials. The boy looks preturbed by this. However, accepts the mission.
On the way to apprentices ship he is attacked by a robot which can assume the form of anyone. It is called Proxy. We also meet Juno the pilot of the apprentices ship, the rogue shadow. Seems like romance might be in the air for the apprentice and Juno.
On the ship we have a training room, where we are shown the basics, as if we hadn't already sussed them from the demo and the prologue level.
Mission 2
We are given a cut scene with the three main characters discussing the general Kota, the jedi we have to kill.
Then a cut scene showing that general Kota knows that we are coming and has a plan for us.
Then it's into the mission proper. This is the same section that was shown in the demo.
Hmmm i died twice in the first hangar, the energy doesnt seem to rebuild the same way it did in the demo, a bit misleading.
Getting the hang of it, it seems that in the demo we were using a pretty leveled up character.
Now we are using the apprentice bobby basic.
We are given upgrade orbs which we can spend in the shop, have to say that the shop takes ages to load.
Little scene where we are trapped by a force field enclosure with about ten men inside with us. Neat that you can throw them into the force field which burns them up.
pull blocks from the walls to make jumps possible
Find a walker boss, hit it a bit and then some quicktime, if the apprentice can take it and scrunch it up into a cube using the force why bother with all the slashing at it first?
Eventually we come across Kota and fight him, much the same as the first fight, slash with sabre when close, use force and close the gap quickly and keep on slashing.
The fight takes place in a tower on the space station and Kota blows it from the tower and the room they are in is falling towards the planet below during the fight. Kota tells you that Vader will not always be your master before you kill him.
The apprentice goes back to vader and gives him Kota's lightsabre, Vader tells him that his next mission is to kill another jedi called Kazdan Paratus. Vader does not expect the apprentice to be able to complete the mission.
Mission 3
Junkyard level, very nice looking, much more detailed than the first two levels.
Or maybe it's just the art style making it look more crowded.
Given access to Force lightning with the Y button.
More lifting platforms, lava hurts.
Ramping up the puzzling now, enemies varied from rebels and stormtroopers, now got some greedo types and some kind of droids.
Large open area where we have to zap three objects with force lightning which makes em shoot off and blow open a door. Then climbing up the inside of a cylinder like chamber using platforms around the walls.
Much more mazelike enviroment than the corridor like first level.
New enemies robots made up of junk held together by the force.
Larger areas with force field bringing down puzzles, lots of baddies in large areas.
big area where you turn on a junker engine to cut a large girder to make a bridge
Big goliath junk robot here.
Which takes me ages to learn how to kill. Basically have to take out all the smaller robots in the area, which at first look like they respawn infinitely but after five or six stop coming. Then you can concentrate on the junk goliath, which can be trapped by putting force lightning into an object in the centre of the room which earths through the lower floor electrocuting it and freezing it's attacks. Then you can safely hammer it with the floating junk around the room. Once defeated you use the force to bend the melted girder into place making a bridge out of the area.
There are more goliaths to fight before making your way to Paratus, who has made a recreation of the jedi council using robots. He seems quite mad.
Paratus is a small thing with robot spider legs, he is fast and hard to hit, however you soo learn that he can be stunned with force lightning and then gripped and thrown. You rinse and repeat this until his damage goes down then he summons another goliath to kill you, twice you have to fight goliaths during the boss fight. Paratus also rains junk down around your head. Once he is defeated you have more quicktime to get through and finally you defeat paratus.
Mission 4
Now we are after Shakk-ti. Who it seems has an apprentice of her own. SHe tells the apprentice to hide until after the fight, but we all know that won't happen.
The environment is organic this time, with killer plants and new enemies called felucians.
A short corridor area with a cube to collect and then into a large cylindrical area which we have to climb up using the many platforms and walkways.
A large area introduces shamans of the felucians who act like respawners, i.e. unless you kill the shamans then you are fighting infinite enemies.
There are shamans and chieftans, chieftans are bigger and shoot yellow stuff at you.
You get to meet and fight the rancor beast, one of five, so looks like the reuse of bosses is going to be a theme.
In a large area you meet about three or four rancor beasts at once, After fighting about six of them and getting an achievement for killing five rancors, i finally realise that i don't actually have to kill them all, and if i don't kill the one with the shaman on top they will keep coming forever anyway, i make a run for the exit of the area and am allowed to leave without killing all the rancors.
Now the showdown with shak-ti.
The showdown is near the sarlaac pit as seen in return of the jedi, you fight for a little while in a small area with pustules on the ground that hurt you and the enemies. Shaak-ti summons felucians to get in the way of the fight and hurls balls of red energy at you, she seems to be only vulnerable to force repulse. WHich sends her flying and hopefully through a few of the pustules. AFter you take away part of her energy you move to the sarlaac pit proper where the same happens only this time you can send her flying into the pit. She comes back however. The sarlaac itself also flaps its huge tentacles around now and again. Once you wear her energy down, there is a quicktime scene and she is down. level complete.
Shakk-ti warns the apprentice that the sith always turn on each other.
Mission 5
Vader and the apprentice are seen talking, then the emperor walks in and Vader sticks the apprentice through the guts with his lightabre. The emperor tells Vader that he has been naughty, but all will be forgiven if Vader kills the apprentice. Vader tosses the apprentice around like a rag doll and chucks him out a window into space. The emperor seems happy enough and leaves.
We see the apprentice being caught by a droid.
I know these are aliens, but basic anatomy and science needs to be taught here. You can't survive a penetrating wound right through your body, there's shock and all to be considered, also the distinct lack of blood to the lower limbs caused by the cauterising of the aorta. Don't get me started on explosive decompression, radiation and cold in space either.
Anyway, Back inside the apprentice is healed and Vader tells him that this is all part of the plan. The apprentice is to now go help the rebels and raise an army against the emperor. However, he is to tell no one that he is still working for Vader.
Proxy tells the apprentice that the ship is nearby but they will have to resuce Juno.
We are aboard a star destroyer, Proxy has set it on autopilot into a star and launched all the escape pods, so that no one will be able to tell anyone we are still alive.
Only he didn't wait until we were off the ship first.
Some new stormtroopers here, evo troopers and giant nasty ones.
There is no boss battle at the end of this short level, we come to a room full of troopers of all varieties and Juno is held behind a force field. This took a few goes and much swearing to get past.
The apprentice rescues Juno and they all leave in the Rogue shadow.
Mission 6
The apprentice has a hunch that General Kota may have survived their earlier encounter. He goes looking for him.
We see princess Leia and r2d2 who are the guests of an imperial general on the wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk.
The apprentice has tracked down Kota who is blind and a drunk in a cantina. He asks him for help, however stormtroopers burst in. Both of us have to now make our escape, Kota follows you and seems to hang back at the fighting and hold his own if need be. I hate rescue missions where you have a lame a.i. to babysit, however it seems we can just forget about him and get on with it and he takes care of himself and follows when needed. We seem to be on the cloud city, we make our way through some landing areas and come accross some walker type enemies that hurl objects at us.Also flying troopers
As we are making to the ship an imperial shuttle comes down and one of the emperors elite guards gets out with a few stormtroopers.
After we kill him Kota tells us that he has a contact in the senate that can help us.
There is a really bad checkpoint here, which seems to be a problem this game has for the most part, checkpoints, should come after every major skirmish, they should come before bosses, and if there are stages in the bosses then they should be at each one. Sometimes this game remembers that, but when it wants to make things hard for you it forgets. That is annoyingly inconsistent. I hate having to kill the same easy walkers each time i die on the boss stage. Having to kill them again again makes me want to quit playing.
Mission 7
Kota Brings us to Kashyyyk, looks like we are going to rescue leia.
We see a scene where the apprentice comes to the hut where vader found him as a child, his father appears to him and tells him that he never meant any of this for him and apologies. The apprentice is visibly shaken by this encounter.
We also learn force shield. i forgot to talk about the slow trickle of upgrades that have been coming in level by level.
We now have the ability to throw our lightsabre like a boomerang. Create a bubble of force energy that repulses and damages enemies.
We now encounter new stormtroopers with flamethrowers and shields.
Another walker and huge doors with guards on emplaced guns.
An imperial base to attack, once inside we find the private quarters of the commander. There are some humerous references to the films here with jar jar frozen in carbonite.
Inside we find leia who wants us to destroy the skyhook if she is to trust the apprentice.
Looking at some of the impressive physics damage you can do on this level, the glass cases that house the commanders trophies shatter very nicely, as do the platforms that the imperials snipe from.
Wookies you free here help you by attacking and distracting the troopers. Though they do get in the way a little.
The end of level boss is the commander, who is inside a walker. We have to unhook the skyhook tractor beam, 7 pieces must be disengaged to break it. Each is guarded by gun emplacements and bigger troopers. Once two of them have been unhooked the walker comes out and must be destroyed to finish the level.
Some checkpoints would have been nice.
Mission 8
Now we have a bargaining chip with senator organa, having rescued his daughter we have to find him. Kota can't seems he went looking for shakk-ti to help him. We now have to go back to felucia to resuce him.
Seems that Maris Brood, shakk-ti's apprentice has him captive as insurance if any of Vader's assassins turn up for her.
When we return to felucia the empire have arrived and we are in the middle of a full scale war.
There are a few areas filled with troopers and felucians fighting, some walkers are dropped in to add to the fun.
We then come upon a huge empire base built over a sarlaac pit.
We have to charge 3 stabiliser generators for some unspecified reason.
Once we have charged the three generators which are guarded by a few stormtroopers we are told to search of Organa in the stomach of the Sarlaac???
I run around inside the saraac for a while, it's icky and gooey and rather reminiscent of half life 1, there is a neat area where you seem to be in it's lungs.
There seemed to be a few ways to go here, one time i ended up in a huge area with a hole at the bottom, and after dying i ended up in the lung area. Once in the lungs I was spat out of the beast into a new area with lots of troops and some more rancor beasts.
We finally find organa and Maris turns up with her pet, a horny rancor beast. That's one with spines, not an aroused one by the way.
The rancor fight is quite hard, a matter of staying out of its way until it charges, then getting behind it and slashing and lightning until you wear it's energy down.
Then you get to fight Maris, who isn't that difficult. At the end of the fight the apprentice shows mercy and lets her get away after she promises him to be good.
Organa says that it was a mistake.
Mission 9
We see Kota, Organa and the apprentice talking. It seems that the apprentice and Vader were the ones who actually kickstart the rebellion into motion.
Back on the ship the apprentice talks to Vader. Vader tells him that he must strike at the source of the Emperors power through fear. By destroying the Star destroyer shipyards at Raxus Prime. Juno sees that Vader is still controlling the apprentice and gives him a piece of her mind, all leading to us having to make a choice between our new feelings for our allies and Vader who has been like a father to the apprentice.
Anyway back to Raxus prime.
back to the scrapyard enviroment, with stormtroopers and scraphunters fighting each other. Large areas with many big troopers.
We are told the Proxy has left the ship? wonder where he is going?
Big fight to get at a dropship, wonder why, seems to be no rhyme nor reason to this level. Beginning to lose it a bit and have game objectives rather than story based objectives in this level and the last.
Now after getting a drop ship i presume we have flown in under the radar to the ore plant we now have to attack.
In the ore plant there is a few small machines to break and more troopers to kill.
Proxy comes at us and we have a fight against all the jedi he has in his repetoire. Finally Darth Maul makes an appearance. The fight seems easy compared to the rest, or am i just finally getting the hang of things.
Not the end of the level however, more ore plant to break.
We have to muck up the orbital booster guns aim so that it shoots the raw material into the shipyard rather than near it. We do this and blow it, but a star destroyer comes down to investigate.
Cue a rather annoying sequence where you have to destroy about six tie fighters that are buzzing around you and then force grab the star destroyer and bring it down. The game shows you the most annoying of all quicktime events, the analogue stick shuffle. You have to wiggle the sticks in random directions for around five or six waves of tie fighters to eventually bring it down. The directions are ambiguous at best. Anyway eventually it's down. Proxy is found damaged but we presume well and it's back to the ship.
Mission 10
The apprentice asks Vader to allow him more time to gain the newly forged rebel alliance's trust. Vader agrees. The rebels meet, Mon Mothma, Organa and a few others. Vader appears with his troops, Attacks Kota, and has the others captured. Vader slings a rock table at the apprentice and chucks him out into the snow. The two have a confrontation, which sees the apprentice having been used again, the first time to kill Jedi, the second to gather opponents of the emperor together so they can be easily captured. Vader is about to kill the apprentice when Proxy tries to kill him. Proxy is swiftly despatched and the apprentice uses the distraction to get away.
Juno and the apprentice try and decide what to do next. They decide to rescue the rebel leaders.
The apprentice uses the force to find them and is led to the still being built death star. Juno kisses him as he goes on the mission.
The first area is a huge hanager with almost all types of troopers found so far and walkers, also sniper troopers up on high. I almost managed to defeat everyone in the room once, but died and went back to the start, was about to swear a lot and mark game down for huge difficulty and no checkpoints after big enemies when i found that i only had to rip up a floor panel and escape, not kill everything. Not very clear. Anyway, now we are down in a laser tube and have to make our way along it killing troops and avoiding getting caught by the laser.
Lots of troops and it's a long tube.
Then we come to a bit where we spin stargates around, really annoying.
Now a big area where we have to activate a lift.
once you turn on the lift and get to the emperors observation platform you face five of his personal guards.
After seeing them of you see Palpatine gloating to the captured rebels about their impending execution. Vader sees the apprentice coming and is sent to meet him by palpatine.
Now we are to fight Vader. The vader fight has three stages and is actually quite easy compared to some previous fights.
next we are given a branching ending choice. go fight palpatine and try and save the rebels, or go after vader for revenge.
I choose Palpatine, wish I hadn't as he is rock hard.
Eventually i manage it and palpatine is down. Just as the apprentice is about to deliver the death blow Kota stops him and tells him that he must not strike him down in anger as that is the path back to the dark side. Palpatine siezes his moment and strikes Kota down with lightning. The apprentice fires back and they are locked in a force struggle. The stormtroopers and Vader come back and the apprentice urges Kota to take the rebel leaders and escape. Which they do as they leave There is a huge force explosion and everything goes white. When the mist clears Palpatine is victorious and the apprentice dead. Vader and Palpatine discuss the success or otherwise of the mission, seems the work to root out the rebels has been successful and also damaging at the same time. Palpatine charges Vader to be ruthless in his pursuit of the rebels.
We see the rebels meet and choose a symbol for the newly born alliance.
We see Kota comforting Juno and then the credits roll.
595 achievement points.
just training room challenges, holocrons and the now unlocked harder difficulty level. Also the kill loads of enemies with each move type achievements.
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