Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Wii)

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Perhaps our hopes were misplaced, but you won't be able to wield a lightsaber with the Wii Remote like we had dreamed.

Waaaay back in September last year I wrote an article titled: "Lightsabers on Wii: Will it work?". It was in response to the announcement that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed would be coming to the Wii as well as the next-gen consoles. We were told that exclusive to the Wii version, developed by Krome Studios, would be a duel mode allowing players to use the Wii Remote in a head-to-head lightsaber battle with their friends. The Nunchuck would be used to control the player's Force powers.

At the time, I got extremely excited. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I wrote, like a child with a £5 note in a sweet shop. "I'm thinking epicness, the trademark sound effects of the lightsaber booting up and humming in the air coming out of the Wii Remote speaker as you casually wave the wand, and those Force chokes, oh yes, Force chokes, implemented by slowly raising the Nunchuck."

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At the time, only hope fuelled my science fiction wet dream, hope and a quote from Jim Ward, president of LucasArts: "The Wii is a great platform for The Force Unleashed, because the console's motion-oriented controllers really bring the game to life. We've worked hard to make the Wii version of the game unique in order to truly let you unleash the Force."

Last week I Force Dashed my way to a trendy London club, complete with stalking Darth Vader and imposing Storm Troopers, to finally get my sweaty palms on a Wii Remote and Nunchuck to see if that hope, hope that has been burning in my body for half a year, would be realised.

The first thing to say is that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed does not work in the way some of us thought the Wii might when it was first unveiled. When you wave about the Wii Remote the Secret Apprentice does not mimic your actions and wave about his lightsaber. But then we are more schooled in the way the Wii works now. We know its motion sensing technology does not provide a virtual reality-style mirroring of the player's movements. As with all its games, movement of the Wii Remote and the Nunchuck simply triggers in-game animations. The Force Unleashed on Wii is no different.

The graphics are obviously not as good on the Wii, but the gameplay is sound.

So with that perhaps unrealistic ideal dashed, we are left with the simple question: is it shaping up to be any good? What cannot be disputed is that Krome has done an admirable job of eeking out as much from the Wii as it can. While the Xbox 360 and PS3 owners will enjoy a Star Wars game overloaded with cutting edge technology, including Digital Molecular Matter and Euphoria linked together with the Havok physics engine, Wii-owners will have to make do with a game that hasn't got any of that fancy processor-pushing stuff. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's no less of a technical showcase. Instead the game uses its own physics solution to get the best out of Nintendo's console. The graphics aren't as good, obviously, but the next-gen gameplay is reassuringly recreated.

The Jedi Temple level, one exclusive to the Wii version of the game, is a case in point. The Secret Apprentice darts about the place, causing havoc with the Force in a similar fashion to the next-gen version, except without the realistically destructible environments or the Storm Troopers holding hands as they fly about. Attacks are triggered with directional slices of the Wii Remote, and they can be combined with Nunchuck Force Powers to create nice combos. It all looks, for all intents and purposes, as good as you might expect a third-person Star Wars game could on the Nintendo Wii.

As an added bonus, Wii-owners will be able to enjoy killing Storm Troopers and Imperial guards that won't be found in the other versions. The Jedi Temple level climaxes with a boss fight with a long dead Sith called Dark Desolous, again, a fight exclusive to the Wii version. Like the 360 and PS3 versions, cinematic quick time event finishing moves are in, which require you to move the Nunchuck and Wii Remote in tandem with on screen instructions. Very nice.

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