Star Wars games have always been a little bit hit and miss; for every Knights of the Old Republic there's a Masters of the Teras Kazi, for every Jedi Knight there's a Star Wars: Galaxies. The Force Unleashed is different from its less than illustrious brethren, as it's an official slice of George Lucas' epic space opera.

Set between episodes III and IV, the game tells the story of Darth Vader's secret apprentice, the imaginatively named Starkiller, and features plenty of familiar faces along the way. Alongside its proud canonical position, The Force Unleashed, as the title suggests, is also the first game to let you use the force the way you've always wanted to; to throw Stormtroopers, Wookiees and various other aliens and objects hundreds of feet into the air. Then electrocute them. Then stab them with your lightsaber. Then drop them off a cliff. But for all its story and style, is there enough substance here to keep you cutting a swathe of destruction through the galaxy? Is this an Empire Strikes Back or an Attack of the Clones? Saddle up your Wampa, pull on your cloak and, remember, boredom is the path to the dark side.

I'm not going to spoil the story of The Force Unleashed for you; that would just be mean, because the story is one of the best things about this game. What I will say is that you do get to meet Princess Leia and Bale Organa, and that, yet again, it's a droid that steals the show. PROXY, your sidekick and communication device is one of the funniest and most original characters in the game, as well as being responsible for one of its biggest surprises. Unlike the staid and lifeless prequels and the toy advert that was the animated Clone Wars movie, The Force Unleashed actually feels like Star Wars, with the same thrill and mystery that made the originals such classics. Whilst the game doesn't hold any real emotional clout, it's still good to see the developers placing as much emphasis on story as they do on action. There are some scenes that are more than worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster and, by the end, even the most cynical amongst us will have a special place in their heart for at least one of the characters. It's by no means perfect and in some places it's predictable, but the script and the voice acting are by far the tightest in a Star Wars game. As a piece of interactive entertainment, the Force Unleashed sets it standard high and more often than not it doesn't disappoint.

The game begins with a prologue level that allows you to play as Darth Vader, making for an excellent introduction to the core force mechanics of the game, letting you loose from the outset before forcing you to earn back your powers as Starkiller. You can't customise your character in any way, which niggles a bit, considering you're left with an avatar who looks very much like all the other male, shaven headed grunts that are starring in video games nowadays. The controls are simple and effective, with the right trigger controlling your force grip, the left allowing you to block and use more powerful force powers, and the face buttons handling lightsaber combat, force push, force jump and later on force lightning. Powers, combos and attributes are handled by a simple levelling up system that allows you to unlock new attacks as you progress. It doesn't take too long to pick up the system; within a few minutes you'll be throwing droids out of starship windows, choking rebels and stormtroopers alike and flourishing your lightsaber like Yoda on speed.

Graphically the game starts off magnificently, with the opening level on the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyyk a master class in next-gen flair. Sadly, the quality isn't kept up for the rest of the game; whilst the first time you visit each planet is often breathtaking, the second time around, when the Empire has taken over, everything turns brown and dull. It's a shame - and a shame that could have been avoided with more imagination and a design team who were willing to take a few more risks. The Force powers themselves are impressive; force push makes the air ripple and distort, force lightning crackles and bursts and your lightsaber flashes and arcs with the kind of grace we've come to expect from Star Wars. The music and sound effects are classic Star Wars and add an extra air of authenticity to proceedings and, as mentioned before, the voice acting is impressive to say the least. The whole package has the level of polish you'd expect from a Star Wars game and whilst the visuals lose inspiration, they're never anything short of solid from a technical point of view.

There's always a decent crop of enemies for you to deal with, some of which are visually stunning and others of which are not. There's really only so many times you can kill a stormtrooper and whilst making them big and black sounds pretty cool, eventually you'll begin to tire of the slaughter. The robots you fight on the junk planet level are by far the best looking aspect of an already attractive game; formed from the scrap around them, they clank and creak, all rust and menace. Later on you'll fight Rancors painted neon, AT-STs, rogue Jedi and even seven-foot tall plant people. Sadly, there's rarely any different tactics required to take down new foes and unless you consciously try to keep things interesting, you'll often end up just using the same combo over and over again.

A lot of the hype around the Force Unleashed was centred around its use of physics; objects and characters react the way they would in real life when you hit them, or in this case, when you throw them three hundred feet into the air. The physics engine doesn't add any authenticity to the proceedings but it amps up the fun even further. Dangling a stormtrooper over a cliff only to pull him back, arms and legs writhing like entangled snakes, and then drop him into a pile of explosive barrels, is a truly joyous experience. You'll spend a lot of time just playing around; what can I bend, what can I break, how far can I throw that, does that explode? It's this experimentation that makes the game so enjoyable and I can unashamedly admit to spending many an hour just throwing things at other things to see what would happen.

The Force Unleashed is a short game; it'll take you no more than six hours to finish, but if you're a completist then playing through more than once is going to be essential. There are holocrons to collect, achievements to complete and secrets such as new costumes to discover. Another couple of hours of playing time wouldn't have hurt, but the overall decline in imagination by the end of the game suggests that perhaps it's for the best that it ends when it does.

The Force Unleashed is, in parts at least, a spectacularly fun game; there are times when the action is so fast and frenetic that you feel out of breath and slightly relieved when a lull finally comes. There are other times, however, when you feel like giving the whole thing up as a bad job. Platform sections are ill conceived and aimless, leaving you fumbling around in the relative dark. The boss battles are throwbacks to simpler times and for some reason insist on fixing the normally free camera in an awkward raised position that can leave you unsighted at crucial points in the fight. Worst of all, a later, much vaunted section, where you pull down a Star Destroyer using the force is one of the dullest, worst implemented sequences in any big game of recent years; turning what should have been the game's central set piece into a slow motion rhythm action mini-game is a decision that should not just be laughed at, it should be tied in a sack and thrown into an icy river. Quite how game testing didn't reveal how fist-clenchingly poor the section is beyond me, but replacing it with a cut scene would have been simple and far less embarrassing.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is flawed, cursed with anti-climaxes and a sprinkling of disappointment. It's not the game we all hoped it was going to be, it doesn't reinvent anything, it's certainly not original and the main tenant upon which its sold - that you can 'kick ass with the force' - is often forgotten in favour of tedium and annoyance. However, and this is a big 'however', there's a truly exceptional game lying beneath the flaws and mistakes. When The Force Unleashed gets it right, it does so in astounding fashion. There are times when you feel like a force-wielding messiah, destroying all in your path with a wave of your hand and a flash of your laser sword. Yes it falters sometimes, it's too short, it fails to deliver on some of its promise, but when it's at its glorious best, when the blood's pumping and the bodies are flying, The Force Unleashed is one of the best Star Wars experiences you could ever hope to have. Even when things are going badly and giving in is becoming a possibility, a desire to find out what happens in the end takes over and pulls you through. The Force Unleashed is far from perfect, but it's definitely Star Wars, it's definitely fun and, if you're a fan of the franchise, it's definitely worth the money.

Reviewed by Harry Slater for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).

Read external STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED reviews on ciao.