It makes some marked improvements over its predecessor which shouldn’t be ignored; The game handles and looks better, sometimes significantly. Sadly even at 5 hours-ish the campaign doesn’t sustain itself, both the major boss battles that appear at the halfway and end point of the game drag on for too long whilst the story is even less interesting than the first game - Starkiller and co are not at all compelling characters here.
The usual suspects from John Williams’ timeless scores are welcome and even the original composer Mark Griskey gives Gordy Haab a run for his money as the most natural heir to the Star Wars Music Throne. Beneath all this remains a game that is fundamentally unimpressive, Starkiller doesn’t feel particularly intuitive to control and that pesky delay between pressing jump and him actually jumping lingers on to present us with a serviceable jump animation instead of a tight control response.
This series desperately needed to feel like OG God of War but with lightsabers and the force (the 10 uninteresting challenge rooms are all the evidence you need that this was the idea). Instead, The Force Unleashed dies here with 2 deeply average titles under its belt, them being Star Wars entities their only truly worthwhile quality (and with that, your mileage may vary).