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Embrace the dark side in SW: The Force Unleashed

DS and PSP versions in the works

Embrace the dark side in SW: The Force Unleashed

It's a frightening thought but 2007 marks the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars film. Perhaps even more amazing however is that those creative types at Lucasarts have managed to come up with yet another scenario to design a game around. At this rate, there's little doubt we'll still be pretending to be Jedi in 2037.

In the case of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, your allegiance is of a distinctly murky kind though – who would have guessed Darth Vader had a secret apprentice?

That's you, that is.

Plot-wise, sandwiched between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, in The Force Unleashed you'll have your work cut out as you run around the universe hunting down fugitive Jedi and Force-sensitive Felucians, amongst other rebel scum.

Locations will include Wookiee homeworld Kashyyyk, the floral Felucia, junk planet Raxus Prime, plus an Imperial TIE fighter construction facility.

As the title suggests, the Force plays a major role in the game. You'll have four main powers to toy with – push, grip, repulse and lightning – which can be combined together for moves of pure evil destructiveness.

Or as Lucasarts puts it: "The Secret Apprentice won't just Force grip foes to throw them aside. He'll Force grip them in midair, zap them with lightning, then drop them to the ground to explode like a bomb."

What a bad boy.

What we're less certain about is how the DS and PSP versions of the game will differ from their big console brothers. For example, Lucasarts is making a big song-and-dance about arcane technologies such as 'Digital Molecular Matter' and 'Euphoria Behavioural Simulation', which are too processor intensive to run on handheld devices.

Hopefully this implies there are different game developers looking after the DS and PSP versions, who will make the most of those handhelds' available power and features, although nothing has yet be confirmed.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is due for release in November, but hit the 'Track It!' button to get breaking news as soon as it's out.

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.