Chances are, if you own a next gen console, you haven’t checked out Star Wars the Force Unleashed for your PSP.  Well, you are sorely missing out on one of the best games I’m seen pop up on that platform.  It seems Lucasarts has been able to Force push all of the awesome action from the console game into a bite size PSP package that not only plays great, but offers a much more family friendly God of War style Star Wars Force weilding experience that you don’t have to hide from your children.  As a side note, the events of the story have been deemed official Star Wars cannon, and are chronicled in both a Dark Horse Publications comic book graphic novel, and a novel penned by the story’s author, Seam Williams.  The novel, by the way, is also the only place you will be able to learn the Apprentice’s true name, although why this was done remains a mystery to me.

For those of us that are not rabid Star Wars fans, or those who have just emerged from the Bio-dome (NO weezing the ju-u-uice!)Force Unleashed chronicles the story of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice,the man codenamed “Starkiller”.  The story in the game falls between Episodes II and IV, following after the birth of Darth Vader, the fall of the Jedi and the Old Republic and the birth of the Empire.  While the Empire works to eradicate the last of the Jedi, and contain the planetary systems of the galaxy under it’s thumb, Darth Vader is summoned to the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk, where it is believed one of the remaining Jedi has survived.  It is here that the game opens, as you control Vader in the opening level. (more…)