Good News: Shut Up!

Just recently the contents of the Force Unleashed Collector’s Edition were announced.  Slated for release in October, the sequel to the Star Wars title will include a collectible light saber crystal and a Mimobot flash drive of Mr. Starkiller all wrapped up in your typical “steelbook” packaging or whatever the hell they call your typical “collector’s edition” tin packages – all for the price of $79.99.

So do we think it’s worth the cash?  Maybe.  Mimobot flash drives are “designer flash drives” – with an aesthetic appeal that reminds me of designer vinyl toys (kidrobot comes to mind) and usually run a good $30 for a 2GB drive.  The Collectors edition flash drive comes loaded with extra content (digital art book, etc) aside from being a usable device for whatever you want (like backing up your pirated copies of the entire saga for instance.)  So that is certainly one explainable reason for the price of the package.  Aside from that you throw in the collectible lightsaber crystal (no idea what this looks like) and flash drive there will also be three additional challenges and an alternate skin for the protagonist  based on concept art of Deak Starkiller.

In terms of actual content and packaging, this seems fairly priced given that a typical big deal title on consoles runs a good $60 – throw in a $30 flash drive and you have a $90 value already plus extra features in nice packaging.  This is probably more at home with a Star Wars fan so you’re not going to want to shell out the dough unless you’re invested in Lucas’s Cash Empire (not to be confused with the Empire featured in the game, though there are startling parallels…)

In terms of the actual game? Who knows?  Gamers seem split when it comes to the first game in the series.  The story of the original “Force Unleashed”  has been widely praised though the decision to continue the story with a clone of Starkiller (who has memories from the original) strikes me as a bit hokey.  Gameplay wise, the first was also panned in regards to the controls, mechanics, and camera but despite criticism it still had a decent following.  Reviews seemed to average out at 70-75 out of 100 in terms of score.  If they improve the gameplay mechanics and get working on the little things that brought down the original then we might have a winner.

Bottom line is that this is a title to keep your eye on and with more footage of the game on the way at E3 it might start making a stir.