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Amid all the very exciting announcements and trailer debuts of the Spike Video Game Awards shows (which I was not invited to emcee... again!) there were two sequel surprise mentions that took me by surprise.
Firstly True Crime, the first one was appalling, the second one was abysmal. Talk about the poor messed up inbred cousin of Grand Theft Auto, the True Crime series was by far the worst of the GTA clones that sprang up in the wake of GTA 3 and Vice City. The fact they want to revisit this series is, to me, surprising. The new True Crime game is set in Hong Kong and will feature realistic Hong Kong movie style action. I can definitely see something like Stranglehold work in an open world setting but for now I reserve judgement on this one.
The second and even more surprising announcement, for anyone who played the original game, was the Force Unleashed sequel. To preserve spoilers I've put the rest of this rant after the jump so be ye warned, thar be spoilers a click ahead.
I played through The Force Unleashed and watched both the endings. The good choice ending has the secret apprentice Starkiller die, sacrificing himself for the rebellion. The bad choice ending has Starkiller finish of Darth Vader, to then be crippled and almost killed by Palpatine and then be locked inside the semi android body of a Sith Assassin, as seen in the image above. The bad choice is obviously the one that goes against canon and the expansion DLC for The Force Unleashed has the Vadered up apprentice hunting Luke Skywalker on Hoth, further exploring this alternate Star Wars timeline.
Despite having some dodgy gameplay, such as being able to run through the entire game without fighting anyone except boss encounters, The Force Unleashed tickled me for a few reasons. Being a child of the eighties I remain steadfast in my love of Star Wars (although I have friends who are so badly burnt they refuse to even look at a piece of Star Wars merchandise) and naturally I loved playing as Darth Vader (not like his rubbish appearances in the Battlefield games). Not to mention the fact the Force Unleashed managed to, even tenuously, link the original trilogy to the cash in prequels. It was a solid and enjoyable entry in the Star Wars mythology and was easily more enjoyable than sitting through the Phantom Menace without skipping to the Darth Maul bits. The nods to previous Star Wars games, such as the appearance of the Dark Troopers, were a nice surprise as well.
So how can they make a sequel without cocking up this new and interesting continuity that fits so well with the existing movies and previous games? Maybe not include Starkiller? Well no, as you can see in the trailer below he's definitely there despite very clearly dying in the last game.
For that matter how the heck do these games get sequels when quality IP's are getting dropped and abandoned left and right? I thought times were tough all over, global (but really American) recession and all that. So are these sequels we want? Thoughts?
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Comments
Star wars will probably sell another 4 million units like the first game
Not interested in either to be honest but its nice to see True crime isnt going for the straight up GTA clone formula this time