Star Wars TFU: Review

It happened only 1 hour ago. We (the devil himself, Wolfgang Teufl) have finally mastered the big boss of the game ;). Approx. 12h of pure gaming-time with heavy use of “the force”. For me, the best Star Wars game ever, especially because of the story. I always liked games with a nice accompanying story and if the game is called “Star Wars” it is maybe one of the most important things.

If the story sucks, the complete game is useless. But, in TFU every fan of the series would love the attention to detail, discovering known characters and the total immersion into the Star Wars universe.

The game itself is well designed and for me the matte-paintings are one of the most beautiful ever seen. The graphics-engine makes heavy use of post-effects, especially distortion(waves, heat-waves, etc.) every time you use the force. The force is great to handle, HAVOC physic-engine allows you to put up nearly every piece from walls and floors. Breaking wood, glass and bend metal are features you will need very often if you want to go safe threw the levels.

One thing that is very annoying and some magazines and posts in different forums also have mentioned it, is the 3rd person camera. 3rd person is ok and in most cases i would prefer it, instead of a 1st person one, but for players it is much more difficult to play, if the camera is not perfectly balanced and intelligent enough to avoid crappy perspectives. F.e. Assasins Creed has a very similar way of looking at this problem. A lots of narrow lanes and corners and they have done their job much better than the guys from Star Wars TFU. Hopefully there will be an update on this issue, so i could enjoy the game 100% for the next time, when i will play it as a “Sith-Master” ;).

For me, already now, one of the best games in 2008.