Star Wars: Whiny Force-Sensitive Clone Unleashed
I also expected to like the double sabers, but it actually turns this into more of a frantic button masher. There are some very basic combos, but I was used to the old system, which wasn't on the list of things that needed to be improved. The targeting is a little better now, but not as sensitive to the throwing command (quite often I'd just let go of stuff expecting to throw it). The initial Grabbing, however, has improved; it highlights the whole object rather than just a floating a small blue or red reticle over it. Now I can actually catch TIE fighters, plus he then crushes them into a ball for more aerodynamic throwing. The new force lightning looks weird and ugly at first, it's so thick and bright. When you fully upgrade it, it looks amazing, spanning the entire room's enemies. Using it to short out those annoying Jump-trooper's jetpacks is nice, However it doesn't paralyze bigger units anymore or even do much harm which is a step back (thankfully Purge-troopers did not make it over from the first game). I also saw no need to combine the power crystals with color crystals, you have two sabers now, but in order to use the power-crystals, you have to also use the color it's attached to. And there are slight hue variations, so while one is almost pink red, another is almost orange red, very noticeable right next to each other. I'm not against having different color sabers, I just would have liked to attach the powers I wanted to the colors I wanted.
FU2 didn't completely fail, they made what's here very pretty, well designed. The movies are better than the first, but are overshadowed by the sh!t story. The levels are very detailed and full of color, but are overshadowed by lack of variety. There's Kamino, Cato Neimoidia, a rebel ship called " Salvation", and then you go back to Kamino again (oh yeah and you go to Dagobah for like 2 minutes, but there is nothing to fight, it's just for the story's sake). I played this straight through in 4 ½ hours, but at least there was never a place where I was lost for an hour, I always knew what was next. Also very short on enemy variety, it's always imperial troops of some sort (And OMFG I hate those little terror-spider things, not fun fighting them).
When you use sabers on troopers there is a bit of dismemberment now, which was missing from the first, but only the head and more often lower arms can be cut. Still it's better than just beating them with glow sticks like the first game. You will be using sabers more and more by the end, when the force power characters appear who block every force attack you have. The idea is to use the new feature "mind trick" on them, but I often forget I have it. There's a long boring platforming session near the end at Kamino as you are jumping around the facility, but I'll give them some credit for polishing it fairly well, it wasn't as annoying as it could have been. I found I could jump pretty quickly, it was only my fear of failing a jump that made it take so long.
After the game I played the Endor DLC, which as a fan of the Empire, I liked better than the game. I have PURPOSE in the DLC, Juno is the farthest thing from Darkside Starkiller's mind. I was disappointed though that I had to fight both Rebellion and Imperial troops. I loved the first game's Hoth DLC where the empire would blast into the room and back you up. Original Trilogy Rebellion fans beware; you will not like how the DLC goes down.
I also didn't like as many of the costumes in FU2, I liked the TIE flightsuit, the Darkside Starkiller, and old Sith Stalker, and the Sith Acolyte. That's it though. And in the DLC the Dark Lord's Armor, and Malek are cool, I wasn't really a fan of Jedi-Hunter, it looks like an Assassin's creed costume. Han, Ackbar, Skiff-guard Lando are ridiculous and make no sense. ALL the characters they could have given us, too many don't even use sabers or force powers. Yes, Boba Fett is awesome, but why does he have lightsabers?
Overall I say at least wait until the price is around $10 before getting this. With the Collector's edition you get a bigger package, some art, a goofy apprentice flash-drive with pictures on it, 3 extra challenges, and a code for the Deak Starkiller (Ralph McQuarrie's original Luke Concept) costume and dual yellow-sabers. None of it is worth the extra money you would pay, this game is just not deep, or amazing enough to warrant the extra money. Rent this, if a place still exists around you where you can rent games. You'll have some fun for a while and be happy to return it.
Hopefully a third game will continue from the first and we can choose to just overlook this completely.