14 DAY TRIAL // LucasArts must be pleased with the Apprentice, the main character of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. After all, with his reverse lightsaber grip, Jedi mind tricks and Force based Dark and Light powers, he managed to attract more than 5.7 million gamers to the title. Most reviewers didn't praise the game, noting that the premise was strong, while the execution often lacked finesse. The title is a success for the developer, who might just create a sequel.
The game initially shipped for the PlayStation 3 console from Sony and for the Xbox 360 from Microsoft. The title also arrived, in slightly different incarnations, on the Nintendo Wii, the DS, the iPod, the iPhone and other mobiles devices.
The game established several records. Its demo was the most downloaded on the Xbox 360, breaking the one million barrier, while becoming, in its first week, the fastest ever selling game based on a Star Wars theme. It also won an award, from the Writers Guild of America, for “storytelling excellence in video games.”
LucasArts used the game as the top of the spear in pushing other merchandise related to Star Wars. During the holiday, the toys based on the movies enjoyed the biggest sales for the franchise since the release of the first movie in the series, while novels based on the intellectual property also registered a jump in sales. Star Wars appears to be more popular than ever.
Of course, the big question now is whether LucasArts is thinking of creating another videogame based on Star Wars. 2010 will see the company release a MMO, called The Old Republic, which is created in collaboration with BioWare. But this game, as the name implies, is based on the Old Republic setting that BioWare has fleshed out in the KOTOR series, so there seems to be plenty of space in the marketplace for another game set somewhere between the movies in the Star Wars series.