Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/18/review-star-wars-jedi-fallen.html
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I just hope they didn’t go overboard with ridiculously superpowered characters like they did with The Force Unleashed.
I mean, Luke was supposed to be some kind of Force prodigy and he had to concentrate to pick up a lightsaber. Yoda was one of the most powerful Jedi of all time and he had to take a moment to get in the zone to slowly lift an X-Wing. The Emperor was even more powerful than Yoda and it clearly took at least a little effort to do his force-lightning thing. But now this Galek kid can wrap huge spaceships in charges of force lightning and toss them around like pebbles? I call nonsense.
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Naw, this is much more movie tie-in kinda thing. Cal is a strong Force user but no Vader.
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I’m glad you’re enjoying it, i’ve heard good things so far. Personally i don’t buy/play EA games because i disagree with how they operate, but i’m certainly happy they’ve finally made a SW game that wasn’t just a lazy cash-in.
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Combat is a very controlled, paced experience like a Souls game with force powers usually used for crowd control or something like that. Very much in line with the new canon’s style of Jedi combat and capability.
It’s also interesting because these Clone Wars era jedis are talking about how the force is different than it used to be, and Cal basically has PTSD that means he’s starting from the ground up with his force powers. (not really a spoiler it’s within minutes of the game starting, plus it’s in the larger lore at this point - one of the new canon mysteries type things).
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That was sort of the point of the thing though. IIRC there was a whole action figure line, trading cards, and I seem to remember some comics or something. Idea seemed to be an alternate version of Star Wars where the force was Anime level blow shit up.
There was the game related project itself but I recall some earlier stuff, late 90’s early 00’s, by a different name. basically “look at this Darth Vader figure he has muscles and is covered in lightning”.
Got the impression they spent a decade or so chasing things like Spawn (LIGHTNING instead of CHAINS) and then certain types of Anime. And Force Unleashed was the last, most concerted push. It worked pretty well for a smashy action game, but it rapidly became dumb as rocks.
Fallen Order is apparently a straight up RPG though (which sort of surprised me cause it didn’t look like it). I don’t think basically force exploding 12 guys heads and throwing star ships at people would have worked.
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I’m with you on the disagreeing on how EA operates, and almost didn’t pick this up because of them. But then I thought maybe – just maybe – if this sells well it will lure them away from the dark side of microtransactions, loot boxes, and all the other bullshit that plagues their games.
And perhaps, in this idyllic world where EA has learned that single player games can be profitable, Trump is in jail, white supremacists are back in hiding, and President Warren has followed through with single payer healthcare, at that point EA will put out an actual sequel to Dungeon Keeper 2 that isn’t a freemium mess.
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I certainly don’t wish for EA to fail and i do hope they’re on their way of running a less predatory business (and not treat their employees/studios like trash), i’m genuine when i say that i’m glad that this current SW game is doing well. I still don’t plan to buy it but i hope that at some point in the future i can see myself excited to buy an EA game
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I don’t think that’s really the issue. Cause it’s not as if EA’s past single player games haven’t been (incredibly) profitable. Its that they’re convinced that they can be even more profitable if laden down with slot machine derived gambling mechanics, micro-transactions and sales techniques borrowed from free to play and mobile time wasters.
The problem is that EA makes stupid money off their yearly sports releases, all of which are basically single player games with online modes. And which have made exponentially more money as they were loaded down with the horse shit. And its an old problem, before it was online play and loot boxes it was yearly releases. The big EA scuttle butt back in the day was trying to force everything into yearly iterative releases. And forcing that on shooters worked like gang busters, all your biggest non-sports releases are yearly variations on Call of Battle Operations: Murder Edition. And now both those and the sports series are lining pockets with all the nickel and diming. So…
This is a company that looks at that and says “Hey, why isn’t this slow paced conversation simulator made by Canadians with Phds an iterative yearly release with an online mode and gambling code?”. They just don’t understand the concept of market segmentation, demographics, that a diverse portfolio is a strong portfolio, that making a profit on something isn’t a problem just because it didn’t make more profit. The thought process seems to be “Madden bought me a Ferrari last year, how do I get more Maddens?”
Which hey that’s fine. Plenty of people like those games. But EA spent an awful lot of time and money acquiring stuff that was pointedly not that. And, uh, the Madden and Battlefield guys seem to be getting pretty sick of that shit too.
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Fair enough. I just know when they resume making those kinds of games I’ll resume not buying them. That, and I really would like a good, single player, non-additionally-monitized, sequel to Dungeon Keeper 2.
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