Top 10 Things We Want from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
by Tom Burns

6. Shaming the Wookie Race

We know the Wookiees and their home planet of Kashyyyk make an appearance in The Force Unleashed, and, in the Vanity Fair article, the reporter, Frank DiGiacomo, describes Adam Piper, a designer for the game, controlling Darth Vader throwing down with Chewbacca's brethren on a rickety rope bridge. He writes, "As the Wookiees begin to charge across the bridge, Piper mashes buttons and summons up a ball of Force energy that, in a nice artistic touch, withers the plant life beneath Vader’s boots. Then, pushing another button, he hurls that energy at the furry, fanged Wookiees. A bunch of them go flying off into space, causing the D.M.M.-enabled bridge to start rippling like a water bed. This sends more Euphoria-infused Wookiees toppling over the sides while those that remain struggle to regain their balance." Sounds cool, eh? But isn't that a little obvious? Why not go after the Wookies where they're the most vulnerable? Their egos. We want the option to challenge every Wookiee on Kashyyyk to that holographic chess game we saw on the Millenium Falcon and, after we use the Force to cheat and win, we get to shave them in front of their own people and make them walk home, cold and ashamed. Having the Force unleashed could work just as well with psychological warfare, if you do it right.

7. The Tatooine Emancipation Proclamation

This is more a story issue than a game play issue, but - didn't everyone who saw The Phantom Menace assume that Anakin was eventually going to return to Tatooine to free all the slaves? Was it just us or did they really hammer home that plot threat in Episode I and then never return to it again? In Attack of the Clones, we half-expected Anakin's mom, as she lay dying, to say: "What took you so long? Jedi school never gives you a weekend off? I told all my Mahjong friends that my son, you know, the midi-chlorian chosen one, was going to come home and free all the slaves, but noooo...." If the lead character in the game is Darth Vader's secret apprentice, who's doing clandestine, off-the-books jobs for the Sith Lord, why not get a little nostalgic and send the dark padawan to your home planet and have him take care of some old business?

8. Death Pod-Race 3000

There have been a million pod-racing video games since Phantom Menace hit the big screen, but with unrestricted Force powers, the Tatooine racing circuit could get a hell of a lot more interesting. We're envisioning something akin to the recent Speed Racer trailers. Pod-racers that can flip upside down, defy physics, and come complete with a full-range of anti-competition weapons. Granted, being down with the Force doesn't automatically make you a card-carrying grease-monkey, but imagine jumping from racer to racer, mid-race, steering your craft with the Force while you take out your competitors with your bare hands. Or if you're not down with the pod-racing, imagine the ultimate speeder-bike pursuit with the same powers at your fingertips. Push your pursuers off their rides, auto-pilot while you shoot at your enemies, pick up an Ewok and throw him into the turbine of the bike behind you... it could be so cool.

9. Jamming with Sy Snoodles and the Max Rebo Band

Use your ability to tap into the Force to win first prize at the best damn karaoke jammy-jam the Mos Eisley Cantina has ever seen! C'mon, Rock Band and Guitar Hero are HUGE nowadays. It'd be great, right? Right? Hello?

10. Emperor Palpatine and You: Mano-a-Mano

Talk about your ultimate end boss. In our dreams, the Force Unleashed would end with a final battle versus Palpatine himself that would make his Senate floor brawl with Yoda look like a slap-and-tickle fight. We're thinking of something more like the Neo vs. Agent Smith battle at the end of Matrix: Revolutions. We don't want to fight the Emperor with our lightsabers or have him just throw some lame bolts of lightning at us. We want to use the Force to fly into the air and take him down like a freakin' superhero. If we have the ability to Force-grab Star Destroyers, an old pro like Palpatine should be able to toss skyscrapers at us like they were dodgeballs. Fine, his melees with Mace Windu and Yoda left him pretty winded and disfigured, but we want this final battle to show us how he turned into the twisted old hag he became by the end of Return of the Jedi. If you name a game "The Force Unleashed", then, at least at the very end, you need to give the player a taste of god-like power and let him or her go head-to-head with someone just as powerful. So let's just see how "unleashed" this game really is.