The Force Unleashed Duel Mode explored

Last night, my son had two friends for a sleepover, and they had the chance to put the duel mode in The Force Unleashed through its paces. Sure, I jumped in and beat up a couple of 9 year olds.

What I first thought was an uninteresting mode is in fact pretty good. I’m not sure like that you have to unlock the duel mode characters by playing the campaign, but there is a bit of variation among the characters. Each character is rated [albeit non-numerically but with just a graph] in four areas–lightsaber, force grip, force push, and lightning. After several rounds, it was obvious that some players prefer certain weapons and strategies and that certain characters fight those powers better than others.

Force lightning seems the most powerful of powers–if you can’t use it well or don’t use it, you rarely win. This is perhaps a fault of the game because I’m not sure that it should be powerful. As the rounds went by, the kids and I realized that force grip/choke was a powerful tool, as well. Surprisingly, lightsabers were rarely a determiner in the duels, although everyone frequently used them.

What really makes the mode, however, are the powerups.

• Invincibility [short duration] [green diamond]
• Improved force power [yellow cube]
• Improved lightsaber damage [red pyramid]
• Unlimited force power [blue octogon]
• Reinforcements [we've only seen 1 helper, like a storm trooper] [gold disc]
• Health

You have 27 characters available for duel mode [most of which must be unlocked via campaign mode]:

1. Apprentice [Bounty Hunter Disguise]
2. Apprentice [Corellian Flight Suit]
3. Apprentice (Father’s Robes]
4. Apprentice [Light Training Gear]
5. Apprentice [Training Gear]
6. Apprentice (Raxus Prime Survival Gear]
7. Apprentice [Sith Robes]
8. Apprentice [Jungle Combat Gear]
9. Apprentice [Industrial Explorer Outfit]
10. Apprentice [Ultimate Good - light side ending]
11. Qui-Gon Jinn
12. Obi-Wan Kenobi
13. Anakin Skywalker
14. Darth Vader
15. Luke Skywalker [Episode IV]
16. Luke Skywalker [Episode VI]
17. Mace Windu
18. Apprentice [Ultimate Evil - dark side ending]
19. Shaak Ti
20. Darth Maul
21. Count Dooku
22. Asajj Ventress
23. Master Rahm Kota
24. Aayla Secura
25. Mara Jade
26. Darth Phobos
27. Maris Brood

In the area selection screen, you can set a couple of options:

• Select 1-5 victories to define the duel winner.
• Set the time limit to 3 minutes or unlimited.
• Select from 9 arenas:
  • In orbit – Tie construction yard *
  • Coruscant – Jedi Temple
  • Rexus Prime – Junkyard *
  • Bespin – carbonite chamber*
  • Kashyyyk – wookie village *
  • Geonosis – colossem
  • Hoth – battlefield
  • Tatooine – Ben’s Hovel
  • Felucia – Sarlacc Pit *

* These arenas have environments in which a character be hurt or killed, such as a pit or lava.

Unfortunately, I think one or more of the following would have greatly enhanced the duel mode:

• Online play
• Arena editing and sharing
• More unlockable arenas
• Options for fine-tuning the duel, such controlling the available power-ups or perhaps even limiting available force powers

I think it would have been good to include the kind of fun mods and mutators we saw in games like Unreal Tournament. But the reality is that Krome is working on Star Wars the Clone War – Lightsaber Duels. So, it’s no surprised that Krome furnished The Force Unleashed with just a basic duel mode. Unfortunately, with such a paucity of details about Lightsaber Duels, it’s hard to tell if it will indeed have more features than the duel mode of The Force Unleashed. As far as we know now, it won’t have as many characters [10 vs 27].

Regardless, dueling is a nice additional mode that is more fun than it first appears. At first our duels were over rather quickly, but once we took the time to learn the powerups and the arenas, our duels lasted longer, although none of them were powerful enough to determine the outcome in and of themselves.