- guardian.co.uk, Saturday September 27 2008 00.01 BST
- The Guardian, Saturday September 27 2008
The Force Unleashed
PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360 (reviewed)
While previous Star Wars games have given you control of a lightsaber, none of them managed to make you feel particularly powerful, and nearly all have been awful. Unleashed sets itself apart by handing you Force powers that manage to feel quite big and dangerous, so even though its lightsabers are as puny as ever, you're left with a sensation of being able to perpetrate bad things - as a Sith this is important. Battles consist of any number of enemies hurling themselves towards you for dicing or dispatch by Force powers, while levels feature the mix of starship interiors and alien worlds that will be familiar if you're enough of a Star Wars geek. Held back from greatness by repetitive and nuance-free combat, Unleashed still supplies lightweight entertainment firmly aimed at the casual gamer.
• Activision, £30-£45
Pipe Mania
Nintendo DS (reviewed), PC, PS2, PSP
With a tap at one end and a drain at the other, each of revived classic Pipe Mania's levels fires you a random selection of plumbing parts, which you need to assemble into a coherent maze of pipes, guiding effluent and, later, electricity from source to end point. The journey is complicated by increasing numbers of obstacles and more stringent requirements on the length of piping that must be laid to gain even a shameful bronze ranking, marking a gentle progress through its gradually more complex levels. There's a superfluous story about seeing off a rival called Buffalo Bonzo; the music is, frankly, agonising; and the graphics might charitably be described as workmanlike. For all that (and using the DS stylus), it offers moments of tension and the odd desire to keep trying to improve, but lacks that elusive magic.
• Empire, £20
