A bunch of people got to do a hands-on of the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, among them Destructoid and Kotaku.

If you haven’t heard the premise of The Force Unleashed, you play Darth Vader’s student just before the good movies original trilogy takes place. My limited exposure to the Star Wars extended universe leaves me with the impression that these guys pop up like mosquitos in a stagnant pond.

“Always two hundred there are. A master and a truckload of apprentices.”

The game’s top-billed feature is getting to yank around and/or choke pretty much anyone or anything you want to with the Force, with the teaser movie showing your character pulling a Star Destroyer right out of the sky.

The first impressions articles stop short of giving the games a thumbs up, but the writeups are generally positive. LucasArts must be hoping that trend continues. They’ve sunk a lot of money into the development in this game, and they’re banking on it heavily. The sheer number of products they’re trying to wring out of this is impressive enough. From Wikipedia:

[Star Wars: The Force Unleashed] consists of a video game, a tie-in novel, action figures, a comic book, a reference book and a role-playing game supplement, as well as a book on the making of the game. The game will be available on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, second-generation N-Gage, and PlayStation 2.

(Holy smokes! Someone is still making games for the N-Gage?)

Popularity: 2% [?]