The Force Unleashed is one of the best Star Wars stories in recent memory, delivering a better developed plot and cast of characters than any of the three prequel movies. The concept of Darth Vader raising and training a secret apprentice that will one day help him overthrow Emperor Palpatine is a great concept that’s used to its fullest throughout the course of the game. Unfortunately, the actual gameplay in TFU is pretty good at best and glitchy and broken at worst.

Talking about the story without spoiling it outright is going to be tough, but in a nutshell, you play as Starkiller, Darth Vader’s secret apprentice. Vader sends Starkiller to kill the remaining Jedi who managed to escape the initial Order 66 attack from Episode III. Aiding him in his secret missions are Juno Eclipse, decorated officer for the Empire who pilots Starkiller’s ship, the Rogue Shadow, and Proxy, Starkiller’s training droid whose primary programming dictates that he needs to kill his master, leading to some pretty humorous exchanges. The exchanges between Vader and his apprentice, however, are anything but humorous, as the Dark Lord of the Sith is truly an evil, conniving husk of his former self. More so than in any of the movies, The Force Unleashed really gives insight into how far the former Jedi has fallen.

The art direction goes above and beyond the movies, too. The different planets all feel real and lived in, from the junkyard world of Raxus Prime to Cloud City on Bespin. The tone is certainly dark, perhaps the most of any single Star Wars movie. Individual characters shine thanks to excellent casting and voice acting. Sam Witwer as Starkiller in particular is fantastic, being able to nail both the dramatic scenes and the more lighthearted moments. Jimmy Smits reprises his role as Senator Bail Organa and does as fine a job as he did in Episode III. A large portion of the praise can be attributed to Industrial Light and Magic, as they mocapped the faces of the actors when they read their lines, so the dialog syncs up near perfectly with the character’s mouths.

Okay, so the story in an action game is great and it looks fantastic. Big deal. How does it play? In general, it sucks, thanks to the myriad of glitches that rear their ugly head. For instance, one boss battle, I ended up being trapped under the level, barely being able to hit my opponent. Later on, I had to restart a boss fight twice because he stopped moving and taking damage, which was infuriating since this happened when I’d almost defeated him. There are other glitches I experienced, mostly that involved getting stuck in some nook or cranny, but these weren’t as frustrating. The fact of the matter is the game shouldn’t have been let out of the door with all of these problems in the first place.

When the glitches and bugs didn’t rear their ugly heads, The Force Unleashed could be pretty entertaining. Tearing through waves of Stormtroopers, slamming TIE Fighters into AT-STs, and dueling Jedi is incredibly fun. Even the God of War-style timed button sequences didn’t bother me as much as they usually do because the situations in which they’re used are all incredibly epic, especially the boss fights. The day can’t come soon enough when such kinetic and fast-paced sequences are player-controlled instead of part of a mini-game.

Still, there are problems that exist even when the game is working correctly. In general, every time Starkiller gets knocked over, he takes a ridiculous amount of time to get up. Yeah, the guy who can lay waste to an entire squadron of soldiers and droids with his mind has a rough time getting off of his back, like some kind of killer Yertle the Turtle. This wouldn’t be a problem if every single enemy didn’t converge on your position while you were busy recovering from the ill effects of gravity whilst firing so many lasers and missiles at you. So, so many. The worst indiscretion that this game commits comes during a “boss” battle where you’re trying to pull a Star Destroyer out of the sky with the Force. The fact that Lucasarts managed to make a concept so awesome this painstakingly frustrating is a testament to how wrong things go with The Force Unleashed.

After considering everything, The Force Unleashed would have made a better movie (especially in place of that crappy Clone Wars movie) than it would have a game. Everything good about it involves no input from the player whatsoever. It’s also really short, clocking in at around nine hours for a playthrough. There isn’t even a single other thing to do after completing the main campaign besides going back and playing through the levels again to find the hidden Jedi holocrons and complete the bonus objectives (which, admittedly, is pretty fun for a while). The worst part of it is that if it weren’t for the glitches, The Force Unleashed would be an above average action game. Unfortunately, it gets in its own way most of the time and is a rental at best for even the most die-hard Star Wars fans. Stay away from it. Perhaps even far, far away from it.