If you frequent NJOE, hopefully you’ve heard of the recent site-wide The Force Unleashed reviews we’ve been publishing. So far, two out of three parts have been posted; the first one, the novelization review and then the second comic review part. But alas, some people likely have not read it yet; whether the reason for this is that they just don’t know about it or they haven’t taken the time to read it isn’t known, but in case you have missed it and are still interested in checking it out, we can fill you in on what’s happened so far!

First off, these are not ordinary reviews; NJOE has taken a unique approach to these with something we’ve never done before. Instead of simply writing the opinions of the authors like a regular review, we’ve intertwined an original story with the review parts. It’s fun to read and offers a nice spin on the usual reviews we have up.

The story segment starts off with the Man In Black (Iurus’s character) being held captive in a cage upon the Death Star. The only thing he can do is read the book that he has in his cell: The Force Unleashed novelization. After he finishes it, however, the Sith Lord keeping him prisoner - Starthriller - arrives, and after the Man in Black is tortured for a time, he gains back enough strength to fight Starthriller. Though the mysterious Sith Lord is not defeated, the Man in Black is able to escape his prison. He runs for the hanger, but when he reaches it, he stumbles and trips (much to his frustration, obviously). He’s then re-captured by Starthriller and knocked out.

At the same time, the review part of this all discusses the novelization, which Iurus (the author) feels did it’s job, but still isn’t a great read due mostly to the writing and story (the latter which he doesn’t think is improved at all from the game, including the plot holes).

We now go to the second part of the story, with Kirr landing on the Death Star and having to fight PROXY. After the droid is defeated, Kirr finds the Man in Black being forced to experience TFU’s story in different forms - a very bad torture to be sure. They speak for a time about the TFU graphic novel but are interrupted when Starthriller arrives. The Sith Lord and Kirr fight, with the latter being able to cut the hilt of Starthriller’s lightsaber in half. However, this does not incapacitate the Sith Lord for long; Starthriller begins using the dark side energies against Kirr and the Man in Black. The former tries to charge Starthriller, but is unable to follow through with the attack, succumbing to unconsciousness.

For the reviewing part of this, Kirr thinks that The Force Unleashed graphic novel serves it’s purpose well, but it isn’t a very deep story and that there are many missed opportunities. The art, however, he feels is very good. Iurus agrees but feels the Maris Brood artwork is terrible, and that some of the story points brought up in the comic simply don’t make sense.

Part 3, being written now, will feature Iron Fist’s character as well as his opinion on The Force Unleashed for the Xbox 360. Iurus will also be offering some of his thoughts on the PS2 version of TFU. The story will conclude in the finale, so be sure to keep an eye out for that hopefully within the next couple of days!