I've written at length about my love of Star Wars. It's not a blind love - Star Wars isn't perfect, I had big issues with the ending of The Last Jedi, most of the novels and comics I can take or leave, and I think the prequels are just plain weird.
Yet it's a love that won't ever really fade, because it has been part of me since I was a child; the world building, the hardware, the sheer wealth of imagination. To me, it always felt so tactile and real, a world I could inhabit. With true love, we can forgive so much.
What I really want is the definitive Star Wars video game that we've never really had... and I'm not convinced, despite it receiving a broadly positive response off the back of its E3 showing, that Jedi Fallen Order is it.
Electronic Arts has, of course, spectacularly mishandled the Star Wars license. Battlefront was pretty good, but what everyone said they wanted was a single-player Star Wars game - one which told a story we could become invested in.
Instead, what we got was Battlefront 2, a multiplayer shooter that felt rushed, was stuffed to the uvula with loot boxes, and had a tacked-on single player mode that felt like an afterthought.
Amid all this, EA closed down the Star Wars game that was being created by Amy Hennig - the former creative director of Naughty Dog - which had very much looked to be the Star Wars game everyone was clamouring for.
And now we have Fallen Jedi, a "metroidvania" set five years after Revenge of the Sith, but looks very much in the vein of Force Unleashed; a two-game series that had its moments, but was ultimately rather forgettable.
Yet it's a love that won't ever really fade, because it has been part of me since I was a child; the world building, the hardware, the sheer wealth of imagination. To me, it always felt so tactile and real, a world I could inhabit. With true love, we can forgive so much.
What I really want is the definitive Star Wars video game that we've never really had... and I'm not convinced, despite it receiving a broadly positive response off the back of its E3 showing, that Jedi Fallen Order is it.
Electronic Arts has, of course, spectacularly mishandled the Star Wars license. Battlefront was pretty good, but what everyone said they wanted was a single-player Star Wars game - one which told a story we could become invested in.
Instead, what we got was Battlefront 2, a multiplayer shooter that felt rushed, was stuffed to the uvula with loot boxes, and had a tacked-on single player mode that felt like an afterthought.
Amid all this, EA closed down the Star Wars game that was being created by Amy Hennig - the former creative director of Naughty Dog - which had very much looked to be the Star Wars game everyone was clamouring for.
And now we have Fallen Jedi, a "metroidvania" set five years after Revenge of the Sith, but looks very much in the vein of Force Unleashed; a two-game series that had its moments, but was ultimately rather forgettable.
HENNIG HOUSE
After Amy Hennig's Star Wars game was cancelled, she blamed the cost of development - and EA's worries that those costs would not be recouped.
Speaking to Polygon, she opined: "There is also this trend now that, as much as people protest and say, 'Why are you canceling a linear, story-based game? This is the kind of game we want. People aren’t necessarily buying them. They’re watching somebody else play them online.
"If it costs you, say, $100 million or more to make a game, how are you making that money back, and making a profit?"
It's a fair point, and - despite the vocal talents of actual Star Wars actor Forest "Gump" Whittaker - nothing I've seen of Jedi Fallen Order suggests it's a $100 million game.
That said, the studio behind Jedi Fallen Order, Respawn Entertainment, was also responsible for Titanfall 2, which had one of the best single-player campaigns I've played since Half-Life 2. Its writer, Aaron Contreras, has form - he has worked on Mafia 3, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, and Bioshock Infinite - but there still seems to be something... lacking.
It doesn't have that certain Star Wars-y-ness, whereas even in the - admittedly brief, six-second - glimpse we got of Hennig's game, it was somehow oozed Star Wars.
All the interviews she's given since, where she's talked about the abandoned game, she clearly got it. Her "wheelhouse" - as she calls it - was a perfect fit for Star Wars. She talked of the team deconstructing the Star Wars movies, trying to understand them, and making that work for a game - with a similar pace, but understanding that it needed to focus around an ensemble of underdogs.
And I think that's what I'm not getting in Jedi Fallen Order, why it looks so similar to Force Unleashed; it's like somebody's first idea of what a Star Wars game should be.
"Lightsabers are cool, right?"
After Amy Hennig's Star Wars game was cancelled, she blamed the cost of development - and EA's worries that those costs would not be recouped.
Speaking to Polygon, she opined: "There is also this trend now that, as much as people protest and say, 'Why are you canceling a linear, story-based game? This is the kind of game we want. People aren’t necessarily buying them. They’re watching somebody else play them online.
"If it costs you, say, $100 million or more to make a game, how are you making that money back, and making a profit?"
It's a fair point, and - despite the vocal talents of actual Star Wars actor Forest "Gump" Whittaker - nothing I've seen of Jedi Fallen Order suggests it's a $100 million game.
That said, the studio behind Jedi Fallen Order, Respawn Entertainment, was also responsible for Titanfall 2, which had one of the best single-player campaigns I've played since Half-Life 2. Its writer, Aaron Contreras, has form - he has worked on Mafia 3, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, and Bioshock Infinite - but there still seems to be something... lacking.
It doesn't have that certain Star Wars-y-ness, whereas even in the - admittedly brief, six-second - glimpse we got of Hennig's game, it was somehow oozed Star Wars.
All the interviews she's given since, where she's talked about the abandoned game, she clearly got it. Her "wheelhouse" - as she calls it - was a perfect fit for Star Wars. She talked of the team deconstructing the Star Wars movies, trying to understand them, and making that work for a game - with a similar pace, but understanding that it needed to focus around an ensemble of underdogs.
And I think that's what I'm not getting in Jedi Fallen Order, why it looks so similar to Force Unleashed; it's like somebody's first idea of what a Star Wars game should be.
"Lightsabers are cool, right?"
UNLIMITED POWER
In the Force Unleashed, the player controlled a single, impossibly powerful, force-wielding character. In Jedi Fallen Order we've seen the main character, Cal Kestis, blowing open blast doors with his Force powers, running along walls, and mowing down hordes of stormtroopers without breaking a sweat.
As much as we all love the power fantasy of having Jedi abilities, of waving a lightsaber around and choking people from afar, these games make it too accessible. Look at the original Star Wars movie; the only times Luke Skywalker ignites a lightsaber, he doesn't have a clue what he's doing. In The Empire Strikes back he barely switches it on, and when he has a fight with Darth Vader at the end, he gets the shit kicked out of him.
Similarly, when Rey firsts holds a lightsaber in The Force Awakens, there's an awe to it. It's a magical moment. It feels like Star Wars. She only once uses it in combat during The Last Jedi.
Contrast those moments to the Star Wars prequels, where everyone seemed to have a lightsaber. It lost the mystique of those ancient, more civilised, weapons. It made them common, ordinary - a bit dull. And for me, that's similarly why I'm disappointed by what I see in Jedi Fallen Order.
Jedis aren't the be-all and end-all of the Star Wars universe. My favourite Star Wars game is Dark Forces, and though that series eventually introduced lightsabers, the first game just put a blaster in your hand. You felt outnumbered, underpowered against the Imperial Forces, and that was so beautifully, authentically, Star Wars. The Force was something remote and awesome.
Even in the new VR experience, Vader Immortal, lightsaber combat is kept in check - your laser sword used as much as a torch and a cutting tool as a weapon.
In short: Star Wars games need to lose the lightsabers. Or, at least, treat them with the awe and respect they deserve.
In the Force Unleashed, the player controlled a single, impossibly powerful, force-wielding character. In Jedi Fallen Order we've seen the main character, Cal Kestis, blowing open blast doors with his Force powers, running along walls, and mowing down hordes of stormtroopers without breaking a sweat.
As much as we all love the power fantasy of having Jedi abilities, of waving a lightsaber around and choking people from afar, these games make it too accessible. Look at the original Star Wars movie; the only times Luke Skywalker ignites a lightsaber, he doesn't have a clue what he's doing. In The Empire Strikes back he barely switches it on, and when he has a fight with Darth Vader at the end, he gets the shit kicked out of him.
Similarly, when Rey firsts holds a lightsaber in The Force Awakens, there's an awe to it. It's a magical moment. It feels like Star Wars. She only once uses it in combat during The Last Jedi.
Contrast those moments to the Star Wars prequels, where everyone seemed to have a lightsaber. It lost the mystique of those ancient, more civilised, weapons. It made them common, ordinary - a bit dull. And for me, that's similarly why I'm disappointed by what I see in Jedi Fallen Order.
Jedis aren't the be-all and end-all of the Star Wars universe. My favourite Star Wars game is Dark Forces, and though that series eventually introduced lightsabers, the first game just put a blaster in your hand. You felt outnumbered, underpowered against the Imperial Forces, and that was so beautifully, authentically, Star Wars. The Force was something remote and awesome.
Even in the new VR experience, Vader Immortal, lightsaber combat is kept in check - your laser sword used as much as a torch and a cutting tool as a weapon.
In short: Star Wars games need to lose the lightsabers. Or, at least, treat them with the awe and respect they deserve.
A BAD FEELING
Admittedly, it's far too soon to write off a game none of us have played, based upon 15 minutes of gameplay footage, but even within that footage there are concerns.
I might've been able to overlook the ridiculous level of power your character wields if the graphics weren't so drab. There's a moment in it where Cal Kestis faces off with a bunch of giant space beetles, and the creatures just look uninspired in their design; generic space things, rather than something that could be uniquely Star Wars.
The animation appears clunky, the combat seems to lack punch. There's just something dull and by-the-numbers about it all, when Star Wars excels when it's inspiring astonishment in the viewer. In lieu of a better phrase, Jedi Fallen Order appears to be achingly safe and predictable.
To reverse the errors of Battlefront 2, EA needed to show us something that blew us away. Instead, I've been left feeling utterly underwhelmed. What really worries me about that is that if I'm underwhelmed, other people will be too, and that risks there being no more single-player, narrative-driven, Star Wars games in the future.
Because Solo: A Star Wars story was a relative flop, we're no longer getting any more standalone Star Wars films, which - at this point - I was more invested in, potentially, than the saga films.
Yet the failure of that movie had nothing to do with its quality, and everything to do with disappointment over The Last Jedi, and Disney stubbornly sticking to a release date six months after the previous Star Wars movie, rather than making it a Christmas event movie.
I fear something similar happening to Jedi Fallen Order, and the future of Star Wars games.
Lose the lightsabers.
Admittedly, it's far too soon to write off a game none of us have played, based upon 15 minutes of gameplay footage, but even within that footage there are concerns.
I might've been able to overlook the ridiculous level of power your character wields if the graphics weren't so drab. There's a moment in it where Cal Kestis faces off with a bunch of giant space beetles, and the creatures just look uninspired in their design; generic space things, rather than something that could be uniquely Star Wars.
The animation appears clunky, the combat seems to lack punch. There's just something dull and by-the-numbers about it all, when Star Wars excels when it's inspiring astonishment in the viewer. In lieu of a better phrase, Jedi Fallen Order appears to be achingly safe and predictable.
To reverse the errors of Battlefront 2, EA needed to show us something that blew us away. Instead, I've been left feeling utterly underwhelmed. What really worries me about that is that if I'm underwhelmed, other people will be too, and that risks there being no more single-player, narrative-driven, Star Wars games in the future.
Because Solo: A Star Wars story was a relative flop, we're no longer getting any more standalone Star Wars films, which - at this point - I was more invested in, potentially, than the saga films.
Yet the failure of that movie had nothing to do with its quality, and everything to do with disappointment over The Last Jedi, and Disney stubbornly sticking to a release date six months after the previous Star Wars movie, rather than making it a Christmas event movie.
I fear something similar happening to Jedi Fallen Order, and the future of Star Wars games.
Lose the lightsabers.
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