Star Wars: The Force Unleashed [X360]

Are these canned, pre-determined combos, or does the player have any freedom to create their own? "It's a combination of both," Blackman answers. "We do have some canned combos, especially in relationship to the lightsaber. If you do a series of lightsaber attacks they'll result in a specific finisher, for example. A lot of people like that. But we're also trying to give you the freedom to combine powers in new and interesting ways."

He's already testing this system, and has been startled at some of the results. "People do stuff we've never expected, and come up with some surprising applications of the power. They'll use it to set up traps before the enemies even arrive, which has been really cool for us to watch."

Blackman is heading an internal team working on Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Force Unleashed. This is an unusual move for Lucas Arts, which in the past has preferred to farm development of its biggest Star Wars games out to external companies: Galaxies to Sony, Knights of the Old Republic to Bioware, Battlefront to Pandemic. It's not a total departure from the norm, though: PSP, PS2 and DS versions of Force Unleashed are also in development at Crome Studios on the Sony platforms and N-Space, Inc. on the DS.

One console is conspicuous by its absence from that list. Why no Wii version? We've all played Star Wars games and thought, hey, wouldn't it be cool to be waving a lightsaber for real, right? An uncomfortable silence ensues, until our Lucas Arts PR rep volunteers, "We have not announced a Wii version at this time." Make of that what you will.

One thing Blackman is able to unveil is the first details of the game's voice cast. Sam Witwer, fresh from playing Lt. Crashdown in Battlestar Galactica and Neil Perry in Showtime series Dexter, stars as Vader's apprentice. Blackman's enthusiastic about the prospect. "He's a great young actor who's just starting to come into his own -- it's going to be awesome to have him be part of this project."

Co-starring with Witwer is Nathalie Cox, a British model and actress best known in the US for her role in Kingdom of Heaven opposite Orlando Bloom. She plays Juno Eclipse, an Imperial pilot who's charged with ferrying the player character around the galaxy on his missions, and the game's love interest. As Blackman puts it, "Over time their relationship evolves, and as the story unfolds she becomes a sounding board for him. Nathalie did a fantastic job."