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Apparently inspired by an old, obscure arcade game called The Outfoxies, the four-player fighting mode featured here in the Wii edition of Force Unleashed II will instantly remind Nintendo fans of the Big N's own flagship fighter, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It's almost entirely the same set-up: up to four players take control of one of eight different characters, each one has his or her own special moves, and the battles play out in a half-dozen different interactive arenas filled with floating platforms and stage hazards. Each character has a life bar instead of a percentage meter, and the goal is to drain away all your opponents' health and stock of reserve lives instead of knocking them flying out of the arena. But other than that, it's essentially the same experience.

And it works. It's fun. Jumping around in a strictly 2D space and having Starkiller cross blades with Vader, seeing Boba Fett launch missiles at Rahm Kota, and watching PROXY transform himself Shang Tsung-style into copies of all the other characters is manic and enjoyable. There are even a couple of extra female fighters featured that weren't in the game's main story mode: fallen Jedi apprentice Maris Brood from the first Force Unleashed and Asajj Ventress, most known from the Clone Wars cartoon series.

Force Unleashed II's multiplayer mode won't dethrone Brawl for your get-togethers with friends, but it does serve as a nice companion piece to Nintendo's deeper offering. It's actually intriguing enough in execution that I wonder if it could spin-off into its own product. With more characters, more environments, and more polish this fighting mode could very well be worthwhile enough to become its own standalone game.