Two of the cast members of The Force Unleashed were on hand for the presentation during Star Wars Celebration IV to shed more light on their characters. Sam Witwer, perhaps best known for his role as Crashdown on "Battlestar Galactica," provides his voice and likeness for the role of Vader's secret apprentice. Meanwhile, British model/actress Nathalie Cox ("Kingdom of Heaven") plays Juno Eclipse.

Witwer described his character as the "photo negative" of Luke Skywalker, an "absolute killing machine" that was raised by an abusive parent in Vader. Instead of a subtle, crafty assassin, Witwer said the apprentice is a complete wrecking ball who rather than using mind control to trick a few Stormtroopers would instead bring an entire building down on top of them. "He has no doubts in his abilities whatsoever," Witwer said, adding that his character is one of the most powerful Force users ever.

View Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Slideshow (29 images)

But the apprentice isn't all powerful; having been trained to be Vader's "attack dog" from an early age his left him psychologically scarred and emotionally immature. Thus, he struggles to connect with other people, especially women. Witwer and Cox said the dynamic between Juno and the apprentice makes for some of the more comedic and lighthearted moments of the story, as well as the more serious and dramatic segments. The actors also said that the script for The Force Unleashed was as rich and detailed as a movie screenplay.

Concept art of Darth Vader's secret apprentice kneeling before his master.

Now on to the technology: for the complex animation, LucasArts is utilizing the newly developed technology known as digital molecular matter (DMM) from Pixelux Entertainment. In addition, the game will also feature Euphoria game animation software from NaturalMotion and the Havok physics engine. DMM is used to make various materials and environments react more realistically, such as wood splintering at the point of impact rather than simply exploding. In addition, Euphoria's simulation engine is used to make the actions and behaviour of NPCs more unpredictable. For a demonstration of how DMM and Euphoria work, check out these LucasArts videos.

That's the good news for The Force Unleashed. The bad news is that the game will not be available for the PC anytime soon. Currently, The Force Unleashed is scheduled for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with third party ports for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS. So why no PC version? During a press conference following the presentation, Blackman said that LucasArts wanted the game to have as wide an audience as possible but that the hardware requirements for a PC version would simply be too high. "Part of this is because of the hardware constraints," he said, adding that he didn't know the specifications off the top of his head but that the LucasArts team ultimately decided they were too high for a wide audience on the PC.

What about the Wii? There have been rumours floating around that a next-generation Star War title would be coming to Nintendo's newest console, but Blackman said there has been no official announcement about the Wii for The Force Unleashed. Then again, he didn't deny the development team was looking at the Wii, saying "As a company, LucasArts is definitely interested in the Wii."

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is scheduled for release in the spring of 2008. Stay tuned for more news on The Force Unleashed.

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