Star Wars: Republic Commando

**Kraxis** · 05-16-2005, 02:23

Here we have a nice squadbased FPS.

The Good:
The AI of both allies and enemies is good, very good in fact. Stupid enemies are just that, Battle Droids do tend to charge headlong at you at times (Episode 1 movie), while Geonosians are bright at jumping out of your sight fast, but the worst one has to be the little Scavenger droid that is simply too small to hit and too fast to track properly and is equipped with good weapons.
The sound is great and so are the voices (this includes humour such as when a Wookie lifts up a Super Battle Droid or our hero finds a lightsaber), btw it is Jango Fett that has provided the voice for your character.
The men have personality, not just a bad attempt at it.
The enemies are quite tough, they need several shots most of them, even the Battle Droids. Super Battle Droids are downright scary.
You can revive your pals, and you yourself can get revived, but with limited life.
You have a good and easy control of your men, giving them orders is simple but not weak.
Good feel, you do feel like you are part of the movies at times.
While there is respawning you can actually hinder this when it happens (droid dispensers can be destroyed, but not easily).

The Bad:
The surroundings are solid (no CS way of shooting through a door) and they extend a bit beyond the graphics show, quite annoying when you walk crouched.
While the enemies do die and explode poperly, the terrain is a bit blocky when destroyable.
Sometimes you feel like you are hearded along, not like the free feel that Call of Duty, for instance, provides.
You have few weapons and they are instantly recharged to max when you get to the correct ammopowerup. This might in fact not be too bad as you are constantly running out of blasterammo and since it is energy it might be stored easier in crates.
I have noticed a few bugs, but nothing important. At times the visor becomes black, just not the 'internal' parts, only the outside vision. And the game runs heavily on scripts that can get messed up (experienced this only once).
The men are clones of the same man, yet they are all different in voices and behaviour. This is both good and bad (less generic, but wrong from the movies' point of view).
While the AI is good, your buddies have a bad tendency to step into your line of fire when shooting from cover. Might be good as you are forced to move to another place (and thus act as real team), but at times it can get annoying.

The Ugly:
Not much here, only the feeling that the game could have been a top game if given the time. The fact that it is rather short, only a bit longer than Call of Duty. And the last part is that the game fluctuates a lot in difficulty. I played at default (middle) level. A few times it was almost impossible to win but mostly it was easy. If I had increased the difficulty it would mostly have been a tough nut as I like it, but it would also have been a showstopper as soon as I reached the hard parts (which is luckily sprinkled evenly among the misions).

**Fragony** · 05-16-2005, 12:20

Played the demo. It feels just like halo which is always a good thing. Maybe I will pick it up when the price drops.

**Steppe Merc** · 05-16-2005, 12:51

You pretty much summed up what I thought. Didn't quite finish it, but I'm playing other games now, will come back to it. I'd recommend it.

**Kraxis** · 05-22-2005, 13:42

Now it makes sense that it ended where it did...

I watched the movie last night and I certainly don't want to play on from where it ended. BETRAYAL!!!! I had to accept that it was the end of the good guys.

**Papewaio** · 05-23-2005, 08:29

Clones will have slightly different voices just as identical twins can and do.

The game itself is too linear. Follow the path, unlock the level, next follow the path. A few times you can go either side of a pillar or anti-clockwise and clockwise on a path not much else.

**Kraxis** · 05-23-2005, 12:47

Oh yes, slightly different, but not so that you can't hear they aren't related. But as I noted before, it isn't really that bad as you get a more personal relationship with them.

Most FPS games are rather linear, some just disguise that well and some don't. Here we have a case of the latter. Though there are times when you certainly can take the wrong turn (bridge of the Seperatist ship and in the Assault Ship), but you are quickly lead back and you should easily findyour way by the help of your buddies. If ever in doubt, follow the others.

**jeffreyLebowski** · 05-24-2005, 16:32

i picked this game up simply because it was a star wars game i hadn't played yet. i was pleasantly surprised... if you're looking for close combat in fps form, you've come to the wrong place. however, if you're looking for some pretty damn intense action with some basic tactics, it's perfect.

the engine is very nice, looks great, and runs nice and smooth. the voice acting is awesome, as is the musical score, and the overall atmosphere. i'm having a lot more fun with this than i ever did with brothers in arms, which surprised me. this game's engine looks about 2 generations ahead of brothers in arms, and runs twice as smooth. gearbox needs to hire some better engine programmers, i suppose.

assaulting the droid ship in the geonosis campaign was an amazing piece of game design... it got my adrenaline flowing, i know that. my only complaint so far is the occasional mission section where you're seperated from your squad. i don't know why every damn squad-based game feels the need to throw in a solo section here and there, but if i wanted to play a solo fps, i'd play half life 2. aside from that, this game rules.

oh, and about it being linear... yes, it is. but honestly, show me an action oriented fps that isn't. this game is about awesome set-piece battles. you need some sort of linear process to force the player into said set-pieces. it's a lot like call of duty, except the friendly AI is amazing and actually useful, the graphics are insanely good, and it's set in the star wars universe.