Grunt of God's Profile

Star Wars: Republic Commando

Published: Tue 15 Jul, 2008 | On:

I'd say personally that before I bought Republic Commando I hadn't heard much about it. I had played the demo and had enjoyed it, but had forgotten about it soon after. I had remebered that if meleed droids would squirt various liquids onto your visor, which would then be wiped off with a built in window wiper, Joy! But then I saw it on a shelf for $25 and just knew I had to get it. So with my pocket not much emptier and vauge memories of Droid oil splattering over my visor I inserted the disk into the drive, sat down and loaded up Mission No. 1.

Before I get into the gameplay I think I should mention the soundtrack. The Main Screen has an alien song playing in the background and the sound really is quite inspiring. Sometimes I just leave it there and listen to it, but maybe thats just me. The music is present through the game, swelling up during intense moments and underlining some begining cut scenes very well.

The dialouge must also be praised. From the time you first meet up with your team you feel like your in a squad with Scorch ( A wise cracking demo man), Sev (A pyschpathic sniper) and Fixer (A by the book hacker). Some of Scorches lines in particular crack me up, " What are these strange egg like things?" "We appear to be in a Genosion birthing chamber" "What would you know? They ARE eggs"

The squad based combat is carried out well. You play Boss, squad leader of Delta Squad, a team of Elite Republic Clone Commandos. You order your team to blow doors, hack locks and man turrets, of course if your feeling nice you can do these yourself. You can also call them to take up particular posistions such as sniping and grenade lobbing. One thing that troubles me is that, although story wise everyone has a speciality, they all seem to do things with the same efficency, for example Sev, a cold sniper, appears to have the same level of training in manning rocket turrets as Scorch, the one who earned his name due to an ill handled grenade. Ofcourse in the end it makes no difference, it would be nice if the could each do things a little bit faster according to their experince.

Combat itself is exciting and varied. You are called in to do several missions which include sabotage, assassination and search and rescue over several locations. Level layout is very good, health or checkpoints are never miles apart and there is always some form of ammo nearby. However the level decor is vaugley repitive and there is not a great variety in enemies. Some enemies I also found overly powerful compared to how often they apear in the game. Super Battle Droids for example require two EMP grenades to destory and are almost always in every encounter. But you do find yourself relying on your squad during combat, which is good, and using cover is neccasary, although not as major as Gears of War or Call of Duty. The guns are simple and easy to use and some have entertaining side effects, the Genosian Beam Weapon still has its owners hand stuck to it and the Bowcaster can stick enemies to walls if charged.

The story is not really alive, really it's just you and your squad doing the Republics dirty work. There's no big villian that is following you and the Adviser is the only ally you ever have, and he's just a hologram. How ever once you get a job, its got a get story to it and each has its own feel and style of play, whether it be regrouping inside a massive, abandoned star ship or helping our Wookie friends kill some slavers.

The graphics, although good, are on the high side of mediocre. Todays games put it to shame but there's defintly some pretty things to look at here. Animation is also good, with your squad mates moving like real people, not arthritic turtles. Ragdoll physics are great although ocassinally things tend to get stuck to things, like a battle droid to my foot for 50 or so metres, not good.

Multiplayer is token at best, with no one online. Its got the basic gametypes and levels taken from the campaigns settings. Fun with a couple of friends if theirs nothing else to do (try Bowcaster only games) but not really worth the loading screen. Theres a cool player customisation screen allowing ammo packs and has masks to be applyed to your player model but sadly isn't much use when you've got no one to show off to.

In conclusion I'd say Republic Commando is a great game with pleanty of action and decent graphics. It's really only its lack of variaty that lets it down and trophisied mutliplayer modes. I'm going to give it an 8/10. Try it if you want a single player experince to occupy your time, for cheap. I know that's what I bought it for.
~Divine