Star Wars Republic Commando

"Playthrough 1: No Jedi?! This game blows! Playthrough 2: Eh, who needs Jedi? This is pretty neat!"

I first picked up and played Republic Commando (RC) the day it came out. When I originally purchased it, I naturally paid the full $50 price. The high cost and my expectations, matched with the general desire to see and do things involving Jedi in Star Wars games caused me to have a rather unpleasurable experience the first time I went through the game. Nevertheless, the second time through, I didn't feel the "impact" of forking out $50 quite so much, and having no Jedi expectations allowed for me to have another go at the game. This time, the game was quite enjoyable, despite several blatant flaws. Well, on to the review itself!

GRAPHICS: 4/5

On my first time through, I was using a GeForce FX 5900. It looked like the same game as when I played it on my new 7800, so the graphics didn't negatively effect the gameplay in any way. There was never a time when a low or high resolution led to me having any difficulties with the gameplay, story, or otherwise. Naturally, the second time through, I was able to see everything crisper, which was a plus, but nothing looked dramatically changed in terms of how it looks in general...in other words, my squad members didn't look like stick figures on my old graphics card. =p

Overall, the environments look quite nice and don't seem to have any flaws. Unfortunately, there are only three mission settings. You go to Geonosis (the planet with the insect-like race from Episode II), a massive Republic ship that has gone "ghost ship," and Kashyyk (the forested planet that is home to the Wookies). While each of these visually has its high-points, they quickly lose their visual appeal when you're stuck in them for about 2-2.5 hours each.

The squad members look the best of everything in the game, which is definitely a positive, since you'll be with them around 90% or so (probably more) of the game. A lot of detail went into them, and I really appreciate that.

Overall, a lot of good things, but having to look at the same "tilesets" for the environments for such a long time really detracts from the visual appeal of the game.

MUSIC: 9/10

Wow. Well, they use all the typical Star Wars music. I knew they would. I think it was all old music from the movies and other games. I figured I'd be disappointed and not want to hear the songs ever again. I can't say how or why, but I really enjoyed the music. They put it in all the right places, and it just worked. It really contributed to the overall feeling of the game, and that's something quite a few games fail at miserably. It didn't feel like they just slapped it together. It was arranged nicely. I was actually quite pleased, despite no noticeable new music that would stick with me.

SOUND: 10/10

All the sound effects are Star Wars sounds. No real big surprises, here, of course. They didn't have to invent anything. However, they were copied over pretty much perfectly. The voices are the only things new, and they were all done well. They got the guy who plays Jango and the Clones to voice some of the Clones and Boss (your character), which was a big bonus for me. The other three squad members had memorable voices performed by seemingly skilled voice actors (62 is voiced by the same guy who voices Carth Onasi in KotOR) I didn't have any sound glitches of any kind, and everything seemed just fine. I can't really count off for anything.

STORY: 8/15

You are the squad leader of a group of genetically superior (to other) Clones. Your squad is deployed in situations requiring skills far superior to the average Clone, not to mention those situations that need caution and to be kept covert. Your characters all have individual personalities that show as they make comments throughout the game, and react differently to certain situations.

While this game doesn't add anything huge, plot-wise, to the Star Wars saga, it gives you an awesome perspective into the covert operations and otherwise "behind-the-scenes" events that take place OFF the battlefield and AWAY from Jedi. This originally turned me off from the game, but this is something incredibly new in terms of the games and the movies. Virtually every Star Wars game has big battle scenes where important characters are involved, and Jedi run around swinging lightsabers about. Well, in this game, taking the genre more seriously, they prove that you CAN have a pretty cool adventure in the Star Wars universe without the presence of the force, or having to fight as a massive legion of nameless troops.

Unfortunately, nothing happens too important that we couldn't have found out in the movies or other games. It's the same old universe, but it just lets us see something new. Also, there aren't any real story-driving elements, and you won't sit there on the edge of your seat wondering what'll happen next. However, the fact that it's something fresh is a really nice view at an otherwise "been-there-done-that" universe.

GAMEPLAY (Singleplayer): 21/30

You start off alone and get little tool-tips that tell you how to progress through the trenches on Geonosis. As you go, you'll meet up with each member of your squad, until you've gotten everyone. At that point, the tooltips will become rare. It's quite nice how they ease you into the game until you've learned the ropes. To command your squad, you will use 5 default (but changeable) keys: the Use Key, and F1-F4. All you typically do is either press the button that corresponds to the action you wish your squad to take, or you look at something like a computer terminal or a sniping position, and press the Use Key. It's very quick and easy to learn, and the sheer simplicity of it makes the squad commands more enjoyable than a pain. This could have been done badly and made the game suck, but they managed to pull it off quite nicely.

However, in reference to gameplay and the squad itself, one thing really pisses me off regardless of either playthrough. Both times, I couldn't help but get angry because my squad mates, when in sniping positions or grenade-throwing positions (they're marked by little crosshairs and grenades, respectively speaking), and other such attack positions that require special ammunition, my squad has INFINITE ammo. This is fine and good for them, but I'm stuck with a measly 20 rounds of sniper ammo (it takes about 3 shots on average to take out a Super Battle Droid (they suck)), and can't get any more rounds for my Sniper Rifle until I find a sometimes rare stockpile of it. Of course, I can understand how the game would be terribly balanced if I could just snipe every enemy or spam nades at them all day...still, I just wish they could've done something differently so that I wouldn't have to envy my squad members.

As for the weaponry, it is both good and bad. The primary weapon (for a while), the DC-17, is a repeating blaster rifle. It's basically a laser machine gun. This gun, sadly, does pretty crappy damage. The only things this gun can kill very well are standard assault droids (the really thin ones introduced in Episode I), and even then, you could've just ran up and stabbed them in the face once. It wouldn't be so bad if there were plenty of ammo for it, but some parts of the game have little to no ammo for this gun. The other weapons, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, often have no ammo for quite a while. This can make planning out some unexpected battles quite difficult.

The only two weapons you can truly count on are the pistol, which is very weak and has to recharge after 8 quick, successive shots, and the wrist-blade, which lets you stab stuff. As primitive as it sounds, about 40% or so of the fights in the game are better fought by running around and stabbing enemies in the face repeatedly. This takes away from the overall "Star Warsy" feeling. However, despite all that I've said about the weapons, there's enough ammunition and firepower to get you through the game without too much trouble.

As for what you get to shoot...there are three "races" of enemies in this game: Droids, Geonosians, and Trandoshens (a lizard-like anthropomorphic alien race). There are a few variations of each race in regard to enemy types, making for a nice range of enemies. Unfortunately, you'll typically only fight one "race" for a long time, then fight another. It would have been interesting to see them mix up the races in a lot of battles to make different strategies necessary and to keep the game from ever getting boring.

Unfortunately, that was a big problem; boredom, that is. As I mentioned a while back in the review, the locations aren't that numerous. The game takes about 8 hours to beat, meaning you'll be spending around 2.5 hours or so in each area, and it's quite easy to get bored by your surroundings when so few locations are being used. However, in defense of the game, you're typically being shot at by so many enemies while large orchestras and choirs boom out Star Wars music, making you frantically run around and issue commands while trying to get to cover to stay alive and revive your team mates. It's a boring set of environments every now and then, but the music and the small hordes of droids and whatnot make for a thrilling adventure.

I mentioned reviving. This is one cool aspect of RC. The health in RC works like Halo. You get shot, your shields go down. If they run out, you lose health from each additional hit. If you don't get hit for a while, your shields recharge. If you can find a wall-mounted Bacta Dispenser (they're quite common), you can recharge your health. It's pretty simple and makes battle strategies interesting at times. However, should your health run out, you will fall down and start to groan and writhe. The same goes for your squad. What's great is that you or your squad members can run over the fallen character and hold the use key to activate a Star Wars-like defibrillator, and revive that character with half health and full shields at any time.

The missions in the game will have you either hacking computers, killing enemies, setting detonators, and combinations of the three. It's fairly simplistic, but they mix it up nicely enough to keep things interesting most of the time. Unfortunately, your squad members are supposed to have specific purposes each designed around their specialty. For instance, Fixer is your best hacker. However, having him hack something never seemed to make a difference. If Boss (you), Sev, or Scorch hacked it, the outcome was the same, and it apparently took just as long. The same goes with every specialty. This really disappointed me. The end of the game isn't exactly climactic. In fact, I figured there would be a boss battle of some sort. A fight against General Grievous with him escaping after being beaten would've been really cool. Either that or some Jedi or Dark Jedi fight between the squad and some apprentice of sorts. Nevertheless, as I mentioned, the Jedi fights would have no purpose at this point in the Star Wars timeline. If there's a sequel, THEN there'll be a reason. So basically, the game doesn't have superb gameplay, but it's fun.

GAMEPLAY (Multiplayer): 4/15

Ouch. This upset me greatly. Here we have a game where you control a squad in the single player, taking on hordes of Star Wars enemies. You have objectives, hack computers, set demolitions charges, etc. So, they set it up so that you could interchange the squad members with your friends or strangers online to become a four-person squad and take on a high difficulty level on co-op, having a blast...right? Oh, wait...no, instead, they popped out the standard crap...Deathmatches and Capture the Flag. Those weren't even very good. It's a real shame they had to do this. This could've been one of the greatest multiplayer experiences of all time, but they botched it. How could they NOT think of this? Well, I can only assume they did, but figured they could throw in the standard junk and be able to claim that they have multiplayer. Ugh. This was a horrid idea.

OVERALL: 65.8%=70% (rounded up to a whole number value)=7

THE VERDICT: Rent it if you have a console. Or, buy it cheap for PC or a console. $30 or less is a great price. However, stay away if you're more of an online gamer, or if you just aren't into Star Wars at all. I hate a lot of things about this game, and in text form, it looks wretched, but if you want something new and pretty darn neat in the Star Wars universe, you really should give Republic Commando a shot. Thanks for reading, and I hope this helped. =)

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/08/06