"Thought it would be better..."

When I saw this game at the store, I was taken in by the plotline. You're in a Soviet breakaway country, and there's this crazy leader, and you have to oust him? Sounds cool! Well, it was less than cool. In fact, it was a lot less than cool. But, now, let's start this review of one trainwreck of a game.

Graphics
Well, the graphics are one thing the game has going for it. The city is beautifully detailed, and the people are very realistic. However, the game is one big memory hog, so don't expect the graphics to look nice unless you have an expensive computer. 7/10

Gameplay
Where to start? The tutorial sucks (it's not very informative), and it's very hard to figure out where anything is. When I first started playing the game, it took me twenty minutes to find the Save button. If you're actually trying to complete the game, chances are you won't find where to do everything until later on (pressing every button in the game eventually led me to accessing options crucial to winning the game) and even if you do learn where to do everything, it's usually too late, and you'll have to start a new game altogether. Because of the confusing gameplay, I hate to do it, but I'm giving it a 1/10.

Sound
Eh, I didn't really like the soundtracks in this game. The people speaking gibberish also bothered me. It would not have bothered me if they were speaking Russian. The game does sound like you're actually in another country, though. Because of that, I'll give this a 6/10.

Story
The story is rather simplistic. Your country has broken away from Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union (I presume the game takes place in or around 1991), and now a wackjob is in charge of your country, Novistrana. The makers of Republic: The Revolution had set up a viral marketing website that pretended to be the national website of Novistrana, but the site was down when I bought the game in late 2004. I do not know if the site added to the story, or if the site will ever be up again (I doubt it since the company that made Republic is now out of business), so for now I'll give this section a 6/10.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/05