With solid presentation and a fast-paced single-player campaign, Star Wars: Republic Commando is one of the best tactical shooters in recent times.
FIRST-PERSON TACTICAL SHOOTER
Release Date: 03/01/2005
Published By: LucasArts
Developed By: LucasArts
Republic Commando is set in the Clone-Wars era featuring The Republic's endless fight against the Separatists. In this game, you play as part of a highly trained and efficient covert-ops commando group known as Delta Squad. Even though there are no Jedi and Sith (two of the most important factions of the Star Wars universe) in the game to speak of, Lucas Arts have taken utmost care in delivering this great Star Wars game as it features some solid presentation and a highly entertaining single-player campaign and is easily one of the best tactical shooters to come out in many years.
In Republic Commando you play as "Thirty-Eight", a highly trained and efficient commando part of an elite group known only as Delta Squad. Your three squad mates are also referenced only with numbers 07, 40 and 62 but each have their own cool nickname and funny character which you get to know in constant radio talks with your squad. Each squad member also has specialized skills such as Demolitions, Slicing Computers and Sniping which come in handy whenever the situation demands it. Delta Squad is always inserted deep into enemy territory for covert missions like retrieving intelligence data among other things.
The gameplay in the single player campaign is easily the best aspect of Republic Commando. Akin to the classic Half Life, there are no cutscenes in the game to speak of; the whole game is seamlessly presented from your perspective making the game highly believable and immersive. The squad mechanics are inventive and easy to use and there are some neat aspects that differentiate it from the other tactical shooters out there.
As mentioned previously each squad mate has a separate skill and it is up to you to use them all effectively to defeat your enemy. All of these specialized skills are always handled using a single keystroke which makes giving commands to your squad less complex. For example, you can order your slicing expert to slice a door for you to get through or order your demolitions expert to blow a barricade and much more. There are four other keys which control various commands which you can give to your squad as a whole. The first one is to order your squad to move forward and scout the area, the second one is to order them to follow behind you, the third is to order them to secure a particular area and the fourth is to override all commands and make them fall back behind you. All of these various commands and mechanics are taught to you quite early on in the game via good start up hints given to you in the first few areas of the game. This makes getting used to the game much more easier than in other squad-based games.
The other notable gameplay aspect is in the way your HUD (heads up display) is presented. You are a Republic Commando who wears a helmet over your face and the HUD neatly resembles this setting and looks as if you are really wearing a helmet. Though the HUD is different from most other games it gives you all the necessary information like your health and ammo status and also the health status and location of your teammates. The game also displays important messages such when you are hit heavily and your condition is critical and so on.
Health is handled in a very similar manner to Halo. You and all your teammates have rechargeable shields which take the brunt of the damage before your health starts reducing. Even if your health does go out completely, you are never dead if one of your teammates is still alive; you are simply disabled and the screen goes blurry until one of your squad members comes and revives you. The same goes for your squad members and you can revive them if they are ever disabled. Health is always recharged from bacta stations that are conveniently placed before and after battles for you to recharge your health. However, for an otherwise highly immersive and quite realistic game, you'll often wonder about the placement of these bacta stations, for example, why would there be a bacta station on Geonosis or Kashyyk but you'll soon get over it because the other aspects of the game are very good.
Another critical component of any shooting game is the weapons and the general core shooting gameplay. You start out with a basic Assault Rifle and a rechargeable pistol. The pistol especially can come in handy when you are out of ammo as it has an effective range and always recharges and never runs out of ammo. Soon you will find out that you can add suitable modifications to your Assault Rifle to convert it into a Sniper Rifle and an Anti-Tank weapon and these modifications are introduced to you at the right time when you really have a need for them thus encouraging you to try them out. Apart from the Republican weapons you also gain access to Trandoshian weapons like the Array and Repeater gun and even a Wookie bowcaster and homing rocket launcher. All of these weapons have a great feel to them, for example, when you shoot with the huge wookie rocket launcher; you get the feeling as if you are really carrying the huge thing with your own hands. In general, the core shooting gameplay is really well implemented and the developers need to be commended for this. Apart from shooting you also have a very powerful melee attack to take out your foes from close range and, to my surprise, I found that running up to each enemy and taking them out with this melee attack to be a good option when I was heavily outnumbered.
Luckily, for a game that relies so heavily on squad tactics the AI especially for your squad is very good. When you give orders to them they carry them out effectively just like the highly trained commandos that they are. They even carry out specific actions of their own like recharging their health on their own if their condition is critical and hiding behind cover and taking down enemies if you have ordered them to scout forward. The AI of your opposition is also not lagging behind either. Your opponents ranging from droids to trandoshians will exhibit a very good level of AI. For example, a geonosian bug will fly away from you if try your melee attack on it and a trandoshian slaver will kick the grenade which you threw at it right back at you and a Super Battle Droid will open its shield if it sees a grenade land in front ot it. This kind of AI shown by both your squad mates and enemies makes the game challenging forcing you often to think a lot and use your tactics efficiently.
The single-player campaign is really the strong point of the game. There are three huge levels set on Geonosis, a Republican Assault Ship and Kashyyk with each level having sublevels and areas in them. The story is laid back and never gets in the way of the action. It more or less acts as an excuse to send you to three different places to complete a variety of objectives. You also have a few missions where you are on your own and these make you actually miss your squad. In general, the action is heavily fast paced apart from the minimal loading times in between areas and the game doesn't waste any time putting you right into the action. The save system is also well implemented with the game automatically saving your progress using a checkpoint save system and the checkpoints are also well placed so that you are never repeating a huge area over and over. There are manual saves in the game but you will never be forced to use them because of the checkpoint save system. All these aspects add up to make a highly engrossing campaign that, while short, will keep you engaged completely for the 10-12 hours it will take you to finish it.
Multiplayer doesn't even need a mention here. Clearly, the developers decided to concentrate on making the single player campaign highly entertaining. There are only standard modes like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag but again there's not much innovation here and nothing new to differentiate it from the multitude of multiplayer first person shooters that do the same things much better. So, if you are looking for a good multiplayer game, you are not going to find it here.
Visually, the game looks stunning especially with all the special effects on. The game has a great motion blur and bloom effect which gives the whole world sort of a bright, hazy look and needless to say the textures and the various character models in the game are very good. Over the course of the game you will visit three different places and these look in stark contrast to one another and even within these places, the areas look different from each other and never look repetitive. There are some great grenade effects for all the grenades and especially the hazy and blurry look of the world when you are hit by a flashbang or EC grenade looks spot-on. There is also a great visor effect where in if you kill an enemy from very close range, the blood splashes all over the screen only for a clean wiping effect to wipe it off. All these effects and, in general, great looking visuals add another level of immersion to an already engaging game.
The in-game sound and music is as good as the visuals. The orchestral musical score is very good and though it borrows some of the best sounds from the original Star Wars theme, it also adds a lot of custom sounds and in general is very good to hear. The weapon sounds are all great and so are the sounds of the footsteps of you and your teammates. There are constant talks over the radio with your squad and your advisor which are pretty good and the voice overs for these are perfect. The dialogues are also quite funny which means you are never bored and also constantly get useful information about your various objectives.
Republic Commando's single-player campaign will remain one which you will finish in one or two sittings not only because the game is short but also because the engaging and fast paced gameplay will force you to do so. Apart from this, the highly impressive sound and graphics also mean that the game has tons of polish and some great production values. There are also some good unlockable content in the form of some development videos which are quite good. However, the campaign will leave you wanting more and the low-quality multiplayer means the game loses a lot of lasting appeal. But still all said and done, Republic Commando is one hell of a tactical shooter and can be easily recommended to any squad based or in general any FPS fan out there.
Posted on: 05/26/2006 by Balaji Sivaraman