by
Ted Kritsonis
Faze
Video Game Editor
The Star Wars franchise has been on
quite a roll over the last few years with the success of its
Knights of the Old Republic RPG series and the FPS Battlefront
in the fall last year. To join the party, along comes Star
Wars: Republic Commando, a tactical squad-based shooter that
remains distinct from all other SW games in more ways than
one.
If
you’re looking for Jedis and lightsabres, Republic Commando
has neither of the two. Instead, you’re the leader of
an elite commando force of clones, and your mission is to
stop the slave trade and free the Wookie (Chewbacca’s
tribe), while trying to topple a repressive regime bent on
exploiting anyone and everyone. This fight will lead you to
all kinds of alien worlds and locales where you take on a
mixed bag of foes, both robotic and alien.
Tactical shooters are usually of the
“hit or miss” variety because the foundation of
the gameplay lies in the AI of both your squad and your enemies.
In this respect, LucasArts deserves praise for putting together
very credible AI on both sides. But the best part is that
you can give them orders without prompting a menu. Simply
point your reticle to a certain objective and press A to get
a teammate to move there and do the job. This type of system
does wonders for the gameplay’s flow because you will
find yourself moving your squad around even while a firefight
is going on.
The
rest of the game is really just your standard objective-based
shooter. The early parts of the game are deceptively easy,
but it won’t take long before enemies start throwing
themselves at you with relentless ferocity. Luckily, if you’re
on the brink of death, you can issue an order for a squadmate
to zap some life into you. From there, you can head for a
healing station (of which there are many throughout the game)
and recharge to full health. This works both ways as you can
zap a squadmate and send them over to a healing station too.
Republic Commando is also a pretty
stylish game, with smooth and crisp graphics, no slowdowns
and wonderful textures and colours throughout all the levels.
It’s just unfortunate that the gameplay is a little
too short to enjoy it. Once I completed the game, I felt like
something was missing, and I suspect that the developers couldn’t
add much more to the story because of its ties to the upcoming
Star Wars film.
The multiplayer is also a little disappointing
since no new concepts or gameplay modes are offered through
Xbox Live. Compared to the likes of Halo 2 and other FPS games,
it’s unlikely that Republic Commando will draw in anyone
other than the hardcore SW fan.
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