Star Wars: Republic Commando

Xbox review by Josh Kramer - Saturday 3rd September 2005

Just about every Star Wars game that comes down the pipe these days has something to do with Jedi: Jedi fighting with lightsabers, Jedi piloting star fighters and, occasionally, Jedi pitted against god-awful control schemes and inexplicably placed bottomless pits. But, Star Wars: Republic Commando takes a completely different approach. It places you in the role of a foot soldier in the Republic’s vast clone army, far, far away from the activities of Master Yoda, Obi-wan Kenobi and the rest of the Jedi council. There will be no snatching of blasters from your opponents’ hands or sly mind tricks here; the only instruments available are your trusty DC-17m Blaster Rifle and the unshakeable cohesiveness between you and your squad mates. Republic Commando may be short, linear and occasionally buggy (and I’m not talking about those swarming Geonosians either), but it certainly does provide some of the most intense, balls-to-the-wall, shoot-em-up action this side of Halo 2.



The easiest way to categorize the gameplay in Republic Commando is to describe it as Medal of Honor meets Rainbow Six in the Star Wars universe. You take control of “38” – the leader of a four-person squad of elite commandos used by the Republic (get it? the game’s called Republic Commando) to deal with especially sticky situations. You will only get to play as 38, but you have access to limited squad management abilities, all of which have been simplified to fit the frantic pace of the on-screen action. As you blast through the game’s three levels, you will find many predetermined locations in which you can order your squad to perform specific actions. Sometimes these are sniping hotspots, places where you can blow aside obstructing debris or door terminals you can hack. Orders are issued as simply as moving your cursor over the “action sensitive” location and pressing the A button. As mentioned, this enables you to efficiently (for the most part) order your squad around without having to deal with cumbersome menus or jarring breaks in the action.

This simplicity makes the game’s extremely linear, action-packed gameplay remarkably easy to get into and enjoy. As with Medal of Honor, there will never be a time where you feel lost within a level; there’s always the odd piece of flaming debris or locked door that keeps you fixed on the path, and task, at hand. This may be a deal breaker for some, but I personally found the linearity much more acceptable here than in many similarly styled FPS offerings. I attribute this mostly to the fact that the game’s set pieces are some of the best I’ve experienced. Holding a cramped area against wave after wave of Trandosian slavers and various battle droids is about as adrenaline-pumping an experience as can be had from playing a video game.



That said, there are still some quirks that keep Republic Commando from being a truly epic first-person shooter. First, the A.I. for your squad mates, while exuding a fair degree of intelligence most of the time, can occasionally relapse into Dumb ‘n Dumber like idiocy. On more than one occasion my allies and I blasted our way through wave after wave of battle droids, only to be thwarted by a seemingly innocuous object like a barrel or piece of debris which one of my squad mates couldn’t seem to traverse and inevitably got “stuck” on. A quick reset solves the problem well enough, but replaying previous areas (depending on where the last save point was) because of glitchy A.I. and collision detection is hardly appealing.

Another annoying oddity is the lack of specialization within your supposedly “highly specialized” squad. The game tries hard to convince you that each of your squad mates has a unique purpose and skill, by giving them different voices (though, if they are all clones of Jango Fett, why does one of your teammates sound like Barry White, and another like Doogie Houser?) and labels. This is all fine and good, except the game will often “glitch out” and send the wrong soldier to a particular action hotspot. For example, on one occasion I approached a long hallway and wanted to set up my sniper behind some rubble to give the rest of us cover while we proceeded forward. But, despite the fact that all of my teammates were right behind me and ready for action, the game arbitrarily decided to send my demolitions expert to the sniping hotspot. Naturally, I called him back and tried again, but was greeted with the same result. At first I was peeved, but then, as the rest of the squad worked their way down the hallway, I realized that my “demo expert” was just as good with a sniper rifle as my “sniping expert.” As the game continued to “glitch” and send the wrong person to the wrong task, I found that my sniper could defuse explosives just as fast as my demo guy – amazing! Essentially, all the work the game puts into portraying your squad as being a “group of highly specialized super soldiers” is obliterated each and every time these annoying circumstances/glitches pop up.



As one would expect for an Xbox first-person shooter, Republic Commando supports online play via Xbox Live, though don’t expect games like Halo 2, Rainbow Six III or Ghost Recon 2 to be shaking in their booties. All the predictable modes are there and accounted for (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag are in), but there really isn’t a sense of “oomph” to the multiplayer experience. Playing online tends to go like this: you shoot up some people for a while, steal a flag or two, talk some trash and sign off moderately satisfied, but not energized. It would have been interesting if some innovative class-based modes had been included that mimicked the (supposed) specialized nature of the single-player squad, but they weren’t, and the game’s multiplayer experience never rises too far above mediocrity.

Visually, Republic Commando is strong, but some odd, unpolished bits will leave you wondering if the developers didn’t quite have the time to finish everything up. For example, when you use the melee attack (a vicious stab with a blade embedded in the soldiers’ armor), green blood or oil will splash up on your character’s visor. Then, like a sort of futuristic windshield wiper, a laser sweeps across the visor, eliminating any unwanted goo in the process. Now, that’s cool. But, the animation of your melee attack looks too quick and jerky to be realistic, and pales in comparison to similar attacks featured in the Halo games or Unreal Championship 2. The actual character models for your squad and the various enemies throughout the game look excellent though (with the exception of the Wookies, who look far too burly), and some realistic rag doll physics help make every frag look believable.



As you might expect from a Star Wars game, the soundtrack and overall audio presentation is fantabulous. Besides the usual John Williams inspired score (with a heavy dose of moving chorals thrown in for good measure), the rock group Ash provided a song – “Clones” – specifically for the game. The idea of including licensed music in a Star Wars game might seem unforgivable to some, but I feel, if done with class, this could add a certain unexpected flare. Unfortunately, “Clones” is a bit generic and flat (in that sort of “I’m bursting with teenage angst” sort of way) to add too much to the aural presentation, but it only pops up on a few occasions and so doesn’t take away from the rest of the experience. Voice acting is remarkably effective as well, with actor Temuera Morrison reprising his role as Jango Fett/Republic clone, and other, lesser-known voice actors providing equally effectual performances.



Upon re-reading this review, I feel I’ve been a bit too hard on Republic Commando. For all its annoying faults, inconsistencies and peculiar glitches, the game manages to provide a solid ten hours of thrilling, kick-em-where-it-counts, shoot-em-up action. If you love Star Wars, but are becoming jaded with all the Jedi based games flooding the market these days, this gritty first-person shooter may be just what the doctor ordered. If you have some money burning a hole in your pocket and meet the above criteria, hey, give it a go. You likely won’t be disappointed.

Thunderbolt score: eight out of ten

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