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.

Publisher:
LucasArts
Developer:
LucasArts

Platform:
Xbox

Rating: 8/10