Star Wars: Republic Commando

 

This is my third time through the entire game. I've owned it since release but just recently bought it on Steam for the convenience of being able to install and play it on a whim.

Here's my bottom line opinion on Republic Commando; it's the second-best Star Wars first-person shooter. Just below Dark Forces. It has the unfortunate distinction of being the best game to come out of the prequel trilogy, and doesn't escape the taint of the prequel's legacy. I may even like the ideas behind Republic Commando more than I like the game itself.

Let me drop some bombs on what's wrong with Republic Commando. The weapons sound and feel very weak. Your primary weapon is the DC-17 blaster, which is a modular weapon that is an all-purpose rifle, a sniper rifle, and a grenade launcher. Of those, I ended up using the rifle the most for it's accuracy and abundant ammo. It doesn't do a ton of damage, it sounds like a toy gun, and shoots way too fast. In fact, none of the weapons sound very powerful, even the powerful ones!  I would have appreciated if they stuck to standard Star Wars weaponry and sounds, like they did with the enemies, who often sound more menacing than they are.

Speaking of enemies, they all kind of behave the same and there aren't enough of them. There are only three or four of each type. Battle droids, super battle droids, destroyer droids, spider droids. Fat Trandoshans, Trandoshan mercenaries, big Trandoshans, scavengers. Geonoshan warriors, elite Geonoshans, Geonoshan babies, yes, babies. General Grievous's guards. That's all of them! It makes the game feel more repetitive than it is. The Star Wars universe is teeming with life. There isn't much an excuse for this lack of variety.

So what does Republic Commando do right? The intro to the game is great. It details where you and your squad came from, all from the first person perspective. In fact, this game takes a page from Half-Life in that the entire game is played from the first-person perspective. There are a couple of scenes where you are not in control of your character, but they're limited.

The squad AI is not smart but it's competent. They'll kill enemies, heal themselves, heal you when you drop, take cover, etc. There are certain set pieces that you can order a squadmate to take position at for a specific purpose (like sniping or anti-armor) and they're meant to be used. Your squad dies less when they're in one of these ordered positions. The squad also has fantastic vocal banter. Each member is a personality, and I got attached to them as the game went along.

Though the levels are a little cookie cutter, there are plenty of objectives to them and no lack for fights. I was fighting in corridors, in small courtyards and hangers, on multi-level starship bridges, and in trees. They're not as varied as Dark Forces, but each environment is well made.

And now I can get to what stops this from being a great game. They can fix the sound effects and toss in a couple more enemies, but it's harder to change the setting. Republic Commando takes place at the onset of the Clone Wars. It starts on Geonosha even. And though it takes place over a two (three?) year span, it could have gone farther. This was a pre-Episode 3 game and it shows. It feels like a teaser leading up to Episode 3 and, ultimately, suffers for that. It doesn't deserve to be timely movie release fodder. It deserves to be treated like a game that can stand on its own two legs. Something that can be taken out of the context of the prequel release. It doesn't deserve to be lumped in with Episode 1 Racer, Star Wars Starfighter, Bounty Hunter, Obi-Wan, or any other godawful prequel game.

It doesn't carry the same tone as those games. The developers did their damnedest to give this game a fair chance. They go out of their way to make  you know that you are playing an elite soldier. You're no jedi, and you're not fodder either. You see your share of ally deaths and the Clone War takes its toll. But you're fighting bugs on Geonosha. And battle droids, even if they're way more menacing than they ever were in the prequel movies. They may bleed oil, wear a metallic gray paint job (rather than the orange seen in the movies), and the super battle droids may be some tough motherfuckers, but they're still battle droids, which are inherently lame. There's a pitiful tie in with General Grieveous in the form of his bodyguards, which flip and hop around like Chinese acrobats, with electric sticks. They're not threatening in the slightest, more annoying than anything, and serve only to give General Grieveous an excuse to make an unwarranted appearance.

What I'm getting down to is that in Republic Commando you are playing, in essence, a proto super stormtrooper. I wish the devs would've been allowed to run with that rather than get tied to the time frame that stuck them between the two prequel movies. I hope we can get another Republic Commando game, but I'm not expecting it.This franchise has legs, that get cut out from beneath it by the movies it was made to support.