One of the hidden advantages of becoming so focused on XBOX 360 gaming of late is that I haven’t bought a truly new game for the PC in quite some time now. This has risen to the perfect chance to catch up on some older games I never got around to actually playing much at the time for various reasons, and actually knock some titles of my PC Pile of Shame. 
 

Once such game is Republic: The Revolution. A strategy game of politics set in a fictional ex-Soviet Eastern Bloc country that is now controlled by a corrupt dictator whom you have sworn to overturn. The advantage this game has over a lot of older games, from the point of view of playing it now, is that it’s graphics settings featured a ‘Totality’ setting that was way beyond the capabilities of 99% of PCs available when it was originally released way back in 2003. This allows a modern day play through using graphics which still look decent, if lacking in some of the more whizzy graphical effects, however for a game such as it is they are more than serviceable. What’s amusing is this is pretty much the same thing that happened with Crysis, however there people called the developer out for creating a game so over the top graphically. Maybe they just needed to rename the settings from Ultra, or whatever it was, to ‘Future’.

The game runs on a turn based day, and each of your characters can perform up to three actions each day. Various tasks can be assigned such as Head-hunt, survey, investigate, however each person is only skilled in a couple of these, and indeed these skills can be leveled up as they gain success. My main character in the game always seems to excel in influence which is based on your responses to a series of questions at the start of each game, and I focused my original head hunt on a wealthy number two, leaving me somewhat exposed on the Force front, however hopefully I can make up for that later.

Once you start investigating the areas of the city you will uncover both people who you can attempt to recruit to your cause as well as location that can be useful for various activities just as interviews and rallies. And basically that is as far as i ever got with the game in the past. I had some weird bug on my old system which made the game eventually grind to a halt when in the 3D mode, however having been through 2 PC systems since those days I’m hopefully I might get to actually play the game properly this time, and at least get a real feel for it rather than just a taster.

I’ve always had the feeling I was missing something special with this game, it will be interesting to find out over the coming weeks.
 
(This entry was originally posted on my person blog Stex Toys)