Star Wars : Republic Commando mini forum review

[Ferral]

Just got this and have to say fantastic.

Game starts telling you that the setting is the Clone Wars, very good place for a Star Wars 1st person shooter. First scene you see is the weird alien with the long neck from episode 2 telling you that you are perfect in every way and superior to you're other brethren. As you drop for the first mission you see a familiar site out the windows, ships cruising past shooting down enemy craft and turrets, just like episode 2 again ! Here you recieve the first brief.

You are a Clone Commando with 3 others making a commando team of 4. Each man has his own individual talents, sniper, demolitions, hacker and then theres you, in command of this team of elite forces.

Commands are easy enough to give, an icon displays itself on something that is of use, click the use key when the crosshair is on it and the relevant soldier sets about doing what he is told. Example is getting cover from behind a rock from the sniper or blowing up a few boulders that are in the way. Easy enough system to get used to as soon as you start playing.

You also have additional commands that can be given using F1 to F4, they havnt gone all out on a complicated command system like Swat 3 here, its literally, move on, regroup, defend a specific area in front or take tactical position whilst moving. Absolutely seamless.

So I setup my keyboard control, at first look things look as if it uses virtually every key there is but under closer inspection I found that I could remove half the default bindings to setup to my personal liking !

Visually this game is pretty stunning with a few nice touches thrown in for good measure. I have found that on my system I can run the game really smooth in 1024x768 no AA and highest detail setting. My specs are XP 2500+ Barton core, 1 Gb ram (333 Mhz) and ATI Radeon 9600 Pro everything at stock speeds.

Some of the nice touches I mentioned for example are killing a bug in close combat and its guts / blood splatting on the helmet visor (come back to the helmet in a tick) gets a bit awkward to see whats in front when this happens, thankfully there is what looks like a laser windscreen wiper that moves across from side to side briefly and clears up the view for you. Another handy thing like I mentioned is the helmet, you get all the vision modes needed immediately and at the click of a button. Lucasarts have really gone to town getting this one right !

Sound is what you would expect from a Lucasarts Star Wars game, perfect in everyway and its pretty good hearing some of the amusing comments coming out of the teamates.

AI in general is really good, robots duck and cover or fall in behind one of the hefty battle type droids (damn those things are tough ! ), alien bugs fly off and regroup before 2nd swarm attack. Teamates move up and provide cover when needed so all round very good.

Weapons are pretty nifty, standard sniper rifle, machine gun and pistol, however the sniper rifle is literally something that gets bolted onto the main machine gun to become what it is making you duck for cover when selecting this weapon. Only other weapon I have come across just yet is what looks like a beam weapon, hold the trigger down a few seconds and it charges up then lets rip with a long laser beam that keeps going till you leave go, it cuts everything down in its path (kinda reminds me of the laser line on the old Amiga game Turrican) Grenades so far come in 2 flavours, thermal detonators (bog standard grenade basically) and electromagnetic, it hits the ground and creates a shockwave that knocks lesser robots for six (kills instantly ! ) and temporarily stuns the bigger battle droids, very handy !

All in all this is a great game and I will personally recommend it to fans of Star Wars or fans of FPS. Great well rounded game. Drops you in the thick of it immediately and you have fun from that moment in.

Give it 10 / 10

[Dooms]

Good review... Hope you dont mind me adding about death and rebirth

Basicly if one of your men falls in combat you can command (or do iturself) to go bring him back, also if you fall in battle you have 3 options...

1. All commandos keep their current targets
2. Come rez me!!!
3. I dont know i never used it

The game felt very arcrady, shoot em up, kill everything that moved and i loved it Ill get round to getting the whole game either on monday or tuesday (once i get my new PC)

[iranu]

Does it have the feel of Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast or Battlefront with regards to the operation of weapons?

I felt a bit let down with BF with regards to how the weapons (especially the stormtrooper's blaster) feel, if you know what I mean.

[Dooms]

Ever played Metroid on the Gamecube? Its like that

[Spud1]

Good review but got to add my own comments

Firstly - its not visually stunning, the texture quality is shocking - but then its another console conversion so you can blame the Xbox for that Aside from that the graphics are good looking, but very repetetive, especially in the later levels.

There are some very nice touches though, the respawning bit, the visor clean..and the AI really does seem good, you definitely get that 'team dynamic' while you are playing, its like you are working with the NPCs as opposed to against them as in many other team based games.

My major critisisms are the lack of weapon choice, the 'Xboxed' graphics (now joins the ranks of deus Ex2 and theif3 in the games that have been at least partially spoilt by M$'s evil box) and the fact that theres little variation in enemies, mostly droids and geonosians.

Still, was a worthwhile purchase, dont regret buying it

7/10

[Ferral]

I think it has a bit of a Serious Sam kinda feel to it, theres hordes of stuff to kill. All go from the moment you take control. I personally think it looks nice, I dont like the bloom effect to much on games as a rule but looks decent on this one. Graphics and sound are sharp and as mentioned its very arcadey. You cant really go wrong in spending well earned money on this, its something different instead of the usual Jedi orientated games that have been coming out the past few years.

Damned good blast that gets you hooked instantly, I do stick with what i say about it looking damned good. Looks way better than its X Box counterpart and is nowhere near as bad as HALO, Thief 3 or Dues Ex 2 port overs.

[iranu]

Played it briefly on a friends machine with x800 pro and it kept me amused for a while.

Lots of blasting stuff with some nice touches as mentioned above. Only played the first 3 levels (when you first get the sniper rifle). Felt a bit more like Halo somehow but much more polished.

Certainly doesn't have the weapon blast feel of Jedi outcast as the main (early) weapon is an automatic rifle that shoots narrow white/bluish bolts. Blaster pistol is more like it.