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| Game: |
Star Wars Republic Commando |
| Genre: |
Shooter |
| Developer: |
Lucasarts |
| Publisher: |
Activision |
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| Related Links: |
Coming Soon. |
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After the disappointment that was Star Wars Battlefront and the joys to behold with Knights of the Old republic 2:The Sith Lords it seems that Lucas Arts have come along way since the low period they had several years ago where Star Wars games where held in the same esteem as rabbit dung. Well its time for another Lucas Arts game, this arrives on Xbox sometime in March of this year. Star Wars Republic Commando aims to go where many others have tread but this time adding the flavours of the Star Wars universe to give it much more personality than simply being yet another generic first person shooter.
Republic Commando features first person play through the eyes of an elite clone soldier. These elite troops are specialists within their field and are simply the best of the best. The unit was created to perform special covert missions and such which means from a player point of view, you get to kick ass over 14 distinct levels. The game’s story is set sometime between Star Wars Episode I and Star Wars Episode II which mean you will get to visit places such as the hostile surface and subterranean setting of the planet Geonosis, the machine-like interiors of a Separatist Core Ship, a disabled and overrun Republic Assault Ship and the lower jungles and tree cities of the Wookiee home planet Kashyyyk. In these locales you will do battle against a wide variety of foes including Super Battle Droids, Droidekas, Geonosian Drones/ Warriors, Trandoshan Scavenger Droids and Trandoshan Mercenaries. Elites will also come up against the all powerful bodyguards of the forthcoming Episode III movie villain, General Grievous who is the leader of the Separatist armies. Whilst these adversaries might sound rather intimidating, one should never fear as your squad is armed with all the latest hi tech gadgetry and weapons. Your squad or will have access to more than a dozen authentic weapons including the primary Republic Commando firearm, the DC-17m Interchangeable Combat Weapon System and the DC-15s Sidearm Blaster Pistol, as well as enemy weapons such as the Trandoshan Slaver APC Array Blaster and Geonosian Elite Beam Weapon. Either way these weapons seemed effective enough against the droids I encountered during the demo as I blew them to smithereens.
Playing the demo thrust me into an intense situation where I was on my own and had to team up with the rest of my squad. The first thing that was noticeable was the smoothness of the controls and the impressive graphics. The controls are pretty much like any other scheme you will find in countless other fpshooters, meaning players can get to grips with playing properly from the offset. Once I had met up with the rest of the squad the first instances of the much touted one touch squad control. This method is quite ingenious as it means fiddling around with translucent menus is not required. Simply using your visor you can see holographic images which show areas on the terrain which could be used for tactical advantage. Things like barriers which provide cover to flanking moves by splitting up the team and other actions such as interacting with terminals and the like. This seems to work well as it means you can do all of these things on the fly which makes for more entertaining game play in my opinion. However my only reservation was that perhaps this approach makes things a little too easy and almost holds your hand. Despite this reservation it is clear that the actual combat is fierce and intense, clearly showing that this is the main focus of the game. Were are promised a lot of variety during missions which will include special operations such as hostage rescue, infiltration, sabotage, assault, assassination, data retrieval and recon.
Republic Commando features a wide variety of online and multiplayer modes which will no doubt please fans of Xbox Live where up to 16 players can get it on or up to 4 players huddled around one of those big TV sets. We are promised the usual death match and team games for multiplayer as well as some co-op action for those who prefer.
From what I could see during the demo, Star Wars Republic Commando is looking like a very polished game. Featuring some similarities to the much acclaimed Rainbow Six series I think Republic commando has enough offerings of its own to make it a worthwhile purchase.
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