As I've mentioned many times in the past, I am a massive Star Wars nerd. I read the Young Jedi Knight books when I was 8, I still consider the X-Wing series to be among the best collection of novels ever written, I bought the games, the toys, massive massive nerd. Unfortunately, this has also been the root cause of a rather constant feeling of disappointment when LucasArts cranks out a new title. Simply put, there have been a lot of bad games. Obviously, not all. KoToR I and II, Tie Fighter, the X-Wing series, Rogue Squadron, the Kyle Katarn games, the Force Unleashed games. In my mind there is one game that stands above them all, except for maybe KoToR I and Jedi Outcast.
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| These guys. These guys right here. |
Republic Commando is pretty much a freaking icon of good game construction. The graphics are fantastic without aiming for photo-realism, the soundtrack is amazing, the world building is scary good, it controls well, it is balanced well and most of all
the AI allies are very very useful. The other commandos are useful in combat without being overpowered, but don't die every 5 seconds without you playing the role of nanny. What's better, they have character development and personality without being annoying, the witty banter is witty and the commentary is insightful. As well, the steps taken to create a sense of immersion (reload animations, the visor stuff, the ear ringing) are all done without being obtrusive, this game was seriously the best use of the "wearing space armor" concept since Metroid Prime. Perhaps the biggest accomplishment of all is that none of this
relies on the setting. The script never loosely gestures and says "It's that way because Star Wars that's why."
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| I'm looking at you |
You could have stripped away the licensing and the game would still be good. This implies that the way to make a good Star Wars game is to make a good game and add some LucasFilm glazing over top, which may be oversimplifying the whole thing a little bit. But the point remains, everything in SW:RC that wasn't specifically Star Wars related just
worked. It stood as a good game on its own merits. Unlike some of the contemporaries, it wasn't a generic industry standard that relied on the licensing to overcome shortcomings.
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| Average hack 'n slash with an awesome script. |
It treated the source material with a surprising amount of respect, and it did what too few Star Wars games do. It got
dark. The first mission opens as an assasination in a warzone. You investigate a warship littered with dead bodies. It ends with a tear jerker. Even more, there were no damn lightsabers or space wizards preaching destiny, it was all something more relateable; BAMF's following orders, doing dirty work. No SW game in recent memory (KoToRs excepted) had the balls to get this dark except for maybe the Force Unleashed series. This is probably the single greatest challenge to making good Star Wars games, is that the writers always flinch. Jedi always triumph Honestly, I wish it had gone farther, the missions had been "murkier" or that Delta squad did missions in more distressing settings, like an Outer Rim planet that the Trade Federation had just knocked over. Do I have complaints with this game? Sure. It got repetitive. It was WAY too short. Some more variety in squad commands wouldn't have hurt. But these are all things that can be easily overlooked in the name of fun.
I'm sure I'm going to write about this game again. It was too good not to. If you haven't played it yet, you can grab it on Steam for $10.
Go. Buy. It.
Thank me later, just go and enjoy a game where everything
works. It is something exceedingly rare in the video game industry, and something that LucasArts has struggled to pull off again.
