Star Wars Republic Commando Review
The single-player aspect of Republic Commando takes you on three distinct campaigns during the Clone Wars-era of Star Wars. You'll invade Geonosis, along with the rest of the Republic army, investigate a derelict starship, and assist the wookiees in fending off Trandoshan slavers on the planet of Kashyyyk. The campaigns are paced extremely well throughout the game, offering up new and interesting challenges at just the right junctures. Whether it's hunting down and assassinating a Geonosian lieutenant, fending off endless hordes of super battle droids and droideka, or escorting a highly ranked wookiee, there's never a dull moment in Republic Commando.
The missions are heavily scripted to provide exciting pitched battles, some of which will see you as the aggressor and others of which will require you to defend areas from attack. This also means the game is fairly linear. So it's obvious which paths you'll need to be going down, and you won't be doing a whole lot of backtracking. But at the same time, nary a minute goes by without the blasters and rockets firing back and forth at full tilt. The only downer is that the fun doesn't last long, as most players should be able to tear through the campaign in fewer than 10 hours. It sure is an exciting ride while it lasts, though.
The game does include a multiplayer aspect on both the PC and Xbox platforms. Unfortunately, the multiplayer isn't nearly as creative or exciting as the campaign. There are standard deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag modes, along with an assault mode that's basically the same as one-flag CTF, with one team attempting to carry a special item in to a capture area in the other team's base before the timer runs out. There are eight maps total, which are designed for four to 16 players. Many of these maps, however, are just derived from specific parts of the single-player levels, although there is one special level that includes some zero-gravity areas
The missions are heavily scripted to provide exciting pitched battles, some of which will see you as the aggressor and others of which will require you to defend areas from attack. This also means the game is fairly linear. So it's obvious which paths you'll need to be going down, and you won't be doing a whole lot of backtracking. But at the same time, nary a minute goes by without the blasters and rockets firing back and forth at full tilt. The only downer is that the fun doesn't last long, as most players should be able to tear through the campaign in fewer than 10 hours. It sure is an exciting ride while it lasts, though.
The game does include a multiplayer aspect on both the PC and Xbox platforms. Unfortunately, the multiplayer isn't nearly as creative or exciting as the campaign. There are standard deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag modes, along with an assault mode that's basically the same as one-flag CTF, with one team attempting to carry a special item in to a capture area in the other team's base before the timer runs out. There are eight maps total, which are designed for four to 16 players. Many of these maps, however, are just derived from specific parts of the single-player levels, although there is one special level that includes some zero-gravity areas