During my recent visit to a Lucas press event I got to take a look at Star Wars: Republic Commando. Let's just say, it's much more promising than I thought it would be. Since its announcement I had doubts that the genre was a good fit for the Lucas outfit. A Ghost Recon/Halo shooter? That's pretty ambitious. But they may have pulled it off. We were shown a level of action where the team combat was simple to follow, the flow of the level and action was clear and exciting and the graphics were a step above the usual Lucas title. The original promo shots showed a dark setting with commandos creeping through a cave. It was hard to see what the hell was going on. But this level was bright and colorful, with droids taking shots at you from every direction. It looked excellent.
The game will have 17 levels, with around 90 mini-missions, which should keep you busy for a long time. Giving
commands to your squad is a simple click of a button ? which brings us to the AI. Impressive, very impressive. At one
point we saw a commando lay a way point at a ship where a droid was hiding. The AI commando took out the droid, giving
us a nice show and clearing the way for our character (who was low on health).
The environment is, of course, destructible. But they seem to have implemented the destructive elements into the
gameplay; it?s not just for eye candy. My favorite example of this is probably the hanging crates that dotted the
level. One shot to the support cable and the crates came tumbling down on the droids heads.
Another nice touch? The weapons. Instead of swapping out entire rifles, the guns can be modded on the fly, letting you
keep an entire arsenal on your belt. Not only is this more realistic, it?s fun as hell to watch. Just to sweeten things
even more, there?s an open slot for one enemy weapon. The one we saw requires you to plant a bunch of mechanical
tendrils into your arm to operate. It?s touches like these that give us hope that Republic Commando will live up to its
potential.
Apparently, the game was conceived by Lucas folk who wanted to do some digging into the Star Wars universe?s military
action. From that premise, a title was born. If our initial impression is even close to correct, then you can expect to
be around 50 bucks poorer after its release.
