Star Wars Republic Commando Demo

Holy crap it’s good! What’s the deal with Lucas Arts suddenly putting out solid games? I should probably just keep my mouth shut and enjoy it while it lasts.

Anyways, the demo for Republic Commando was released today and you’re damn right I jumped all over it the moment I caught wind. This is one of the ‘gotta have’ games for 2005 – for me anyways. There’s a couple really cool squad-based FPS in development right now that I’ve been dying to try out, SWRC being one of them – Brothers In Arms the other. The whole idea of pointing at an area and your squad actually doing something useful has definitely got me intrigued. And SWRC seems to do it quite well. As seen in the screenshot below, you point at an area and are able to just hit ‘F’ and your squad will assemble there, take cover, plant a bomb, provide cover and many other things. The cool part, is the hologram that shows up when you mouse over a ‘target’. It shows you exactly how your squad will assemble when they get there. Pretty neat!

The environment in the demo is simply beautiful. You’re on the Wookie homeworld, Kashyyyk – which is this giant forest planet inhabited by wildlife… and Wookies! There’s this subtle ambient music when you’re just patrolling around, which quickly changes to the typical (yet extremely awesome) epic orchestral score that gets your blood pumping. The use of light-bloom is also very cool. They don’t use it all the time, but in appropriate places like big explosions and around flames and holograms.

The only thing I’m not entirely stoked on is the smack-talking from the squad. They’ve all got these super-low voices, as if there nutsacks as dragging on the ground. And they’re constantly muttering stupid shit as you walk around. Some times it’s cool, when they’re discussing maneuvers and whatnot. But when they comment on landmarks and enemies it’s a little cheese. Maybe there’s an option to turn that off… I didn’t check.

So it looks like SWRC is shaping up nicely and I’m now even more stoked for it’s March 1st release.