Beautiful Game that Deserves Refinement and Expansion
Republic the Revolution has what most games do not: an indepth diplomatic model mixed with emotional impact of harsher forms of intrigue, subterfuge, and covertion.
Imagine if the SIms 2 were to focus an entire expansion pack on espionage and grassroots political manuevering in a clime of economic and military instability, where elections and politics are played by criminals and ruthless powerbrokers without ethic nor noble exception.
Now, while Republic does not have the nicities of Sims 2 (but could well incorporate such interesting gameplay), this is a far grittier and more realistic version of revolution in its inceptions and origins than shooter games can hope to portray.
Yes, the game moves with odd sloth and the translations are bad, the muttered dialogue repeatitive and annoying, I also find computer game battlecries boring after a time. The music is gorgeous and the graphics can be pretty, but on most computers are bleak and silly.
The worth in this game is in the gameplay to be sure, in hopes that it will be refined, but also in hopes that some of what is demonstrated within this game is uptaken into other games to create variety and realism.
To digress, should some future developer think to combine gameplay found in Republic with gameplay in a game like Alpha Centauri with life sim such as in The Sims 2 and battle like in FPS, they'd have the makings of a wonderful MMORPG -- but sadly, the MMORPG offerings only skim the surface of this sort of depth, and those that have attempted anything near such an amalgam are still in juvenile stages of considering the latrine as fascinating because people keep walking inside it (hence Everquest style MMO still rule).
I can think of several game genre that would benefit from diplomatic models, be they harsh or civil (both even), and with this in mind reconsider the use of really beautiful ideas that aren't executed quite so wel.
A pity Elixir went under -- they were a good company.