Republic Commando is a highly enjoyable FPS with excellent graphics and a wonderful feeling of immersion. Not since Half Life 2 or Freedom Fighters have I felt this involved with the character, mission, and gameplay. Despire being heavily scripted, the characters are memorable, and this would be an excellent game even if it wasn't set in the Star Wars universe. Unlike other squad based games, like Freedom Fighters or Rainbow Six, tactical options are obvious in the game, as you are given specific points in a level where you can "set up sniping" or "set up anti-armor". Usually, when you see these points, you should instruct your very competent squad mates to use those areas to gain a tactical advantage. This ruins the suprise of many scripted encounters as you know that an area with plenty of these hard points usually equates to massive amounts of enemies that will pour into the area at one point or another. Squad member AI is excellent, and although they can be frustratingly bad shots, they will defeat enemies, heal you, heal each other, recommend actions, man turrets, etc. They'll even chastise you when you screw up and really get ticked off when you let them fall over and over again. For the most part, jumping and crouching is unnecessary, and some of the weapons seem a bit underwhelming. You'll find yourself using your melee attack quite a bit, which works very similiar to Halo 2. Voice acting and sound in general are superb. The rag doll physics and fancy DX9 graphics are nice touches but they rarely effect your gameplay. Unlike Half Life 2 you won't be doing any fancy physic-based stuff to complete your missions. Unfortunately I found the game to be a little too short, and the ending was disappointing. The game isn't especially difficult either, and there are definite breaks between action where you're allowed ample time (and resources) to reload your weapons and heal your soldiers. You'll die plenty trying to find the correct way to defeat the 10 or so different types of enemies, but your squad mates can (and will) revive you while continuing to fire on the enemy, so true "I need to reload the game" death is usually pretty rare. This game reminds me of the solid and incredibly fun games of Lucasart's heyday in the 90's. Much like Tie Fighter and Jedi Knight, this game follows a tried and true formula and delivers it with precision and style.
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