Star Wars: Republic Commando wants to be tactical Halo. It's almost there, but not quite. The tactics aspect is very well done. Controlling your squad is a breeze. You hold the A button and use the directional pad to issue commands. A+Left is 'search and destroy,' your squad will advance through the level aggressively attacking along the way. A+ Right is 'form up,' your squad will regroup at your position and then follow your lead giving you supporting fire. A+Up is 'secure area,' your squad will advance to the position you were aiming at and clear it of any hostile. A+Down is 'cancel maneuvers', your squad will stop doing any previously assigned maneuvers and regroup on your position. When targeting an enemy, pressing A will cause the squad to concentrate all fire on said target, allowing you to more quickly take out the greatest threats first. There are also situational maneuvers available. Throughout the level there are areas and items that will have a white glow when you target them. Pressing A while targeting them issues a situational command to a unit of the squad. Highlighting a computer and pressing A will result in you ordering a unit to slice a computer system. Or you can tell them to get behind that wreckage and take up a sniper position. This results in you slowly moving down the corridors and entering larger rooms where these set-pieces are. You'll quickly scan the room for hotspots you can issue commands for. You'll place a commando at a sniper point looking down the corridor. You'll order another unit to man a turret pointed at the large blast doors across the room. You'll place a third unit on a catwalk where he'll launch grenades. You'll then proceed to the door and hack the computer to open the way for the enemies to come in. All hell breaks loose. Not only are you having to watch your own back, but now you have to watch the back of your entire team. It's not like Halo where the NPCs tagging along will be refreshed by the story. You get the one squad. You have to get them through. It can get quite intense adapting to the situation at hand. Your strategy might not be working, and you have to pull certain member off their maneuvers and assign them elsewhere. Or it may be going well, and you have to pull them off and order them to pursue the fleeing enemy. The situation is always changing. The game does a great job in always mixing things up. The set-pieces aren't one way solutions. You often have many choices in the how of the matter. Thankfully, for the most part, the squad AI is brilliant in performing their duties, and adapting to the situation. Strangely though, the enemy AI doesn't fair so well. So far they are of the stand there and get shot variety, or the charge at you until dead variety. They don't take cover and or run instinctively as the AI in Halo does so well. You'll see them doing such things, but it's not on the fly. It's story or situation based. The weapons available in the game don't break any new ground and cover all the basics. You'll have a pistol, machine gun, grenade launcher, sniper rifle, and shotgun. Your main weapon is the DC-17m Modifiable Blaster Rifle. You modify it on the fly to switch your weapon type. The D-pad without the A button pressed is the means by which you'll switch weapons. D-pad Up is the standard blaster rifle. D-pad Right is for the sniper modification. D-pad Left is for the anti-armor modification, otherwise known as grenade launcher. D-pad Down is the pistol, unless you've picked up an enemy weapon. They provide some variation on the standard genre weapons. You'll also have a collection of hand grenades at your disposal. Thermal detonators are your standard frag grenade. You'll have a flashbang variant to blind biological enemies. An EMP variant to disable machine based enemies. You'll also get a grenade that works as a timed proximity mine. All of these, the squad, the weapons, and the grenades all help to give you some depth of play and strategy in a genre not necessarily known for it. If only the enemy AI were more up to the challenge...
Next time should cover storytelling within Mr. Lucas' wonderful universe.
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