Although there have been plenty of decent Star Wars games in the past, LucasArts have had a lot of trouble producing a top quality game based on the new prequels--but
Republic Commando looks like it could change all that.
Republic Commando puts you in a four man squad of elite clonetroopers, that act as a sort of SAS version of the standard stormtrooper-alikes seen in Episode II. It’s your job to order the squad about while engaging in a spot of first person shooting action as you go. In other words it’s Star Wars does Rainbow Six--the squad-based shooter being just about the only genre of game that hasn’t been Star Warsified up until now.
Surprisingly things seem to be turning out rather well with some decent graphics and an easy to use, if slightly perfunctory, squad control interface. The game also takes much inspiration from the GameCube’s Metroid Prime with an excellent helmet view that does a lot to immerse you in the game and convince you that you really are the sci-fi version of Andy McNab.
Perhaps the only problem evident at this stage is that the battles are noticeably smaller scale than the ones from the movie with rarely more than half a dozen enemies attacking at any one time, rather than the hundreds seen in the film. An online multiplayer mode should help to shore things up somewhat, although the artificial intelligence of the bad guys is good enough to ensure you can still have plenty of fun on your own. --David Jenkins