Not only is Star Wars: Republic Commando out now for Xbox and PC, but Brothers in Arms comes out today for Xbox, Devil May Cry 3 comes out today for PS2, and don't forget that Fight Night Round 2 dropped yesterday as well. This is a crazy week for gamers, especially if last week's lightning-fast releases weren't enough for you.
Somehow or another, I'm trying to give time to everything that is released this week, and so far it's working well. I got to play a lot of Republic Commando last night, and I have to say that I'm impressed with it, but not quite as much as I would have liked to have been. The squad stuff is really pretty basic, and is more or less just pointing to several pre-determined points in the level, and then defend them for the 10 seconds or so that it takes to do whatever they are in the process of doing.
The graphics and the sound are both quite good, with a solid framerate found throughout at least the first mission (which spans about an hour and a half), and the extremely familiar John Williams score is present as it usually is in every Star Wars game, and it's pretty effective here again. Some of the complaints that I do have include the length of the game. I already beat the first of 3 missions after just an hour and a half, so I'm already thinking that the game is only going to take a few more hours to beat. Not only that, but the last level got pretty repetitive about an hour or so in. It basically boiled down to: go into new room, find sniper point/demolition point/computer slice point, tell squadmate to go there, defend him from wave after wave of geonosians/droids, move on to next room. While this wasn't really as grating on me as it sounds, it definitely could have been a bit more varied. If they would have gone with a system more like Full Spectrum Warrior, the game might have been a little more free-forming, like you could actually order your squadmates to take cover, instead of just standing in the middle of the room while a super battle droid fires rockets and takes them all out.
Nevertheless, I can't wait to try out Brothers in Arms later today after work. I've been looking forward to this game ever since I saw it at E3 last year, and so far, early reviews are telling me that I'm not going to be disappointed. Stay tuned, and I'll let you know what I think about it.
-Jack
