Not a Jedi in sight but still strong with the force

It seems the market has been overrun recently by an invasion of first person shooter/squad video games. What happens to us after assuming such roles--street thug, spy, medieval knight, police officer, assassin, soldier, ninja, etc.--is that the games begin to blur together, and one notices more similarities than differences. So, when we obtained the recent offering from Lucas Arts of San Rafael, Calif., we did not really expect to see anything that would have it rise above the crowd. Within 15 minutes of pressing 'START,' however, we realized this game was, to echo the words of Darth Vader, "Impressive! Most impressive!"

Star Wars Republic Commando is intriguingly suspenseful, intelligent, fast-paced, and well thought out and planned, rivaling any of the companion novels. Its graphics and special effects are challenged only by the film versions.

Our time frame was the period between "Star Wars" Episodes II and Ill. We led an elite squad of clone troopers (who were assigned various covert mission objectives) against the villainous Separatists--everything from hostage rescue to assassinations and intelligence gathering to assault-and-destroy.

What sets Republic Commando apart is its Artifical Intelligence, the best in the business. It was uncanny to watch the virtual soldiers respond to our orders as if they had an actual human being working a controller dictating their actions. Even the radio chatter was more than window dressing: squad members fanning out to reconnoiter the area and reporting back field conditions, enabling us to choose the best course of action.

It's just as well that we had the assistance of such a high-IQ AI, because our elite squad was required to battle its way through eight different hostile environments and 10 even nastier species, culminating in a confrontation with the light-saber-wielding cyborg General Grievous, whose fleet and army of battle droids were poised to attack the city-planet Coruscant, capital of the the Republic.

When we tired of playing solo with the AI troops, we could use multiplayer capability on Xbox and PC platforms. Star Wars Republic Commando is optimized for Internet play as well, with an even larger number of gamesters via Xbox Live and PC Live. It is rated T for teen and available wherever video games are sold.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group