Star Wars: Republic Commando is one of the greatest Star Wars games of all, and is easily the best game based on the prequel trilogy. I’ve got a whole new appreciation for it, though, after watching this developer playthrough, hosted by the game’s lead programmer Brett Douville.
As people who don’t make games, it’s always easiest to criticise and appreciate the things as outsiders that we do understand about them. Art design, writing, etc. We rarely appreciate, or are even aware, of stuff going on behind the scenes like the HDD loading limitations Douville explains was the reason behind the game’s immersive intro sequence.
This is just the first video; he’s going to be doing one every week until he’s done.
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8 responses to “Go Behind The Scenes On One Of The Best Star Wars Games Ever Made”
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I actually thought Republic Commando was one of the worst Star Wars game ever made after coming off the dark forces/Jedi Knight train. Ahh well. 🙂
Yeah same here. One of the few star wars games I never finished because it was so lame. Weird article.
A good Star Wars game yes. One of the greatest Star Wars games? No. Not when you have to contend with Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight II, X-Wing, Tie Fighter and KOTOR.
Couldn’t agree with you more. 😀
Republic Commando really was a very good game and my only major gripe with it was it felt too short, like it was missing a last third of the campaign. The thing that I really love about it was that along with battlefront II, it was one of the only games that made the prequel era cool and the clones seem actually badass. It’s a very well-crafted tactical first person shooter of the kind we don’t see much of anymore these days and it really exceeded expectations held for it at the time seeing as it was a tie in FPS game taking place in the prequel era when every good star wars game had taken place during, after or thousands of years before the original trilogy.
To call it one of the worst clearly shows that you’ve only ever played the handful of truly excellent star wars games, that – for the most part – all came out before it.
Think about that, there’s been a handful of noteworthy star wars games in the decade since this game came out.
Battlefront II came out later the same year
Empire at war came out the year after
After those you’ve got debatably good titles like the force unleashed and SWTOR.
I think you have to really put it in perspective as well. I am a 70’s kid. I grew up with Star Wars so naturally i was more attuned to the 4, 5 and 6 timeline. Republic Commando just didn’t do it for me. As a Star Wars game I had just come off with the Jedi Knights which were excellent. Also during those times it was the golden age of FPS games. So you had many titles. When Republic Commando came out, it felt lacking to be honest. I actually liked Battlefront. Empire at War was no match for other space strategy games like Masters of Orion. KOTOR was great. Then you had the long slew of simulators Xwing all the way to Alliance. Not to mention the console games of Rogue Squadron and waaay back when the rail shooters like Rebel Assault took to the field. I still stand by the fact that to me, it was one of the weaker titles. But like i said. It was a time coming off great FPS games and when i compared Republic to those other FPS titles. I just didn’t think as a game it was all that great. If i look at all the Star Wars titles as a whole including ones like SNES Super Star Wars. I would still have to say it is on the lower end of the spectrum for me. Maybe I am biased or maybe i just thought it was a crappy fps game compared to other titles such as Swat 4, Call of Duty 2, and Battlefield 2 that came out at the same time hence giving me a lower opinion of it. Guess it came out the wrong time for me. 🙂
The really surprising thing about this video was learning that George Lucas actually provided some positive feedback that really helped the game, that being to inject some humor and camaraderie into it and make it less grim which was a great aspect of this game. The less surprising thing was his lazy off the cuff suggestion of maybe getting Robin Williams to voice a clone to get that humor.