Vode An: or Why Republic Commando Kicked Ass

One Indomitable Heart, Brothers All.

Ah, the game where boys became men.

In a time when nearly all Star Wars media focused exclusively on the Jedi this game dared to ask “what if you were a Navy Seal…in spaaaaaaace?”

And you know what? It worked!

For a game that came out when I was in middle school this game was metal as fuck, dear reader. Wookies ripped droids in half with their bare hands. You knifed Geonosians so frequently your helmet came pre-equipped with a digital window wiper to clean the blood splatter from the visor.

Glorious.

This game came out right before Revenge of the Sith hit the theaters. Clone Troopers at this time were seen as monotonous drones- cannon fodder if you will, albeit ones with cool armor.

Republic Commando, however, dared give them personality.

You played as Boss, the leader of Delta Squad and were joined by Scorch (your demolitions expert), Fixer (your by the book # 2), and Sev (your grizzled company sniper, raging sociopath and all around fan favorite).

In a few brief moments the game quickly runs down how you may all be the same person but each reflects a distilled focus on a specific trait. Yes you can all blow stuff up but Scorch can do it in his sleep. Everyone can hack but Fixer can do it in seconds. All are expert marksmen but Sev’s heightened reflexes mean he can do it in a fraction of the time. And you? Well all may be leaders but only Boss has the tactical wherewithal to keep that many strong personalities in line while achieving the objective. 

You were all clones of the same man but your different traits and different teachers gave you each a different life experience making you, ultimately, different people. That alone is great fodder for good science fiction but add to that some phenomenal presentation and you get something else entirely.

Rather than the monotonous stark white armor of regular troopers Delta Squad expressed themselves with unique designs on their armor, further showcasing their differences in personality while also being  given a distinctly unique voice.

Hold up (you might say). But they’re clones of the same guy. How is that possible?

I’ll admit, dear reader, I love this explanation.

You see, technically they *do* all have the same voice. In fact to everyone else in the game they sound identical. But, just like anyone who’s ever been friends with identical twins (which I was) it makes perfect sense how the smallest deviation from each other would stand out to each Clone like a bonfire at midnight.

It’s a neat twist, sure, but while it helps deepen the story how was the gameplay?

Fucking epic that’s how.

You weren’t “running and gunning” on some main battlefield like a Skywalker’s version of Call of duty. Oh, no. You were bred to the Elite. Where regular Clone Troopers would charge blindly at a machine gun nest you were involved in Galactic spec ops- setting IEDs, clearing rooms, assassinating Separatist leaders, you name it.

The developers were actually brought in former special forces members to advise them on tactics and methodology- even to provide motion capture. So, when your teammate did a takedown or cleared a room they moved with a fluid grace that looked real because….well, it was.

Even the simple act of opening a door afforded you a certain tactical choice that reflected your Commando’s higher degree of agency compared to the rank and file: did you command your squad to silently break the lock so you could sneak into a more advantageous position before opening fire or did you blow in the door with high explosives to take out a cluster of enemies before you ran in gun’s blazing to clean up the rest?

The option to set your squad up for maximum effect really delivered on the tactical dynamic the game was going for. In a time where shooters presented players with large arenas where you were essentially a one man army here you relied on your Squad members. If your health dropped they’d rush in to save you, incentivizing you to in turn keep them all alive as well. This organically lead to badass moments where you’d make a split second decision to order one squad member to heal up while ordering another to maintain an overwatch position for them as a sniper before mounting a machine gun yourself to cover another squad mate as they planted a bomb- this shit was like Apocalypse Now meets a galaxy far far away and damn it all I was (and am!) here for it!

Ask yourself: have you ever wanted to introduce two rounds of molten double ought buck shot into a Trandosian’s midriff? Oh don’t lie, yes you have- they kill wookiees for sport for fuck’s sake. Damn bipedal geckos have it coming and this game delivers on that in spades.  

That and the ability to mod your weapon in real time from an smg to sniper rifle and everything in between  without even entering a pause menu really made you feel like you were an elite fighting force equipped with top of the line gear that had been set loose on the enemies of the Republic and DAMN if it didn’t feel good to have the good guys be undiluted badasses.

There’s a tendency in fiction to have the good guys be a little *too* good, you know? To show them as being too pure, too perfect. This game had the balls to say: yeah the Jedi were noble but yours were the hands that got dirty so theirs could stay clean.

And why not add a little darkness to your heroes? Give them an edge. Make them face the hard thing so that when they come out on the other side with their head held high we’ll sing their praises all the fiercer.

After all, if a couple of Star Wars nerds could do it for a couple of cookie cutter clones, you can too.