When I think of Star Wars the first thing that obviously springs to mind is 2 flashing lightsabres, weaving and twirling, their electronic, static charged sounds clashing into each other like lightning bolts themselves if they were to duel. The recent movies, and even games such as Star Wars : Battlefront have gone some way to showing the other side to the battles. Sure, Jedi's always seem to feature in there somewhere, but the sheer epic scale of the Clone Wars with its Droid and Clone armies makes for some great gaming potential. Both Star Wars: The Clone Wars & Battlefront captured this quite well, especially Battlefront's 'Geonosis Spire' level which was one of my favourite maps in that game.

This side of the Star Wars saga gets expanded on again in the form of Star Wars : Republic Commando (from now on SWRC), the latest Star Wars first person shooter to come from the extremely creative minds at Lucas Arts. In Episode II the bounty hunter, Jango Fett, supplied his DNA to the clone makers on the planet Kamino who created millions of clone troopers secretly under the orders of a Jedi named Sifo-Dyas. These clone troopers did a superior job on the battlefield, but in smaller groups when the need for clandestine operations arose, they didn't fare as well. Slightly different clones were then created, each with differing skills all designed to work together perfectly as one cohesive unit. And this is where you come in.

In a cool touch, some of the very first scenes in SWRC are viewed through your young clone's eyes as he undertakes his training under the watchful, and seemingly caring, gaze of his Kaminoan creators. There isn't anything interactive however and as the cut scenes eventually play out you find yourself as the leader of your own 4 man kick arse squad of Republic Commandos. From here on in it's an action packed, although shortish, gritty, explosion filled adventure in a side of the Star Wars universe never seen before.

Each member in your squad has been cloned and trained with specific skills. Sev, is the sniper, Scorch is the demolitions expert, Fixer is the one you call when you need computers or doors hacked open and your name, is appropriately, Boss. Through prompts that handily appear around the environment (via your HUD inside your helmet visor) you are able to order your team to snipe from behind cover, launch grenade attacks or perform moves such as jump into turret weapons. You also have some extra commands available which are accessed by holding down the A button and then pressing the d-pad. Through this simple interface you are able to easily give your team cover, slice computer terminals, breach doors, concentrate fire on enemies and give more commands such as form-up, search and destroy and secure area. Telling your squad what to do in SWRC is extremely easy and they follow their orders with precision. About the only complaint that can be levelled at the squad control system is that the environment overlays take away the guess work about how you should place your squad which, while making the game easier to get into, creates a more linear experience than some may have been looking for.

There would have been nothing surer to let us all down with this game if the A.I had been terrible and except for a few dodgy moments, it does a fantastic job. Your squad mates will cover each other, use grenades where needed, revive each other if they take too much damage (and they can even revive you as well) but they can be damaged from your 'friendly fire' if you get careless around them. The enemy A.I is great as well with critters such as the Geonosian bugs attacking in waves, the Trandoshan slave traders hunting in packs and also being smart enough to attack on their own. I did witness my own squad members and the enemies both getting stuck on parts of the levels sometimes which was pretty disappointing. Overall though, throughout the whole game this happened only about 5 times, but when it did it looked pretty silly. Another source of annoyance was that sometimes when asking the squad to concentrate fire on a battle droid, instead of taking cover and firing, they all blindly ran up to it and got taken down in mere moments leaving me to take out a droid dispenser and battle droids all on my own. On the upside though, your squad and the enemies have many extremely intelligent moments that more than make up for a few small issues but you will experience these moments of silliness and wonder how they made their way into the game.

Watching one of your squad getting involved in a melee attack, grabbing an enemies knife, twisting it around and then ramming it into their neck is not only an example of some great A.I at work, but it's also obvious that the guys in the animation team love their work. From your squad mates reloading their weapons, melee attacking, operating equipment, breaching doors to simple things as the realistic way they move when slowing down from a run are all animated fluidly, creating a feeling of realism from them that you don't see very often at all, at least not this smoothly anyway.

On the downside however, the game's levels leave a bit to be desired. SWRC isn't an overly long game, and from time to time that can be welcome as we don't always want 30 hour epics that drag on needlessly. Unfortunately SWRC is a very linear experience and the levels feature a lot of corridors and confined spaces that you always have to make your way through. Even in the games first level on Geonosis, there is always debris creating some wall and you are herded in the direction that Lucas Arts need you to take to get to the next part of the game. You never truly have the feeling that you did in the Geonosis level in Star Wars Battlefront that there is a gigantic battle taking place while you're doing your own thing. The levels never really get repetitive as they take place throughout some great locations, but the linearity is there and it becomes very obvious early on.

The levels do feature some great design and artwork and never get boring to look at. There are loads of excellent design touches, reflective surfaces and bloom lighting effects to give the graphics junkies plenty to ooh and ahh at and everything in SWRC, from start to finish, looks very nice indeed. The last sore point for me is the weapons; If you've played any of the Jedi Knight, or past Dark Forces (PC) games, you might share my opinion that all the projectile weapons in every Star Wars game have sucked, and SWRC is no exception to that.

You're squad is fitted out with their standard Blaster Rifles that do a great job of cutting down the droid grunts, but that's about it. For the most part they feel enormously under powered and when faced with most enemy types I found myself not even bothering to use it and instead, charging up for a melee attack which took most of them down in one hit (also creating a nice oil or blood spatter across your visor that a laser then cleans for you). A sniper, and anti armour attachment are also available and come in handy when facing the battle droids. And here is where another issue raises its head. In Star Wars Battlefront the grunt and battle droids would get taken down pretty easily, and obviously in SWRC, the grunt droids are cannon fodder, but the battle droids have become some almost unstoppable tank. They are almost impervious to your blaster fire, requiring clip after clip to weaken, and even thermal grenades seemed to have little effect. The best tactic I found was to use an EC detonator that disrupts their electronics and then going in for a melee attack, or using the anti armour. Otherwise they just suck up too much of your ammunition and instead of being a source of fear, become a source of frustration as you realise it will probably take up most of your ammo to defeat only a handful of them. All the baddies, from the droids to the aliens all look awesome though, featuring some excellent artwork, animation and character design and most importantly, are great fun to kill!

The audio in SWRC does a great job and one would expect no less from Lucas Arts. All the sound effects are pulled straight from the movies and everything from the droids, the weapon fire, music and explosions all sound great. Your squad indulges in a bit of chatter as well and will congratulate you on a nice shot, talk amongst themselves and pitch in with some advice during the larger battles. The voice acting in the game is of a very high quality and it really gives your squad a lot of personality that could have been easily overlooked.

Once you get through the single player campaign, which only really takes about 10 hours due to their only being 3 campaigns to complete, there are a bunch of multiplayer modes waiting for you as well. As well as split screen, SWRC features Xbox Live support but generally it's all pretty standard stuff. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Assault modes offer little in the way of anything new or innovative but what's included is still welcome and it's great to see a dedicated server option included as well which can only help its popularity online.