Star Wars: Republic Commando

Star Wars: Republic Commando is a tactical FPS from LucasArts that steps away from the saga's heroes and puts the player in command of a four-member squad of clone commandos during the Clone Wars. Its defining feature is simple yet functional command of squadmates on the fly — a single button lets the player have a teammate hold a position, repair a droid, or board a vehicle, without the game having to interrupt the pace of the firefights. The level design and sound design, including the distinctive rattle of armor and the commandos' banter with each other, still rank among the best that Star Wars action games have offered, and the game earned a reputation as one of the most polished titles of its era despite a short campaign. The campaign leads the squad across three varied battlefields, from the mined moon of Geonosis to the deck of a spaceship, and the atmosphere is further shaped by the fact that the commandos communicate among themselves in their own jargon instead of the usual heroic one-liners.

The PC version was released in the same year, 2005, as the Xbox original, so it is not a later port but an equal, contemporary release. The main difference is in the controls — on the computer, the player aims with a mouse, which makes precise long-range shooting easier, while squad commands on Xbox went through simple button shortcuts tailored to a gamepad and the smaller TV screens of that era. The PC version also supported higher resolution, and the game could run on the graphics cards common at the time without needing to buy a console, which also brought it to players who preferred computer gaming exclusively and did not own an Xbox at home.

Content-wise, the game is identical on both platforms — no missions, weapons, or story sections were added or removed, and the level design remained the same on both sides. The difference thus lies purely in control comfort and technical parameters, not in the game's content, so choosing a platform was mainly a question of whether the player preferred a mouse or a gamepad, not how much content that choice would secure.

Why play it: Content-wise completely identical on both platforms, choosing between PC and console with Republic Commando was purely a matter of control comfort, not how much game you'd get for it.