Republic: The Revolution Screenshots   The Final Say! Gameplay 8.1 Graphics 8.4 Sound 8.3 Value 8.0 Republic: The Revolution - reviewed by Andrew B Review Date: October 2003 Review Score: 8.0/10 Distributed by Atari Australia

Republic: The Revolution is one of the most anticipated games of all time that has spent the majority of its life in development. Although Republic may seem like a first person shooter because of the graphics engine, the game is however far from it and is actually a political strategy game. You play the role of young man who was living peacefully in a Eastern European country called Novistrana until one fateful day his parents are taken away by the secret police. As the days pass, your hope slowly dissipates and you never hear from your parents again and on a solemn summer evening, you vow revenge on the government that took your family away. As fate keeps strange bedfellows, while watching the local television station years later, you realise that the man who abducted your family is now the  President of Novistrana. President Karasov is one of the worst political dictators in history and puts Hitler and Stalin to shame and a few weeks after his appointment as president, Karasov ordered mass arrests and outlawed all political opposition parties. The once peaceful country of Novistrana has now been turned into a land of political turmoil and uncertainty for its civilians. Before you can engage in Republic, you must first answer ten or so questions about your political and revolutionary life. The questions are varied and interesting and help form your character for the game, one question asks about a work colleague who is threatening  to inform the secret police about your actions. You have a variety of choices in the way that you can answer the question and you can either pay him a visit with some local  thugs, persuade him to join your cause or leave incriminating evidence in his house. After answering these questions, the game then creates your personality and will dictate how the game will be played out, a very novel method of character generation. I highly recommend all gamers to read the manual from start to finish as the gameplay of Republic is extremely fiddly but also very addictive. It would of been nice if the developers included an in-depth tutorial but unfortunately this is nowhere seen in the game. The basic premise behind Republic is that the game a political  strategy where you must use all your resources to usurp the current government with a  revolution. By recruiting followers, you can then order them to engage in a variety of missions to help increase your popularity and bring the people toward your cause. The gameplay also involves a variety of missions that includes jail breaks, instigating riots, leafleting, political speeches, assassinations and a variety of other political based and criminal missions.

As you progress through the game, you eventually  become too big for your home town and you get to control other larger towns but  fortunately you can leave behind lieutenants to maintain order under your name.  As you progress through the game, your recruits slowly become more and more powerful  until your party is soon a force to be reckoned with.

Republic supports two different gameplay views that include 2D and 3D views but you will generally find yourself using the 2D view as it is much more easier to navigate the game this way. The 3D view is used when you are "spying" on certain contacts or when an in game movie occurs. The gamer also controls various agents in the game that are basically your right hand man which do the "nasty" work in the game such as stage protests or help in criminal activities. The game has a variety of actions (or missions) that also must be accomplished before you can attain the next level of the game. These actions are contained in your personal planner that helps keep your missions in an orderly fashion, without it getting too confusing for the gamer. The game also works on a 4 minute time frame that actually equates to one day in Republic.

Graphically, Republic is a visual treat and although it appears a little dated when compared to some of the games on the market at the moment, it is still quite impressive and uses a variety of special effects. Your entire fictionous town is alive with people, cars and the goings of everyday life. You can even sit back and "spy" on people in the town as they go about their everyday life. The only frustrating aspect of  the game is the annoying camera angles that really plays havoc with the gameplay. The buildings all look like they have been created by Soviet architects and suit the game perfectly because of its setting. It should however be noted, depending on your system specs, Republic may either run like a treat or a nightmare.The musical score of Republic sounds brilliant and has a very Russian type orchestral feel to it, while the voice acting, although they don't use a real language, it is a sort of guttural eastern European speaking.

In conclusion, Republic is a novel game that challenges the current game market but unfortunately fails to fully deliver. The concept of the game is brilliant but the fiddle some camera angles and strange gaming interface is enough to get under the skin of the most patient of gamers. Recommend to people who like a difficult challenge or for those that one something different on their gaming menu.

- Andrew B