Χ-Play (2003)

Star Wars: Republic Commando, Heritage of Kings, Cold Fear and more! (3x38)

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On tonight's episode of X-Play, we review Star Wars: Republic Commando. A long time ago, in a galaxy not far away, flooding the market with substandard licensed games was as common as a wookiee in need of a flea dip. Yet we are now in the golden age of electronic entertainment, where a movie-inspired game does not necessarily mean that quality has tumbled into the carbon-freezing chamber. Star Wars: Republic Commando is the first in an armada of Star Wars-based titles planned for 2005, not coincidentally in preparation for the final film in the sci-fi series. Given the intense pressure for developers to churn out marketable Star Wars product, Republic Commando could easily become the equivalent of bantha poodoo stuck on the rusty treads of a jawa sandcrawler. Fortunately, that’s not the case. Not every horror movie can be The Ring, and not every survival horror game can be Resident Evil 4. Most don't aspire to those heights, and make due with what they have. Cold Fear, on the other hand, reaches for the brass ring, yet the game screams second-tier almost as much as it screams bloody murder. It's a capable and ambitious thriller, but also has more problems than a vegetarian zombie. How many times have you purchased a game only to discover that what the developers put on the CD bares little or no relation to the title on the box? We can’t be sure exactly what the people at Blue Byte were thinking, but Heritage of Kings: The Settlers is about as far from a Settlers game you can get without switching genres altogether. When you get right down to it, the whole point of online games is to let you play with and against other likeminded gamers. But many massively multiplayer online RPGs shy away from out and out confrontation between players. RYL (which stands for Risk Your Life) is a new massively-multiplayer game from Planetwide Games that appears to thrive on conflict and the tasty rewards for beating down your enemy. Tune in tonight!