Republic - The Revolution - A Failed Coup?

Thanks to Eurogamer for their review of Elixir's Republic:The Revolution for PC, discussing the previously-featured strategy title that has you taking control of the fictional Eastern European country of Novistrana. The review points out: "...it's quite amazing how much opinion among gamers is already polarized by Republic: The Revolution", but concludes by suggesting "...this is a slightly above average political simulation title which would have probably worked better as a board game than as a videogame, shackled down with a 3D engine that serves no useful purpose and is almost entirely non-interactive." A review at GamesDomain is slightly more forgiving, but has similar views: "Freeform, subtle, complex, rather dry, and just the tiniest bit (appropriately enough) oppressive, Republic: The Revolution is likely to sharply divide gamers."

Comments

Hate the 3ngine

[Txiasaeia]

If it weren't for the completely useless 3d engine, Republic would be *awesome*. The concept is great, but the 3ngine just slows down the game and makes it much more difficult than it really needed to be.

I dunno whether it needed to be a boardgame, but certainly less graphics. The game isn't a FPS!

Re:That's too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I heartily recommend Hidden Agenda, a game from the early 90s which puts you in the role of newly elected president of a little Central American banana republic. A surprisingly tense and thoughtful game for its time.

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/sw/games/hi dden-agenda.html

Re:Tropico

[Prior Restraint]

If you're red-green color-blind, though, it sucks pretty hard.

Re:That's too bad

[Ceyan]

Half and half. Part of the whole deal is to simply build support for your cause, which is a bunch of reptitive minor tasks. On the other hand there ARE actions that make life interesting and cause some mayhem. I haven't gotten to any personally (but I haven't played very far either) but I've heard on the GameFAQs forums that you can spark riots, set fires, order beat downs, etc...

Republic: A Board Game Held Hostage by GTA

[superultra]

There's a vision buried just beneath the surface of Republic, one that indeed needed a freeform GTA-esque engine. I think that what happened is they built up the engine and then realized that they couldn't accomplish everything they would've liked, so instead used it but scaled back everything into a much more linear campaign mode.

That said, players of Republic will spend the majority of their time in the top boardgame view anyway. Here's some older but wiser games that I think Republic could have outperformed or equaled, but due to the oppresive capatalist shackles of the 3d engine, just can't quite do so.

Hidden Agenda is slightly more educational in nature and Hispanic/Latin in surrounding, but offers high replaying value due to the various idealogies. Shadow President is globally based and fundamentally differs from Republic in that instead of throwing a coup against a small dictator, you are the largest dictator in the world: President of the United States! Still, the political feel of the game is the same, even if you're on the other side of the coup (which is, admittedly, more fun in this case). And who can forget Chris Crawford's classic Balance of Power? The guys who made Republic, apparently.

Any I'm forgetting? (Tropico was already mentioned)