Gameplay: 6
Graphics: 7
Sound: 4
Replay: 5
Multiplayer: No

The cover of Republic: The Revolution proudly boasts a "Best of E3 2010: Strategy" award from gamespy. Let me set one thing straight right now, that is the ONLY award this game will be winning. I normally don't go straight into talking about the game in the first paragraph, but this isn't a normal game. It has a lot of potential but it has a lot of flaws that hold it back from being a great game.

There was a lot of hype built up around Republic in the months prior to its release. It is a different kind of strategy game. It involves using Actions (which are exactly what they sound like) to change the opinion of the world around you. Basically, the country the game is based in, Novistrana, is in chaos. A corrupt president is in office and it is your job to start a revolution however you want to. Seems like an interesting idea, and it would have been very good if the game had its flaws ironed out.

This game has a ton of upsides and downsides to it. The game takes quite a while to understand all of the controls and actions and the lack of a detailed in game tutorial makes it a lot harder to understand. In fact, it really seems as if Eidos purposely made the game ridiculously hard to understand. A very brief and not helpful manual, a tutorial that doesn't even help, characters that don't even speak English and there are no subtitles, etc. It just feels as if Eidos put no effort into the game. How can a gamer get into the game if he or she has no clue what is even going on?

So now you understand that the game is very vague on the details. Alright then. Still interested though? Well, the controls aren't easy either. The camera angle is pretty crappy and takes a while to completely get used to it. Of course, you will only use it when viewing things on street level and as you go on you will find yourself just playing the game from the "Satellite" (overall map) view more often anyway.

At first, the actions seem pretty cool. You get to recruit new people, put up posters and try to win people to your cause, etc. But the game just takes a long time to get started, too long in my opinion. Because the game is so unbearable in the other aspects, playing the game long enough until you can actually earn actions like assassination missions is just not easy to do. If the game was fun and understandable and if it drew the gamer in, then waiting for the game to develop would have been alright. But the half ass story, crappy voice overs, and horrible controls make it so this game isn't what it could be. But hey, if you want to spend hours and hours of your time fulfilling the missions like winning support in certain areas by putting up posters and graffiti, then go right ahead.

Graphically, this game is nothing special. The characters and environments are pretty detailed for how large the maps are when you go to street level, but the problem is also how much computer speed this requires. If you plan on going to street level a lot, I would suggest having the settings set really low or have killer computer, because this game starts to cause some serious slow down as it goes on. Because of that, it's hard to rate the graphics because they do look pretty good when they are on high settings but it is practically impossible to keep it that way.

The sound in this game is horrible. The musical score is bad, it definately doesn't match the scale to which this game is set. But of course, that's not the worst part. I just can't understand why Eidos would make a game where all the talking was in a foreign language and there are no subtitles. It gets really annoying to have (yes, and I mean HAVE) to watch a presidential speech that seemingly has a lot of importance when you can't understand a word he is saying. It gets really annoying after awhile.

There is a little replay in this game if you actually manage to enjoy playing it. There are multiple ways of beating the game due to the different paths, such as using force, money, or talking your way into things. No two games will be exactly the same if you play them different ways. But playing the game again will be very difficult. Unless you are a hardcore strategist with a kick ass computer, I would suggest staying away from this game.