After my son experienced the joy of Star Wars: Battlefront, he asked that I buy him this new game for his birthday. How could I disappoint such an enthusiastic nine-year-old boy?

The first thing I thought about when starting up this game was scuba diving. Here I found myself in a 3D environment behind a mask, almost claustrophobic, with the sound of my own breath in my ears. However, I had an energy weapon, radio communications, and armor. I am the commando commander, cloned from Jango Fett and raised with my brothers to take on special operations missions for the Republic.

Adrenalin instantly rushed through my veins as I waded into the first round of combat against the separatists. It was like Star Wars meeting Doom 3. I was psyched.

It didn’t take long for my fingers to comfortably find my controls. I pumped energy bolts into droids from my blaster rifle with ease. Another few minutes, and I was comfortably slashing droids apart in hand-to-hand combat. It seemed to work faster that way.

Gore from slain Geonosians sprayed my visor. Hydraulic fluid from downed droids smeared the screen. Almost as if by magic, an energy windshield wiper cleaned my field of view.

I met up with ‘Sev’ the sniper, ‘Fixer’ the engineer, and ‘Scorch’ the demolitions expert whose dark comments set the mood for the rest of the game. A short menu of commands on the directional pad let me command them to follow battle maneuvers presets. It was a little confusing at first, but later I realized that sending them out ahead when my health was low was an effective offensive maneuver. Basing them to hold security around one of the health stations would give them a good hint to heal up. Also, directing them into positions for sniper, anti-armor, and grenade maneuvers was a Godsend.

There are two important attachments for the modifiable blaster rifle you must find. The first is the sniper attachment. Although you can only carry twenty rounds of this ammunition, its effect is deadly. With two different zoom modes, it is extremely accurate. Its damage is potent, and you can take out a droidiken with only a few shots.

The second attachment is the anti-armor attachment. You can carry even fewer of these, but their effect is devastating to heavy droids. Use it sparingly, and fire upon explosive canister with regular blaster ammunition first,

Droid dispensers proved to be difficult at first, until I became experienced at removing them. Sometimes it was more efficient to put my squad at sniping positions while I set an explosive at the front of the machine and blew it myself. On the super droid dispensers, it seemed that putting Scorch on the explosive end paid off while I fired on the heavy mechs with my sniper rifle.

This game has lots of bells and whistles. Weapons such as the Wookiee bowcaster and the hand grenades came in handy. Unfortunately there just wasn’t enough ammunition available for me to really enjoy the Wookiee rocket launcher, but it was fun while it lasted.

Traveling through different ships and planets was exciting. Each scenario was harder than the previous, and I found a lot of difficult situations. Running out of health and ammo became a problem, but there was a solution to every challenge. When I was shot down, my colleagues would come and heal me. Scorch rooted me on when I knifed a mercenary lizard-like Trandoshan, and Sev congratulated me on good sniping one-shot kills.

I actually felt like these dedicated team mates were real people as I completed missions. Firing into an oncoming horde of droids and slashing through them with a blade would fill me with pride as my team shouted encouragement and took part in the fight.

If you like military combat simulation games, this is for you.

I only had one problem with the game, and that was the split-screen game that my son and I played. Even with a large monitor, it proved confusing and difficult to see. It wasn’t as exciting as the first person shooter mode, and we quickly lost interest, going back to one-player mode for more excitement.

My son and I give Star Wars Republic Commando two thumbs up.