Republic: The Revolution Hands-On

There is nothing more inevitable than the passage of time. Life moves on, in its slow, steady pace, and the face of the human race reflects this. Our perception of beauty changes - fashion, infatuations, popular culture. Technology becomes increasingly sophisticated - humankind conquers outer space and tackles deadly viruses as we move steadily toward a brave new world, but one facet of humanity that never changes is our desire for power. The desire to rule over others has been our passion and obsession ever since we became aware of ourselves and our surroundings. Over the centuries, our desire to rule has manifested itself in new and more sophisticated forms. Today, many people see politics as the basis and the most effective means of acquiring power. A good politician has the power to manipulate businessmen, common folks and intellectuals alike. Great generals don't create politics anymore; it's the politicians who pull all the strings.

Now pay attention class. This is how we make a lovely crisp wafer!

I think I've been here before

Such is the basic premise of Republic: The Revolution, the latest political management game from the talented folks at Elixir Studios. The game has been in development for quite a long time, and after playing it today for about eight hours straight, I can definitely see why.

We've already covered the game quite extensively in our previous coverage, so I'll limit this article to my hands-on impressions only. Basically, you start out the game by choosing your political ideology through a set of questions - something similar to your alignment in classic RPGs. Generally speaking, your young Russian character will be a liberal, capitalist or a guerilla revolutionary. Your starting ideology is very important, of course, as it may attract a certain sect of supporters while alienating others. As a small child, our Lenin wannabe (our main hero looks like Lenin with a full head of hair) witnessed the murder of his family by the hands of the country's ruthless dictator. It is your task to overthrow the ruler of Novistrana by rising up in the world and gaining popularity and respect among the people. How you go about doing this depends largely on your tactics, and your starting alignment. If you choose the path of a liberal democrat, you'll try to win over the support of intellectuals and people who are looking to live in a democratic society. You may also choose the path of a common thug disguised as the "savior of people" and simply take over the country in order to oppress the poor and mislead masses some more. In Republic: The Revolution you are given that choice. Either way, however, your main task is to win over the hearts and minds of the people of Novistrana. This will be a daunting task as you'll be forced to win over each of the three cities one neighborhood at the time. You'll have plenty of adversaries that will try to discredit you and expose your sleazier actions to the public. You'll need to win over the support of the local newspaper or the church in order to successfully counter the claims of your opposition.

As far as the game's interface is concerned Republic is played in two basic view modes: there's the satellite view, which is your classic management screen, and the roof top view, which lets you get more up close and personal with the protagonists, as well as use tweaks that help determine the success of your actions. In the early days of your career, you will be controlling yourself and two other party members. Both you and your two henchmen will be able to gain experience as you progress through the game.

With experience come new actions that each of the characters under your control can perform. For example, as a level one politician your Lenin wannabe will only be able to recruit and investigate areas of Ekatarine (the name of the city). Later on, he may learn to sway opinions, organize rallies ... his top party officials may learn to bribe people, collect debts, distribute propaganda, and more. The success of all of these actions depends on two things: your experience and the aforementioned tweaks. The tweaks are essentially a way for the programmers to make the real-time portion of the game more relevant. Otherwise you would be spending too much time in the management mode. Tweaks provide a way to shift the balance of a rally or a recruitment interview by choosing the right set of options at the right time. If you notice that your supporters are bored by your intellectual and rational analysis of why the current dictator is screwing them six ways till Sunday, you'll need to put some heart into it, slam your fist a few times and show them that you care. You might rally support better that way. Another example of tweaking the outcome of actions is playing a sort of a mini-game during the recruitment interview. Each side has to allocate a certain amount of points to their best arguments and then use them properly to win the debate. So, while you will naturally need to be aware of the global politics that concern your supporter's alignment; gathering of information on your competition as well as being able to avoid the dictator's death squads; you'll need to get your hands dirty by doing some hard work yourself through "tweaking." How well you balance out all of these factors will have an effect on the three major categories in the game which will be essential to your party's success: force, influence and money.

He, who soils the carpet, shall face severe penalty!

Hi ya! Wanna go and overthrow the government?

So, let's boil it down real quick. You start out your career alongside two other high-ranking party members. You all gain new actions as you gain experience, and new actions allow for new ways of controlling the masses and cracking down on the competition. These three characters are essential for creating party politics and basically getting your party to the top.

Besides the classic management mode, you'll also be able to play the game from a rooftop view, which allows you to observe the 3D world in real-time and tweak actions by getting involved in operations yourself. Think of it as micro-managing global politics.

These are essentially simple tools that you'll use to get things started. Once you've scratched beneath the surfaces a bit you'll realize just how many different factors play a key role in Republic - the accessibility of timely information, force, wealth and influence must be high in order to assume power.

From a visual standpoint, Republic is quite unique. The engine offers some incredibly detailed looking architecture for a management game. You can zoom in extremely close (ground view) and see the extremely detailed characters which have a very high polygonal count and cast some very complex shadows. The same can be said about the buildings. The fictional Russian republic of Novistrana looks incredibly picturesque and alive. The architecture is reminiscent of cities like St. Petersburg; parks are littered with green trees with rich bows that sway in the wind. There is a bustling traffic on the streets - quite amazing when you consider just how many objects there are in each scene at any given time. Granted, I wish there were even more people in the streets, but when you consider the complexity of the shadows and the polygonal count, it's amazing that this game runs fairly smoothly at max detail and in 1152x864 on my Barton 2500+/ATI 9700PRO/1Gb RAM rig (minimum system requirements are Pentium III-800, 512MB RAM, 32MB TnL enabled Graphics card).

The graphics are one thing, but the sound and the musical soundtrack are what truly brings the republic of Novistrana to life. The music is incredibly moving and expressive. Each of the actions in the game can be viewed as a cut-scene. The soundtrack masterfully conveys the emotion and the tone of each of these in-game events. Furthermore, all of the voice over's in the game are in some form of pseudo-Russian, which is a good thing, as it brings further authenticity to the Russian ambient in Novistrana.

After playing the game for some time I've quickly realized that simply learning the interface won't get you very far. You'll need to consult the manual and be mindful of the many factors that determine the outcome of your political crusade. Republic: The Revolution takes time and understanding to master. It is in many ways a unique game with a mature premise. Then again, if you're a passionate management sim fan, you'll only regard this as a good; nay; a great thing.