I have to say that I’ve never played a video game like Republique, but I probably should have. I guess the best way I can describe this game is action/stealth, but it is better just to describe what the player is doing.

The game takes place in some dystopian world that looks like 1984, but more modern. Yeah, I’m sure that that a lot of people might not get that reference, but I’m talking about the George Orwell version. The main character isn’t really the one that appears on screen, but you are the person helping that character.

Okay, I’ll try and explain this again. The main character Hope is being arrested or being a serious freethinker in a very fascist future. For some reason, the player is someone who is hacking into the surveillance cameras, and there are many in this Big Brother world.

Now, I had a chance to play this on Steam, and I had to move my character with the W, A, S, D and use the mouse to control cameras. At any time in the game, I could pause and switch cameras. Much of the game involves switching cameras to figure out Hope’s next move, finding details that will help her along the way. I the main character Hope got too far out of the camera range, it would switch automatically.

The point of the game is to get Hope out of areas in spite of all the guards. You can hide in lockers or tight corners, and occasionally use pepper spray disable the guards, temporarily.

I suppose that we’ll be seeing games like this premise, like Watchdogs. That is, beating the game is about hacking rather than movement or shooting. The biggest challenge is just finding all the secret Easter Eggs in this, and it involves a lot of fancy camera tricks.

Anyway, you can get it on the Steam Store for about $24.99 and Republique Deluxe in $34.99. I believe that there is about three episodes for now, but there will be five total.