Field Commander Review (no fat)

Game Description

Filling in a gap that the PSP has seen for quite a while, Field Commander allows you to take control of a secret task force whose aim is to keep the world safe from the threat of terrorism. And the gap above is the gap that appeared when Advance Wars came out for the Nintendo DS. While Field Commander bears a great similarity to the DS hit, it does stand out on its own in quite a few ways and eventually making this into an interestingly varied experience.

Field Commander Gameplay

You start off Field Commander as a commander in the ATLAS alliance, a group of countries battling out with a terrorist organization called the Shadow Nation that's bent on doing all that evil stuff terrorists get kicks out of.

The armies you control are both terrestrial, naval and airborne, each of over 30 units coming with its own strengths and weaknesses. While this does mean that the battle field can get a bit overwhelming, the single player missions have a way of presenting the units to you in small chunks, which means you'll rarely get that feeling of loosing control over everything.

Each unit type has certain terrains it can't access (for example, mountains can only be passed using infantry and air units). But despite this, an interesting addition to this game is that you can shape the terrain to suit your own needs. All you need to do is get a tank to fire at some terrain and you can thus level forests, and so on.

You have to sustain unit production to ensure your own victory, and as in many similar games you can prevent enemy production by placing your own unit inside your enemy's factories (but, mind you, the same thing can happen to you.

But this is where things start to get a bit different, as opposed to the Advance Wars series. The game's AI is reasonably good and the 30 missions are actually quite challenging, even if you've played games of this type before.

Field Commander Graphics

While the game's graphics were meant to be taken much more seriously then those of its Nintendo DS counterpart, there's something wrong with what's being shown on screen in Field Commander.

Firstly, while the graphics are 3D, the effects are not quite as good as they should be (explosions come to mind when you think of this), the units aren't all that hot either when looked upon from close range. Secondly, the menus aren't all that attractive either. While they're not really bad in any way they just don't stand out in any significant manner, so one could only characterize them as being bland.

Field Commander Sounds

The nice thing about this game is that it comes with really good sounds. This concerns both the mission briefings and chatter with other commanders, which can all be heard (instead of just seen on screen). The acting is not academy-award style but it's by no means poor either, making the game quite enjoyable from this point of view.

The ambient sounds are quite good, not much to be said about them really, they never take away any pleasure from playing the game, but actually add more value to it.

Field Commander Multiplayer

And finally, there's one thing that makes this game stand out and, in turns, adds the most replay value to Field Commander of all its features. This is its excellent multiplayer capabilities. First off there is an online play mode (using Sony's online network) , hot swap or add-hoc head-to-head play. And if all those weren't enough for you, Field Commander also has a transmission mode, where you can send your move and wait an indefinite amount of time until your oponent will respond (similar to playing a game by email).

There's no visible lag and the small maps mean that games won't really take forever. All in all the networking experience looks like it has been given a lot of careful consideration, which really does the PSP a great deal of justice.

Field Commander 2cent

Even though you can clearly see this game is (cough-cough) "inspired" from the great title that is 'Advanced Wars', Field Commander adds a lot of new things, especially for those of us that are looking for a stronger AI and a better networking experience.

Of course, considering the fact that the PSP never had something like 'Advanced Wars' this game is a wonderful addition to the family of PSP games out there, filling in a much needed gap.

Field Commander Pricing

Field Commander is available with a price tag of $39.99