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> Results: Field Commander
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Comparisons between Field Commander and Advance Wars: Dual Strike are inevitable and appropriate. Field Commander is essentially a clone of Advance Wars with a few things changed to try and make it more appealing to an older audience. The game revolves around a series of missions involving land, sea and air combat battles between opposing forces tied into a secret plot, with you as the freshly graduated commander placed at the center of the action.
You are given a set of success and failure criteria and set up on a map with various units at your disposal. How you proceed is up to you. This lends some replayability to the game, as do the occasional mission choices, but it is the wireless multiplayer that is the most noteworthy feature. The ability to play wireless games both ﾑlive' and in ﾑtransmission mode' (each player logs in to play a turn when they can) is a great feature, but there are a number of minor annoyances including connection problems and the information provided between turns. There are also larger problems from the single player campaign. Bland graphics that make it hard to differentiate units, slow and weak animations, and an overall lack of flair and style drag the game down. Despite the attempt to copy the excellent Advance Wars, this game fails to capture what makes that series great. Field Commander is merely an adequate turn-based strategy game for PSP owners without access to the better Advance Wars series on Nintendo DS or Game Boy Advance.  
Sony seems to intend Field Commander to be a ﾑgrown up Advance Wars' so it is not surprising that it earned a T rating. The characters are older, their language is coarser, and the battles are more realistic in appearance. Unlike Advance Wars, there is no levity between the commanders. It is all serious business, which takes away a lot of the fun. The language is appropriate for a T-rated game and for military commanders in the situations presented, but it is another reason that this game is less than kid friendly. The animated combat is rather graphicﾗblood sprays from soldiers during fighting, and they die with a groan.
Strategy games like Field Commander are excellent for teaching critical thinking, planning and analytical skills. In each scenario you consider the relative strength of units, potential terrain advantages and obstacles, movement ranges and your long term approach to victory. But this is yet another area that Field Commander falls shortﾗother games grade your performance, so you can go back and improve your strategy with some kind of reward, but here it is simply win or lose, no matter how well you plan and then execute your campaign. It's yet another reason why it's recommended that gamers of all ages seek out any of the three Advance Wars games instead. This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Field Commander |
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