Field Commander
The apocalypse is nigh: a fantastic strategy game has been released for the PSP.
Published: May 22, 2006
There are so many checks and balances, so many different types of terrain (no vehicle can fly over high mountains, for instance) that it would seem like taking it all in would be overwhelming, but the game feeds you bite-sized chunks of info as you play through the single-player game so that you build up knowledge bits at a time. Before long, managing an entire battlefield is challenging, but quite doable, and there's a familiar rush when you can orchestrate troop movement and captures smoothly that only strategy games can provide.
If you tire of offline, play, SOE added a rather extensive online component. It's not just ranked matches or friendly games (though those play just like the single-player missions, are lag-free and very, very fun indeed), but leaderboard support and, in a fairly groundbreaking move for the PSP, full mission downloads and rankings are included. This is pulled off with a slightly clunky but mostly elegant map and mission editor, which allows you place terrain and troops and then upload your maps to the web wirelessly where other users can vote or play on your maps. It gives the game a very real sense that it is, as Sony has always insisted, the kind of experience you'd expect on a home console (or, in this case, a PC), but made portable.
There is one thing that the game falters at, though: presentation. It's not that the interface isn't nicely designed or that the game plays unnecessarily clunky, it's just that it's all so damned boring looking. The 3D visuals are delivered with a chunky framerate and low-res textures that paint levels with heavy-handed shades of greens or browns. It's a damn good thing that the game is so fun to play, because it's certainly not a looker. Some things, like explosions and the water, do look passable, but the rest of the game -- interface included -- is just downright fugly.
Things hold up much better aurally. Sure, the setting means you're stuck with some fairly militaristic-sounding music (it's not bad, just not especially great either, failing to deliver the kind of hook that military movies or even games like SOCOM pull off so well), but there's plenty of voice work both pre- and in-mission, and these performances are certainly tolerable. The aforementioned explosions have some nice audio pop, as do the weapons fire sound effects, but the game is a little lacking on ambience. Things like unit responses and menu chimes are fairly flat -- if noticeable at all.
I honestly have no complaints about the main gameplay, though; it's wonderfully balanced, nicely challenging, and things like the fog of war or stealth units are handled with plenty of confidence. I tend to abhor making paragraphs this short, but this is a complete thought: Field Commander is one of the best strategy experiences on any platform, PC, console or handheld. If you're a strategy buff, this is worth owning the PSP for (especially since it happily supports Hot Swapping so you can play with friends), and if you're not... well, maybe you should just buy a PSP and give it a shot, eh?
