Star Wars: Force Commander

"Force Commander's wish is your command!"

Well, Star Wars: Force Commander for the PC is fun, no doubt for the familiar player, but the learning curve is so long. But this is ONE. COOL. GAME. It's a strategic battle game when the player controls their units in battle. They don't control each individual movements, however, like a first-person shooter, but from afar, one can move, cooperate and attack with Star Wars armed forces, like stormtroopers, TIE fighters, AT-ATs, AT-STs, speeder bikes, rebel troops, landspeeders, and airspeeders-the list is extensive.

Graphics
Well, I guess we're starting with the worst first. This graphics, from far away are pretty clean and good-looking, but when you zoom in right up to your units, you can see the choppiness and blocky-looking textures. When you're in the midst of battle, and surveying the scene, there tends to be a lot of lag but you can reduce this by changing graphics options in-game. This lag, on a slower computer, however, can still take away from the gameplay and fun factor of this game. Fog is well done and on-foot units move realisticly. The heavy walkers and tank-like units move well but walkers' legs can sometimes look awkward. The legs will move slowly, and sometimes not at all, but the whole walker will still move at the same rate, making it look quite awkward.
Graphics' Score: 6/10

Gameplay
Force Commander's gameplay is incredible. There are just so many options for units, movements, camera angles, and the game itself. I'll start with the camera from which the player sees the battle. One can orbit, pan, zoom, side-scroll, and tilt the camera up and down with keystrokes and also by combinations of mouse buttons (hold both mouse buttons and move the mouse to pan, etc.) There are just so many angles it will take you awhile to find one you'll stick with. At one time, unfortunately, a player can only have 60 units to command, which is actually quite a lot. Players can move the units, use waypoints, or even patrol until stopped. Players can change their aggresive status between Beligerent, Guard, Passive, or Defensive which are each unique. The cool part about gameplay is that players can (with a Command Center,) ''order'' fresh units to be deployed from a Star Destroyer. One orders these units with a sort of currency called Command Points. Players are awarded Command Points from killing enemies and holding captured Bunkers. Players can make troops capture structures or board their carriers.
Gameplay's Score: 9/10

Sound/Music
The sound of this game is great. There are effects for explosions, moving, troops talking, TIE Fighters screaming, units being destroyed, and even for making a sandtrooper get out of a troop carrier, for instance, he'll say, ''I'm planetside now, sir.'' Units acknowledge your clicking them by saying a ''Yes, sir'' or ''I'm here'' and stuff like that. This can sometimes get a little repetetive, however but it's still a nice feature.
The music is mostly a soundtrack of remixed Star Wars classics. The menu features a cool mix of the Imperial March. Most if not all the music sounds CD-Quality and very well done and fits with battles well
Sound/Music's Score: 8/10

Replayability
This game is so fun. It won't get old for a long time, seeing as how there are about 24 Campaign missions, about half with Imperial forces and half with Rebel forces (did I just say that?? oh, well it was inevitable.) No matter what campaign mission you're on, you can go back and do any previously completed mission with Scenario mode...and there's an in-game save and load feature!!! There's also a single-player Skirmish mode that allows the player to fight up to three other computer-controlled players in an arena-style map, starting with command centers and evnetually building a huge army (you can be a Rebel or Imperial). There's multiplayer, too with Modem or MSN Gaming Zone or ICP connection with more options than just a skirmish. All in all, this game will keep you occupied for awhile if you like strategic battle games, or Star Wars, at all..
Replayability's Score: 8/10

Star Wars: Force Commander's Overall Score: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/18/04