Commanders: Attack of the Genos

"Advance Wars 360"

Commanders: Attack of the Genos costs about ten dollars and downloads via Xbox Live Arcade. I honestly wasn't expecting much from it. With 15 maps, presented in both standard and advanced campaign modes, it turns out to be a real game. There's one shot maps and online multiplayer too, but I haven't checked all that out yet. This mini-review just covers the single player campaign game. Anyway, the point is that Commanders isn't a fun-for-ten-minutes minigame, or a content-lite arcade classic (look, I described 90% of Live Arcade!)... it's a real game, with solid graphics and 20+ hours of gameplay. Comparable to say, the original Advance Wars, or the first Nectaris (Military Madness U.S.). I'm going to assume that if you're here, reading this review at GameFaqs, that you're not a virgin to the turn based strategy world. If you're new to all this, go download the demo! That's what it's there for...

I mention Advance Wars first for a reason - this game borrows heavily from it. Commanders in Commanders: Attack of the Genos are actual field units, but they come equipped with powers and meters, much like their conceptual DS cousins. The biggest difference in gameplay comes from the fact that Commanders is less over the top about map and level design. No big boss fights with a hovering sky fortress or blasting your way through pipe mazes. Aside from that, the units are mostly identical to ones you've used before in other games. To be fair, that's been the case for almost every game of this type; this genre has had remarkably few truly unique entrants over the last 20 years.

Commanders DOES present many of the units well, and it deserves credit for that. The scout trikes, transport units and repair trucks stand out as noticeably more useful than their counterparts in other games. Indirect fire is affected by the third dimension, so the constant presence of hills and buildings deforms cannon targeting to the point where it actually becomes interesting again. (If you're one of the 'artillery people', I think you'll really enjoy the dynamics of Commander's indirect.) Another slight tweak on tradition is the unit health system, which has been freed of the "ten point" cap to good effect. Units gain exp and occasionally level up, which adds to their strength and skews the numbers off in non-linear ways. It's really just a different way of representing the same old differences in unit health/damage resistance/firepower, but between the repair trucks and the leveling, the designers manage to reach some new ground and implement some interesting game play nuances.

Considering the price and format, you'd expect this game to have serious problems, but the truth is, it's not ambitious or spanning enough to have problems. It demonstrates a "keep it simple, do it right" theory of game design. I can't really complain about those things in a $10 game, there are moments.. such as when you're selecting from a mere 4 different commanders, or when you'd like to recolor your units... that you're reminded it's just an Xbox Live Arcade game. The AI does dumb stuff sometimes, but that's true of every AI in every game, so I hesitate to even bring it up. The computer is competent at direct battle, but not very sneaky. It's also a bit dodgy about interacting with the game's command powers, particularly when dealing with the "invulnerable for one turn" units. I haven't played multiplayer yet, but my guess, having seen all the applicable commanders, is that there will be balance issues. One of the tweaks they made, presumably in the name of simplicity, was that any infantry, at any strength, captures any location in a single turn. Combine that with the invulnerability power I just mentioned... I predict a great deal of whining!

Cool looking units and compelling map design may not be the best you can hope for from turn based strategy, but it's the best you're likely to get anytime soon. Commanders does both. For 800 MS Points, this game is a great deal.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/20/08

Game Release: Commanders: Attack of the Genos (US, 02/13/08)