may 29, 2006
My sister and brother-in-law got me Field Commander for my PSP! Thanks sis and bro-in-law!
So far, I have only gotten to dabble in it -- I finished the three tutorials (land, sea, and air). I am pretty impressed with the game. The sound is damned good (full speech and awesome sound effects [kaboom!]). The graphics are impressive also, with all the little bells and whistles that I knew the PSP could do. The gameplay is reminiscent of Advance Wars on the GBA, but with the graphics and sound effects, it is brought up to a whole new level!
What intrigued me (and apparently my brother-in-law) is the wealth of multiplayer options. Since my sister lives in SoCal, I can't play games with my bro-in-law unless they are online. And, compounding that, we all have weird work schedules. So, the inclusion of a "transmission" mode is an awesome thing in Field Commander -- basically, "transmission" mode is based on the the same idea as a "play chess by email" game. Field Commander is a turn-based strategy wargame, so it lends itself quite well to a "you take a turn, upload moves to server, I download your turn within a day, play my turn, upload that to the server, rinse and repeat". It reminds me a lot of the days of playing DOOR games on BBS's.
The other multiplayer modes include: two players on one PSP, ad hoc (local WiFi) mode, and a full-on real-time mode. I'd like to see how the last one turns out, but it does seem a bit painful as you have to be sitting around for a while waiting for the other person to take their turn. I really like the transmission mode idea and cannot wait to see how it plays out.
Anyways, I think I'll have to practice some more before delving into playing online! The game seems complex enough to keep my mind busy, while easy enough for just about any gamer to pick up and play.
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