Field Commander

Field Commander is a military turn-based tactics game for the PlayStation Portable. The player takes on the persona of a new Advanced Tactical Legion for Allied Security (ATLAS) recruit, an international military alliance. The player battles Shadow Nation, a criminal empire.

For the military rank, see field marshal.
Field Commander
Developer(s)Sony Online Entertainment
Publisher(s)Sony Online Entertainment
Platform(s)PlayStation Portable
ReleaseUMD
  • NA: May 23, 2006
  • AU: July 22, 2006
  • EU: July 28, 2006
PlayStation Store
  • WW: September 11, 2008
Genre(s)Turn-based tactics
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Gameplay

The multiplayer options include Infrastructure, Ad Hoc, Hot Swap, and a unique feature called Transmission mode, which is somewhat similar to the play by email system of older PC games. While playing in Transmission mode each player takes turns and sends them off to the server.

Players can choose a commanding officer to act as the player's avatar. Divisions determine the player's allegiance as well as Division Bonuses that can be activated. Each division has a unique strength and a corresponding weakness. The Card Sharks, for instance, feature strong infantry units but they move slowly, while the Killing Depths' naval vessels deal heavy damage at the cost of having weak army units.

Fuel and ammunition are finite for vehicles and primary weapons, while infantry have unlimited fuel and secondary weapons have unlimited ammunition. When fuel is exhausted, there is a high chance the unit will explode. All units can be resupplied by either trucks, transports, or cities.

Fighting works similar to other games in the genre but had many unique elements which included the ability to destroy terrain, reduce and eventually destroy cities, special buildings that could call in attacks from off the board, such as Airstrikes, Napalm Launchers, Satellite Lasers, EMP and concussion blasts, stealth units in every terrain type, as well as the ability to stack units in a single tile. Stacking units could be taken to an extreme. A player can have a plane, a tank on a bridge, a boat under the bridge, and a submerged sub all in the same grid space.

Certain terrain will slow down movement, or even be completely impassable. For example, the Teton cannot be traversed by any unit. Swamps slow down tanks and do not allow wheeled units to proceed. Some terrain also increase or decrease unit defense.

Some units have a ranged attack, allowing them to fire on enemies from a distance, but firing will count as a turn unless that unit is under the effect of a division power.

Revenue can be gained by capturing buildings, and some buildings provide more money than others.

The game also includes a built-in map editor, which allows players to create and share maps with other users online.

Reception

The game has received an 8.4 rating on GameSpot,[1] and an 8.4 from IGN.[2] Field Commander was the first PSP title to receive a perfect score from Official PlayStation Magazine. Review aggregator sites GameRankings and Metacritic gave Field Commander 79% and 77/100 respectively.[3][4]

Many sources pointed out that Field Commander is similar to Advance Wars, with several reviewers accusing the former of being a clone of the latter.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]

Awards
  • Received IGN's award for Best PSP Strategy Game of 2006.[12]
gollark: Or, er, "optimize for these goals".
gollark: Well, you can convert that to a single goal of "do these goals in priority order".
gollark: "Rational" implies we have some sort of clear goal and are trying to optimize for that.
gollark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
gollark: ... no.

References
  1. Field Commander for PSP Review - PSP Field Commander Review
  2. IGN: Field Commander Review
  3. Field Commander Reviews
  4. Field Commander (psp: 2006): Reviews
  5. Field Commander video game review for the PSP
  6. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-10-27. Retrieved 2008-07-14.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. Field Commander Review | Sony PSP Game Reviews - Yahoo! Video Games
  8. "Field Commander - DailyGame". Archived from the original on 2008-05-27. Retrieved 2008-07-14.
  9. PSP Game Reviews: Field Commander
  10. "Field Commander Review - Sony PSP Review - Australia's PAL Gaming Network". Archived from the original on 2008-03-23. Retrieved 2008-07-14.
  11. "Video Game Reviews, Previews and News - myGamer - Video Game Reviews, Previews and News".
  12. IGN.com presents The Best of 2006
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.