Review - Star Wars: Force Commander

By Dan Woodward

Long, long ago, in a galaxy not so far away, George Lucas tried to do a remake of Flash Gordon.  Thankfully, the copyright holders would not allow him to use the characters, so we ended up with Star Wars instead.  The movie was so successful that it launched a company that brings in more money each year than many small countries do.  If you are at all familiar with Star Wars, then you have heard of 'the Force'. (Use the Force, Luke!)  This month, we are taking a look at Star Wars: Force Commander, a bargain bin offering from LucasArts that lets players participate in some of the pivotal engagements between the Empire and the Rebels.

For anyone who is not familiar with the story, this will have to suffice: In the past, and in another galaxy, there was once a just Republic.  A power hungry senator schemed and used his mystic 'Force' abilities to overthrow the Republic and set up a ruthless Empire.  Those who wanted to re-establish the Republic became known as the Rebels and took up the good fight.  The story focuses on two brothers, Brenn and Dellis Tantor, who volunteer for service in the Imperial forces. (Later on, you also get to play the various Rebel troops)  During the course of the game, many of the major characters from the movies interact in some way or another, including Darth Vader, who will relieve you of command if you don't perform up to expectations.

Normally I dismiss in-game cinematics as eye candy and don't really consider it when rating a game.  However, the visuals between missions are so effective at drawing players into the story that I found myself thinking it was one of the best jobs I've seen.  The introductory sequence leaves no doubt that this is a genuine Star Wars product, and makes you feel the sheer scale of the upcoming battles.

The actual gameplay was a bit less thrilling, especially at first.  I was confronted with around 80 different keyboard shortcuts and mouse + keyboard combinations to use for controlling my units.  Even having the majority of these introduced over the course of three training missions was a bit too much, though I have to give LucasArts credit for trying to introduce one here and there, trying to avoid the feeling that they were giving players a cram session.  The graphics in the game were usually sharp, even when zooming the camera in on the action.  Occasionally though, even with all the 3D enhancements, I found myself wishing that it was more of a traditional top down view.  The missions themselves were varied, ranging all the way from the Battle of Hoth down to one where you are protecting a line of communication beacons from a few Rebel units.

I particularly appreciated the fact that there was a finite limit on the number of troops that can be in play at any given time.  This keeps the game from suffering from the malaise that so many other real time strategy games fall into - that of building up huge armies of troops before doing anything.  I also grew to enjoy the same interface that originally frustrated me - evidently it just took a while to get used to the more commonly used commands. 

Summary: Technically, and from a multimedia viewpoint, this is an excellent game once you start to remember the various commands.  It is fairly easy to enjoy, particularly due to the source material.  This, coupled with the varied missions, keeps the game above the 'average' category.  However, after playing through about half of the missions, I found that I wasn't really very compelled to try to finish the game.  As such, it seems that Force Commander is a bit lacking when it comes to making players care about the progress of the main characters.  Replay value is also rather low, although it is enhanced by multiplayer modem and Internet play.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Requirements: 266 MHz CPU, 64MB RAM, 8MB Direct3D video, Windows 95+, 454 MB free HDD

Reviewed: Athlon 700, 128 MB RAM, 32MB Video, 50x CD, Win ME, DirectX 8, 30GB HD

Best Price: $11.45 including shipping from dealdealdeal.com

Demo: www.lucasarts.com/products/forcecommander/default2.htm

Walkthrough: http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/force_commander.txt