Field Commander is a knock off of Nintendo's Advance Wars tactical games, unfortunately it lacks their fun and charm.
• Game play combat mechanics are solid.
• Nice near future military look.
• Good selection of troops and vehicles.
Cons:
• Graphics are poor, in fact their a step down from the NDS.
• Camera view is not adjustable, this makes it hard to see troop placement in some locations.
• Mission briefings section looks poor, like NES poor.
• Mission briefings section text scrolls by to fast and is not adjustable.
• Lack of interesting story and characters.
• Poor AI tactics make game play to easy.
The story and characters are boring and uninteresting, there is a total lack of depth. Go here do this, bla bla bla. Just no heart to the story and characters to suck you in and care about what's happening and why.
Game play is mainly a copy of the Advance Wars style, this isn't a bad thing because AW is a very good series of games. Unfortunately sections like the mission briefings and character dialog lack options to make them customizable and more player friendly. For example, during the mission briefings the text moves along to quickly. The AI is also a let down, to put it bluntly it's stupid. With out a challenge and a good story the game loses it's flow and becomes stagnant.
The graphics look bad, even though their in 3d or maybe because they are in 3d. The Advance Wars games from the GBA look better then this games graphics. On top of that the camera feels to far away from the field of battle. Normally graphics don't bother me this much but Field Commanders graphics make picking out your troops and other landmarks hard. Playing a game shouldn't be annoying, so when it is it's time to move on to something else.
Final thoughts:
You've probably guest it already, I don't like this game very much. It's flaws are just to big for me to get past, with better games out there in the same genre why waste your time with this one? If the graphics, general look and feel of the game had been well done this may have been a good game. I found myself giving it just one more chance a few times, but ultimately had to give up on it. I don't recommend this game, move on.
Story & Characters: 6
Game Play: 8
Graphics: 4
Value: 6
Score: 6/10