What is XBLAH BLAH BLAH?One thing missing from this blog is my own thoughts on XBLA games. I hadn't really been thinking about it - I post links to other reviews anyway, what else could I possibly add to that?
Instead, I'll do something different - a feedback or a critical analysis of sorts. A list of what I thought were really great, and some either bad or even just nitpicky - to help the developers on the little things. Instead of an arbitrary score I'll post my final thoughts on the overall product. Let's see how this goes!
Side note: This is based off playing 10 of the 15 missions of C:AOTG, and have not attempted any Multiplayer.
What's good about Commanders: AOTG?- It's a competent take on the Advance Wars formula.
- The fact that you can change the speed of your units is a welcome addition. I highly suggest speeding them up straight away.
- The ability to use your scouts in a different manner, allowing you to move two steps in one direction to remove some Fog of War and then go two back for protection adds some more strategy to the game.
- The different abilities of the COs are a lot of fun and each add more to the strategy of the game. Being "Invincible" for a round certainly helped many times, adding additional men around definitely helps in levels with very few men at the beginning, and adding a second movement in a turn certainly helps capture some of the harder areas.
How could Commanders: AOTG have improved?- Adding something like the ability to "Critical Hit" or "Just miss" an enemy goes against the idea of a tactical strategy game like Advance Wars - Your entire strategy can be thrown out the window because of a missed shot which makes Achievements like "Get 5 stars on every level" that much harder and time consuming, and it's just a frustration in general.
- The music is awful.. really awful. I've turned it off. Sure, we're in the 1930's but you also have Robots! Maybe music tastes changed a little with that little addition.
- The actual distance for shooting enemies seems to be way off sometimes. At least once I've had the game tell me that I can at shoot either sides of an enemy, but not the enemy itself. It's kind of picky. The game will also sometimes appear to say you can attack an enemy but in reality you can't. For example, At one point the game told me I could take 3/4 health off a Airplane using a Walker, but the Walker refused to attack it. It walked all the way up to it, but couldn't attack.
- Little things that seem out of place - like how I've seen some units appear as 'movable' but have not been able to move at all (This isn't Rigs who still have units inside). Sometimes a Unit can only move one forward or backwards, but not to the sides? We're being a bit picky with the movement sets now..
- Some maps seem poorly thought out - level 5 of the campaign for instance. A lot of your time is taken up by not doing anything at all - expect you're trying to move a single troop over from the very beginning of the level all the way to your current position, or you're just taking another turn to make sure you have enough money to create another Artillery or Heavy Tank, because those regular tanks are useless by this point.
- There really needs to be a whole lot more Oil / Money making stations around. In the first two thirds of the game, Infantry are quite useless because they have nothing to capture, and many rounds are wasted waiting for funds. Build Stations also heal your character, but you need to keep those clear to make new Infantry!
- Despite there being a lot of small, mountainous area, you can't have your infantry climb up them for better fog of war view or better attacks against the enemy. There are limited amount of times where you can but happens rarely.
- Picking up some tokens will actually make them explode and hurt the player. What the hell kind of incentive is that?
Final ThoughtsFrankly, the main problem with Commanders is that it doesn't take enough from the Advance Wars formula, what it does do differently (with Crits and less chance for ground type tactics) somewhat feels cheap and unnecessary. If you haven't ever played Advance Wars before, give the demo a shot - you might like it! If you have, go buy a DS and Dark Conflict / Days of Ruin right now. Just do it.
Yes, it's true - XBLAH is moving on - but to greener pastures!
