The Graphics

How's the Eye Candy?

The graphics for FC look okay in the preliminary shots we have so far. Those pics are pretty old so one can only assume they've been improved upon of late - the units and buildings have a reasonable amount of detail but the terrain looks a bit bland. There hasn't been much in the way of new screenshots recently, but as the development proceeds more info should become available. No worries about the graphics though, there are a number of features that will be implemented to enhance visual appeal including colored lighting and various environmental effects like fog and other precipitation. Going back to the terrain, it isn't 3D just for the sake of making everything 3D; it will have an effect on gameplay in that elevation will affect range and line of sight for your units. This should create nice strategic wrinkles for players who are faced with attacking a well fortified hill.

Desert Battle Scene

The Units

What's intriguing is that Lucas Arts plans on having over 100 different types of units in the game between the two sides, Empire and Rebels. Thinking back to the Star Wars movies you might be hard pressed to come up with 100 different units. So Lucas Arts actually took the trouble to go back and look at concepts that didn't make it into the movies, taking creative license where necessary in order to create units to fill specific and necessary roles. Don't worry though, a lot of your old favorites will be in the spotlight. The thought of sending squadrons of X Wings up against some Tie Bombers is just too exciting to ignore. It would be really cool to see snow speeders tripping AT-ATs with cable ties.

Duking it out in the snow

The Plot

Perhaps the most exciting part of Force Commander is that it will follow the Star Wars story, from slightly before Star Wars to after the end of Return of the Jedi. There will be around twenty planets to fight on, ranging from the ice fields of Hoth to the hot desert expanse of Tatooine to damp jungles on Yahvin. The most intriguing thing is that each planet will feature different resources to gather and acquire. This has the potential to create a wide variety of gaming experiences, forcing you to adjust playing style depending on what planet the battle is taking place on. The single player game will walk you through each of the planets, where you'll have to do about 2-3 missions on each, for a total of over 50 missions! That should keep most any speedy player busy for a while. Multiplayer will be done over the Internet on the Zone for a maximum of four players, and a max of eight over a LAN.