The Tale

Da' Story

One thing the developers did extremely well on was the plot behind Force Commander. Never have I actually felt closeness with the Empire. In the movies and other games the Empire is always portrayed as the evil overarching entity that attempts to dominate the galaxy (ok it is). Force Commander gives a perspective that is truly a first. The player starts out as Lieutenant Brenn Tantor of the Imperial Army. Earlier in their life, Brenn, and his brother, were saved by a squad of storm troopers, when a small battle occurred in their hometown. Following that, the brothers vowed to join the Imperial Forces at any cost. In a later battle, their father was killed in a Rebel attack, while trying to deliver medical supplies. It would have been nice to see these sequences in CG or at least something other than the text in the manual. But it didn't bother me too much, because what followed was more than adequate. And just to note, the CG in the rest of game was fantastic. The animated sequences were plentiful; while most were not exceedingly long, they kept you going.

Nice Load Screen

Turret Dropped Off

Now the story is that Brenn has become a successful soldier in the Imperial Army and is steadily rising through the ranks. You pick up the slack when he finally becomes an officer. All throughout the game, orders are given not to harm the civilian population in any battles unless provoked. The developers succeeded in trying to give a softer side to that which has always been taken as pure evil. This all takes place during the first three movies mind you. The first mission starts you out looking for the "droids" that landed in an escape pod. Beware of plots twists!

Sweet Spot

Batman!

Muzak

Sound effects in Force Commander are a mixed bag. Some are as sweet as the full-size candy bars in a Halloween bag. Others turn out to be like the pieces of candy you find with puncture holes in them.

Music throughout the game baffled me a little bit. All the menu music was really upbeat and kind of motivating even though I had a hard time liking it. Imagine the original Star Wars theme (good), and then have it butchered into some techno-rock version of it. In game music was far from inspiring, even though it stayed more true to the original Star Wars theme. It had the occasional good score but most of the time it seemed more like elevator music.

*whistles* Puurty

Troop Drop

Sound effects were, thankfully, entertaining. All the cannons and units sounded great. To hear the mighty AT-AT lumber through a battle was pretty cool. Most RTS games don't bother to put in vehicle sounds to complement their weapon sounds. Force Commander managed to have a nice variety of little blurbs to listen to. Shooting little jawas resulted in the classic "teedeee!" sound. I've always been a fan of that, so needless to say, not too many jawas were left alive after I played the game. Voice-overs were pretty good, although nobody can compare to James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. It's like trying to put George Lazenby in James Bond flick.