Commanders Attack of the Genos

What It's All About

Commanders: Attack of the Genos is a turn-based strategy game. Each player starts with a base and collect resources to build your forces to be used in battle. The units are balanced pretty well, a unit that can be strong against one, will have a weakness that can be used against it by another one.

Single Player

The single player has a campaign full of 15 missions (with two difficulty levels), the tutorial, and 10levels battle mode - which is pretty much a way to get into the action quickly, and independant of the story. The campaign alone looks like a pretty good amount of gameplay and fun - and the multiplayer extends its value. The story mode 'video' sequences are 2D pictures and text.

Learning what unit strength and weaknesses is the key to your success. Knowing which units to use for an attack and how to place your units properly for your turn is the only way for success in the campaign or the multiplayer.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer is essentially the battle mode - your standard multiplayer turn based strategy where you each build what units you think are best from the resources you gather and attempt to take over the other persons base.

You can play multiplayer over LIVE or local multiplayer with up to 4 players depending on the map size. I prefer online because with local multiplayer the other players can simply watch the screen when it is your turn - removing the element of suprise - and also giving them the ability to prepare better for the units you are building.

Graphics and Gameplay

For an Xbox Live Arcade game the graphics are done very well. Units and maps look a bit cartoonish, but are very detailed and rather beatiful. If you zoom in close you can see the detail put into the units. The animations during an actual attack are pretty intersting to watch.

The tutorial does a good job in teaching you how to play the game, and when selecting the units you are able to see the spaces available for your move, and the units you are able to attack.

Achievements

The achievements are scattered out nicely, mostly the standard stuff - like find all the secret objects, complete the game on normal, and also on hard. There are also a couple achievements which just come in time as you play the game they are based on the number of enemies destroyed and number of wins for example. There is only one achievement for online play - so you silver accounts can get MOST of the achievements, and if you are gold getting this final five points is simple enough you just have to play (winning optional) a single game online.

Value

If you like turn based strategy or possibly real time strategy, but want to give turn based a try - this is a pretty good game for you. The 15 campaign levels alone will take you a bit of time - I still have plenty to complete and find them pretty challenging. The ability to play online against friends, or just against the CPU to practice gives the game some extended value.

In short...

Being the only turn based strategy game available on the xbox 360 (that comes to mind) give those of us that are interested in that genre a chance to pick up a new and interesting game for much less than a full retail game. Of course with the fraction of the cost comes a fraction of atual game - but to me the value is there. The single player is challenging and fun, and the multiplayer adds the ability to keep your interest in the game. If you are on the fence, you can always play the training and the first two campaign levels to get a feel for the game.

Review by Dave [Squidpunch] Larrabee