The Nintendo DS and Nintendo Gameboy Advance both have the popular and fan favorite Advanced Wars series to satisfy their turn-based war strategy itch. Now it's the PSP's turn to get a solid turn-based strategy title for its handheld library. Sony has answered our prayers with Field Commander for the PSP. Field Commander is the first military turn-based strategy title to hit the PSP.

You'll play as a Field Commander for an independent organization which was formed by the Allied Nations. Your main goals are to stop terrorist organizations from starting wars, selling illegal weapons and trying to gain total globe domination.

Gameplay
Field Commander features over 30 missions which you will take ground, air, and naval war machines into the battle at hand. The game is very straight forward when it comes to its main gameplay. The basic principal at hand is seek and destroy. You'll run into several different objectives to successfully complete a mission, but they mainly will consist of either destroying all enemy units or simply gain control of the enemy HQ. However, to do these objectives you must out maneuver and strategize to win. The game does throw some nice new gameplay additions into the mix with the ability to destroy surrounding environments. You can destroy either environmental objects, such as trees, or you can destroy the structural environment, such as cities or factories. These new elements add a little more strategy and thinking into the typical handheld turn-based military games. With the options of destroying surrounding environments you can hinder the amount of resources and amount of cover in the map. The strategy comes into play when you must decide if destroying the forest near you is a smart move or destroying the nearby city is a good movie. Although destroying the environments hinder your enemies it will also affect you in the process. So you have to carefully think because destroying to much cover leaves you in the open and destroying to many cities leaves you with a lack of resources.

Field Commander offers a wide selection of military units to select from including; Grunts, Special Ops, Snipers, Scouts, Tanks, Rocket launchers, Anti-Aircraft guns, Battleships, submarines, and Stealth Fighters just to name a few of the many units at your command. You will have use these and many other units throughout the game to successfully complete your missions.

Throughout the course of the game you will encounter several different opposing Commanding Officers. Each CO will have his or her own strengths and you must discover a way to work around them. The CO's will offer different level of difficulty. Some will be very very simple and others will prove to be rather difficult. Sadly you'll never feel really pushed hard enough that you can't get out the situation at hand.


Lots of explosions.

This is where the gameplay has a slight problem. The CO's will have the upper hand in firepower at times and as they move their units they will pull right along side your units and not attack. Due to this odd occurrence the AI isn't always tough and thinking very strategically. By not attacking your units it gives you the chance to take advantage of the mistake and take complete control of the situation. Although this doesn't happen in every mission it is worth noting because it will happen through out the course of the game. It's in no way a huge problem within the game but it does affect the gameplay by not having the sharp and clever AI you would come to expect from a turn-based strategy game.