Crafted by Dreamspike, Space War Commander involves romping through the galaxy to stripmine every resource you encounter to fuel the war machine against your oppressors. The difference between SWC and other titles in the genre, is that it takes a bit more of a casual approach to the standard RTS gameplay. But does this approach succeed or merely pull the game into a wormhole?

Instead of focusing upon layers and layers of base building and giant complicated sprawling tech trees to research and dominate, Dreamspike chooses to venture a different path for providing strategy fun: income rates.

Before you begin to picture the game as a futuristic tax sim, let me explain a bit further. When each mission begins, you are instantly given a complete overview of the entire galaxy. While other mammoth RTS titles show off their shiny 3D engine by forcing you to explore the entire map, Space War Commander gives you the goods from the get go enabling you to begin *playing*. The only real important data to be gathered in a level, is how much income a planet resource will earn you per turn. In another departure from the standard RTS design kit, Space War Commander provides you the complete information of any planet with a simple mouse hover. Again, the game is more about capturing planets and maximizing turn revenue, than actual exploration. To prevent the all-too-familiar mammoth 3-hour long sessions, each mission in Space War Commander will only last probably up to 15 minutes or so in length. This is achieved by submitting your base to the forces of erosion and decay. Akin to a futuristic rust your starbases age as the game progresses. This not only steadily costs you more in repairs, but forces the game to end if your starbase disintegrates (ya think?).

In front of each mission briefing, your commanding officer spoonfeeds you the storyline to the game, but ultimately each mission is about the destruction of your enemies and the dominion over all. One thing I did find unfortunate about the presentation of this dialogue, is that your commander's speech text would scroll from the bottom to the top of the screen with built-in gaps to create pauses in the speech. This didn't really work out too well, and I found it created the same feeling you get when watching stuttering youtube video clips. It's a bit of a nitpicky point I agree, but there is a lot of this type of briefing text so I think it could have been tweaked with a better effect.

However, it was nice to finally encounter a space empire game that didn't rely on a rapid buildup of units to simply spam the enemy into submission. Space War Commander requires a lot more analysis and thought than that. Bringing a trading system into the game is a unique twist on features and helps to underline the fact that the game is more than base building. The ability to generate income by either capturing a planet resource, or to trade with neutral planets is a great design choice.

Having a "pause" button on the action also helped out a lot, given all of my real-life responsibilities. This single feature was the difference between a peaceful interruption vs. a desperate panic to resolve the interruption as fast as possible before your armada is crushed into space dust.

Graphics:
The graphics for SWC are suitable for the context of the game, even if some of them appear generic. In all honesty though, they do appear aged, and adding some real support for higher resolutions to the game (beyond 640 x 480) would be welcomed.

Sound / Music:
There are some good sound and music pieces in the game, but they are just not enough of them, and / or they are simply misplaced. Perhaps Dreamspike was going for a shot of realism with the sound design, but when the only sound you hear to break up the silence during the majority of the game play is the clicking of your mouse (without even a background track)...

Small (and short) musical jingles do come into play when a battle is taking place, but no audio of the battle itself. Even if the game re-used the same laser blast audio clip for every single weapon, it would be an improvement.

Gameplay:
I would give the game an above average point for the gameplay, because it was refreshing to encounter a space game that felt more like a turn-based strategy affair than an all-out button masher and repetitive strain inducer that most RTS games devolve into. You could pause the action and just think about the situation being played out. Likewise, if you were just waiting for a specific event to unfold, you could speed up the game clock in order for events to play themselves out.

Concept:
Even with all my years of gaming, I'm still attracted to anything with a star field in the background. I think Dreamspike did a fantastic job of introducing some new aspects to a strategy game like this by making some smart choices to try and put a bit of a casual spin on the genre.

Value:
The game has a high replay factor with the conquest and gauntlet modes of play. When you're in the mood for a deathmatch round against some computer players, the gauntlet (aka skirmish) option is great.

Fun:
At its core, the game play and direction behind Space War Commander is fun. It is a refreshing change to not have to focus on ramping up your factories to produce the most amount of units in the shortest timespan. To be able to sit back and have the luxury of analysis does make for a fun game.

Overall:
I'd have to say that Space War Commander is worth the trial download. I'm not usually the eye-candy guy, but in this case a world of difference would be made if Dreamspike updated the artwork to something just a little more current.