Playdom, a mobile game developer, launched this game app to tap into the deep pockets of iOS users before it heads out to the Android platform but is it worth your time playing it?
It really depends on how you mean by playing. If you enjoy being ripped off by a Clash of the Clans clone then by all means, yes!
Let me digress. Many moons ago, a company named SuperCell thought of this medieval strategy game where people can battle one another all over the world. It was a freemium hit by some measure and loads of would be clones grew out of it. Playdom licensed the creative concept behind Star Wars and copied virtually everything about it in a aptly called strategy game called...you guesses it...Star Wars Commander.
In the game you get to play the rebel side or the Imperial side. No diff really except that you won't have any access to the heroes of the game which by far reside on the rebel side. If you side with the rebellion, you get Luke and Han Solo, Chewbacca and maybe even Obiwan. But the heroes from the dark side are some bold mechs, which are designed from the the Star Wars Imperial lore.
The game itself is based on the first installment of the series, which is on Tatooine. In it, you get to kick Tusken Raider ass and lay waste to anything remotely Imperial or Rebel.
Why Freemium is a Rip Off
There are three resources you need to complete the game...crystals, alloy metal and credits. Sounds like a plan but wait till you hit the paywall. Alloy and Credits can be easily harvested but not crystals. These you can only gain from the side missions. Crystals are useful for extending the length of protection on your ranch out in the desert and speed up deliveries of buildings and ordnance. The protection period is basically for you to ante up on should you fear some attack from a paying fool. To attack someone, you need to ante up with a payment of crystals so this in itself isn't free.
If you do get attacked, you will sustain minimum damage. However if you chose to revenge attack, then your protection is withdrawn and you can get hammered in the process. You could face a string of attacks, wave by wave but players so far are wary about paying those hard earned crystals for less than two minutes of mayhem.
There is also another caveat. If you attack someone to rob them, well they have a right to revenge attacks.
The crystals are costly to purchase. You can spend 100 bucks on it and that's way more I would pay for a game on a console. Worst of all, there is no completion level. The game soldiers on even if you stop paying to play. So your outpost in the desert will be a stark reminder of what sort of rancher you have been. To avoid being attacked, you can also choose to stay online busy building or doing something in the game screen. This will ward off any attacks. Such tricks mean that the attacker can never be revenge attacked.
There are periodic campaigns which offers you a chance to earn a different currency to redeem a different line of robots and troopers with a bazooka for the imperial army (god knows what you get on ther rebellion side, mini Yodas?). There are even more stuff along the way during the campaign, like the use of Hero characters to complete your campaign. This in itself becomes very murky because of a bug.
You can't select a hero for your squad all the time, and this hero is virtually useless in some of the side missions. The Hero can be used during attacks on another player but beyond that, it's uses are limited. Selecting a Hero character is a miss affair generally. If you have two Heroes on standby, the latest one made is offered up for battle without a choice.
What I don't like about the Game
You can't use the full resource of your army to attack. That's basically the one thing that disturbs me. I have a slew of forces but you don't get to choose the fighters you can use for an attack. Instead you have to 'manufacture' them for the mission and you need to plan ahead instead of just hitting the buy button.
The one thing that really stuck out was that when you get attacked, your own troops are busy wanking in the barracks and refuses to come out to fight. WTF? Instead you are encouraged to join a group of similar minded players. These players will donate troops to your outpost and you don't get to choose which troops either. Once you get attacked, these donated troops will do the defending. If they are 'pussy' ranked, they will get whipped. So you have been warned.
In any strategy game, you leave you worst troops behind and take the best one out to fight for you. Your poor quality troops are cannon fodder, with the outpost defences kicking in to destroy the enemy. This element is missing. So does it make sense to play a strategy game with your feet and hands tied behind your back?
What's more, your troop's AI are at the level of 'retard'. Instead of attacking buildings, they can be often seen shooting at barriers and taking a scenic route to their next target. You don't get to instruct them to attack which target at all. This makes for a difficult gameplay as the retards within your rank will rush out to get destroyed by cannon fire. The same goes for tanks and AT walkers, even though they are by AI program more attracted to certain types of buildings within an outpost and will not go after more valuable targets because that to them...does not 'compute'.
Lastly the game itself is riddled with bugs. There has been times when the revenge button doesn't even work, as it gives you Yoda like answers like....'Player cannot be found' alerts.
This is not a stable game to play with and you should not invest in anything more than your time on it. The bugs have caused Playdom to reset its servers and deliver a new update, which at this time is still bug ridden. I have had my own troops destroy my own tanks in a wonton act of rebellion...thanks to a bug in my system.
It might sound funny but I never thought a Star Wars remake of any kind would turn out to be a comedy. Make of that what you will.
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