Anything by IriySoft is worth playing. Great concept and execution.
Reviews for "Battalion Commander"
this is a great game
the song is some michal jackson
hahaah i like this funny if i kil myself with barrels LOL.
It has been a long time since a game inspired me to write a review...
This game is amazing. I was drawn in from the first run: I made it halfway through, but ran into a row of bunkers and a tank and died. I frowned and prepared to try again, then noticed the upgrade button flashing. Clicking it, I observed the locked and unlocked options and thought to myself, "So, this is one of those games, huh?" Then I played it again... and again... and again.
Brilliant.
Story: N/A
This is a top-down shoot-em-up... but you're not flying a fighter jet, a helicopter, or a spaceship. You're not even in a vehicle most of the time. You're the leader of a squad tasked with bringing down an enemy base, but your squad is missing and all you've got are two pistols and a radio to call in air support. Being a badass video game character, you charge in guns blazing and hope to find your comrades on your way there. And you do find them... along with lots of enemy soldiers, towers, bunkers, tanks, helicopters, and air raids. When your comrades join you, your formation takes on the very familiar shape of a wedge or "wing" (^), meaning they behave similar to wing-men in aircraft shoot-em-ups and serve a similar purpose - to give you more firepower in exchange for more targets for the enemy bullets to hit.
Gameplay: 5.5 stars!
You've brought a lot of elements together here. Many weapons, skills, and "wing-men" to choose from and lots of both EXP and Gold to collect. What I like is how each of there are handled in this game.
First, not only are the EXP (blue stars) and Gold (yellow coins) collected separately, but have different purposes and uses. EXP increases your rank and is "used" automatically, increasing the max number of squad-mates you can lead at the same time (up to fourteen, the max squad size of real life military squads) as well as unlocking more hi-tech (and therefore more powerful) weapons, skills, and squad-mates. Buying upgrades allows you to get further in the level, obtaining more EXP to unlock more upgrades to buy with your Gold - rinse and repeat until you beat the "normal mode" level and/or reach colonel, the max rank. (In real life military operations, colonel is the maximum rank a battalion commander can be. Wow, two for two on military trivia - someone did their research! ...though battalions are usually at least three hundred soldiers, so...)
Second, all weapons and squad-mates you can unlock have real world equivalents, but are reinterpreted to fit better in a shoot-em-up: snipers shoot laser-fast bullets but have a red targeting laser and take a long time to reload, the shotgun is a long-range Contra-style spread shot instead of a close-range bullet swarm, AA missiles home in on EVERYTHING instead of just helicopters, etc.
Third, while it is possible to own everything like a boss on the normal mission with all the upgrades and a full squad, I never felt so overpowered that a mistake wouldn't cost me. The balance of making the player feel that getting all the upgrades was worth it while making the game still challenging to ace is important to maintain in a shoot-em-up like this; the "Upgrade Complete" shoot-em-up is the perfect example of this. While a great parody in the same vein as the Achievement Unlocked series, it lacks the challenge a more serious shoot-em-up would have. This game, on the other hand, has an answer for almost every upgrade you get. Every squad-mate has their opposite on the enemy side, and every special skill you can get has an equal-power answer to it. Call in an all-encompassing air strike? They call in three bombers in a row. Fire a wave of napalm at a tank? They mow you down with a row of mini-gun ATVs. Your shotgun is nice... for blowing up those annoying bullet-hell bunkers. AA homing missile? About time you got something for shooting down those darn helicopters. Even the invincible march skill is less effective for taking down the enemy base than the earlier ones are. The only notable exception is the colonel level upgrades, and even that is arguable, as they all seem to focus on regenerating health for each step forward, which is something infinitely more useful in endless mode than the normal mission.
Finally, I enjoy the ebb and flow of battle. The semi-random mix of infantry, vehicles, and fortifications kept the gameplay exciting well into endless mode, making the 2000+ medal fun to get rather than a chore. The start-in-a-jeep upgrade added a new "dodge everything while getting as many teammates as you can" element and made challenging the base multiple times a less time-consuming task than it could have been. (By the way, for those complaining about the row of mini-gun ATVs being impossible to defeat, consider that I reached 2000+ meters on endless after being attacked by those guys while being triple-bombed at the same time THREE TIMES, and I never lost more than four guys at once. The trick is to concentrate on destroying one or two on the side being bombed last, then dodging up and over to the third of the screen hit first. I will concede that dodging all of their shots is impossible in that situation, and that surviving it solo is a task worthy of a true bullet hell dodging pro, but I propose that your hero soloing the most difficult part of a game called Battalion COMMANDER is not SUPPOSED to be possible!)
Graphics: 5 stars
Advance Wars style monochrome infantry and suitable matching vehicles and weapons. For a game like this, it's perfect. The buildings are a little unorthodox, but it makes reaching the end of the normal mission more interesting. Pink jeeps are crazy awesome, especially since they end up being the most dangerous enemies when they come in packs.
Sound: 4 stars - The soundtrack is amazing... even if it's only one track. It is a very fitting theme for your squad's endless march into enemy territory. I would have liked to hear another theme for blasting down the enemy base, though - or at the very least some variation or "boss arrangement" (e.g. Donkey Kong 64 style). What really loses a star here is the sound effects bug... however, this doesn't reduce the overall score because I DIDN'T NOTICE. I had entered a gaming "Zen mode" with just the BGM and reached Colonel in one sitting because this game is that engaging.
Not much more to say that Phobotech hasn't already said, so I'll leave it at that. 5 stars overall!