The story to Goblin Commander takes place on the planet Ogriss where Frazeil,
a human wizard that controls the goblins to build a large machine, has gone
missing. The planet of Ogriss is occupied by five races/clans that are most
in tune with their environment. You assume the role of the goblin commander,
the leader of his clan who uses his spiritual form to supervise and control
their work. When Frazeil went missing the Goblin clans were plummeted into chaos
and blame was cast for the responsibility of their missing leader. As Grommel,
leader of the Stonecrusher Clan, will you be able to unravel the mystery of
Fraziels disappearance and return the lands of Ogriss to peace?

Gameplay
The game play in Goblin Commander is a fresh approach to the Real Time Strategy
system. In Goblin Commander you are responsible for only a small unit, your
clan, and are not burdened with much of the micro management that goes into
many other RTS titles. As commander, you navigate the map in your spiritual
form and can take control of any unit within your clan if you wish to fight
directly. The action in Goblin Commander is based more around fast action then
resource management, though there are resources to gather. The game makes use
of 2 forms of resources, gold and souls; you gather souls by capturing soul
fountains or by destroying enemy goblins, gold is gathered by destroying the
buildings and statues scattered around the lands of Ogriss, as well as the resource
piles of the various clans.

In Goblin Commander you take the role of a clan leader and are tasked with
many goals during a mission. As you begin you often start with the basics, a
place to create infantry, as well as a place that contains your turrets and
Titan. Your infantry varies depending on the clan you select to lead your march
through Ogriss; you are given only 6 different units and one titan to control
your clan. Each clan is capped at a total of 10 units that it can have on the
field at once, without the inclusion of the Titan. There are however instances
where you will be controlling more then one clan at a time. Each clan contains
a melee unit, range unit, healer, resource gatherer, and 2 units that focus
on its specialty. Each of the 5 clans of Ogriss also contains their own look;
the stonecutters have skin of rocks, the hellfire clan has fire red skin from
the time spent harvesting the flames and soot of Ogriss, etc.

Each of the 5 goblin clans have one Titan; a mighty behemoth with special devastating
abilities. The behemoths are the high point of the game and often the only unit
that is enjoyable to control. For instance, the Stonecrusher clans Titan is
a giant rock ogre that swings around a giant mace with 2 different attacks.
Titans also contain the ability to eat enemy units to regain health; this includes
friendly units as well as sheep or other animals that happen to roam the land.
The titan is your defining unit, and as such should be protected as well as
fed to its hearts content. Big ugh eat small goblins!

The levels in the game vary from fiery pits to wood landscapes and more. Each
clan works in an environment best suited to their particular race; the Stonecrushers
work in fiery pits filled with rocks to destroy etc. The environments are basic
and don’t really offer a unique view or special style to the artistry. I did
not notice any particular attention being paid to detail; the levels were unfortunately
very basic in their layout and revolved around the progression of the story
line. With the levels laid out in a particular design to fit the story progression,
the ability to use varying tactics is removed; you are force to attack from
a certain location or direction. This aspect of levels design carries over to
your defense, as you normally are located in one corner of the map and the enemy
in the other, you do not need to cover many locations for defense. The level
design itself removes much of the strategy from this RTS.

The maps from the radar appear large, but as you begin to navigate them you
are often confronted with just how small they really are. It doesn’t take long
to navigate your Titan from your base to the enemies, and fighting seems to
go in a system of constant waves due to the small playing field. In the early
missions when you control only one clan you often have to decide if you want
to attack the enemy, or scour the lands for buildings to destroy to raise gold
for other projects. The lack of micromanagement hurts this game to an extent,
your clan does not split up and wherever you take one guy on the team, everyone
else must follow, excluding the Titan. This often leaves your base wide open
while you are out destroying random objects on the map so you can invest in
upgrades etc.

Your team of five goblins have two upgrades you can apply to them, as well
as one upgrade for the one support role. The upgrades are a nice touch, but
nothing new to the real time strategy genre, it’s almost too simple. All
your units except for your support role benefits from the first two sets of
upgrades you can get; the first being an armor bonus that can be leveled up
three times, the second being an attack bonus that can be leveled up 3 times.
The other upgrade available is for your support role and will boost whatever
function he serves for the team, same as before it can be upgraded three times.
The upgrades you apply to your team can be seen on them as they travel around
the map, glowing shields or hammers made of molten metal.

Multiplayer
The multiplayer portion to Goblin Commander takes place via split screen and
has your clan facing off against another human player. Multiplayer functions
are always welcomed in a game, especially an RTS, though the split screen made
it difficult to navigate the map and keep track of everything that was going
on. I was also hoping for a quick fight mode where I could play against the
computer on a map that I choose etc. Goblin Commander was however lacking such
a feature. In the end the multiplayer portion of this game is lacking many basic
features found in other RTS games. The split screen gives each player too small
of an area to work with, unless you own a 40 inch or higher television, mine
is 36 inches and felt inadequate for the matching.

Control
The controls in Goblin Commander are very basic and easy to use, there is almost
no learning curve required for the game and the tutorial portion adequately
handles teaching you all you need to know. I was very happy with the simplicity
in the controls as most RTS games lack simple and easy to use controls due to
their numerous features being squished from keyboard layout to fit a controller.
Goblin Commander however allows for simple maneuvering of units as well as controlling
each one without difficulty. The following is the control layout:

  • A Button: Move Clan 1
  • B Button: Move Clan 2
  • X Button: Move Clan 3
  • Y Button: Enter Building / Control Unit
  • R Triggers: Enlarge Radar
  • Right Analogue: Control Camera
  • Left Analogue: Movement
  • Dpad Up: Home
  • Dpad Down: Target
  • Dpad Left: Help
  • Dpad Right: View Objectives

Graphics

The graphics unfortunately in Goblin Commander are nothing special and for
such a limited number of units taking place on one map, I would have expected
something more. The units in your clan, excluding the Titan, are often of very
boring design and lack any real definition from the height you view them from.
Even when zooming in during game play the units lack much detail, while you
can tell them apart easily, often from their skin color, it’s not as easy
to see what they are doing. The only way to truly get a good view of your units
is to take control of one of them and zoom in fully, unfortunately the game
is almost unplayable when in that view.

The Titans however are nicely detailed and when under your control allow you
too see them from various angles, with their special attacks and abilities the
titans are what make the game stand out. I often control the titan as the rest
of the team is very boring, while controlling the titan it is great fun to zoom
in and watch as he lifts an enemy goblin from the ground and begins to eat it,
leaving a mess of green goblin blood around him. The designs for the titans
are the most unique in the game, from giant pig like creatures with catapults
attached to their backs, to the details used to model them. It seems as though
most of the attention went into the titans and rightfully so, with such a limited
number of units in the game and their lack of detail as well as strength, the
titans become the defining point in your clan.

Audio
The sounds in Goblin Commander are decent, in between each level is an in game
cut scene with your character, the commander, addressing his clan about the
current situation in their native goblin tongue. The cut scenes that take place
between the levels are nicely done audibly, but aren’t correctly synchronized
with what is happening on screen. You are often left staring as your character
finished talking but hasn’t progressed to starting his next sentence,
making the story telling take too long and further adding to a loss of interest.
The background music is nothing special and the sounds your clan makes will
not stand out as memorable as they have no real dialogue. Through my time playing
real time strategy games there has always been a defining sound effect or phrase
that has stood out as memorable; Command & Conquer had the soldiers responding
with, “Moving out sir”, Dune had the sound of the infamous sandworm
swallowing yet another harvester. Unfortunately Goblin Commander lack such a
memorable phrase or sound effect that defines it from the rest.

Replay Value
Goblin Commander unfortunately lacks any real reason for replay except to play
the game in the multiplayer mode. With the multiplayer mode lacking in many
areas, the game unfortunately isn’t worth playing beyond the story mode.
I was hoping the game would feature an Xbox Live play mode or possibly system
link to give the users more visual room when playing each other. With the games
lack of unlockable content or hidden / secret clans etc, the fun ends when the
game has been completed. The story mode is also very boring and contains too
many side missions before progressing anywhere; you don’t get the feel of major
accomplishments found in waging war in other RTS games on the market.

Reviewer's Additional Comments
Goblin Commander is the game that could have been, but in the end wasn’t. The
idea of having only a small clan is a new idea and was nicely implemented; unfortunately
the lack of real options of units to populate the clan is its down fall. With
5 separate clans to choose from, you only end up with a total of 25 units, 30
including the Titans. The lack of micromanagement at all makes the focus of
the game strictly the battles, there is no preparation building a proper base
or successfully covering certain areas or defending certain buildings. Goblin
Commander has taken the RTS and removed much of the strategy contained, the
levels require little to no strategy to complete, nor management of resources.
The idea that the goblins gain money for destroying anything on that level is
also a bit lacking. Each clan was suppose to have been placed on the planet
of Ogriss to harvest a particular resource as their specialty, yet all clans
can make use of all resources. All I an all I would not recommend this game
to be purchased without a rental first. I found it lacking the basics of other
RTS games contain, and while it attempted to create something new, I feel the
lack of strategy in the game caused it to fail in its attempt.

Overall Score
Overall Score: 6.5/10 [Not an Average]

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