Star Wars: Commander App Review

At a recent get together, a few of my friends were chatting about a new Star Wars app that they’d recently downloaded.  I picked up two pieces of information from their conversation:  the app was called Star Wars: Commander, and it was a lot of fun.  My curiosity got the better of me, so when I got home I looked it up…

“Charge into battle and lead your troops to victory in Star Wars: Commander, an action-packed, combat strategy mobile game!  Build your base, recruit and train an unstoppable force, and challenge players across the Star Wars universe!  In the midst of the Galactic Civil War, competing forces need allies for their cause.  The Rebellion rallies for justice and freedom, while the Empire seeks control of the galaxy.  As an unaligned mercenary returning to Tatooine, a pivotal decision must be made: will you side with the Empire’s strength and technological might, or the Rebellion’s heroism and resourcefulness?  The choice is yours as you rise through the ranks as a powerful battlefield commander in this exciting game of strategy and competitive galactic combat!”
Sounds like fun, and being that it was free I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a try.
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Upon starting the app you find out that you’re a mercenary.  Immediately you’re approached by both Princess Leia and Darth Vader.  You do a quick job for each, and then asked to choose a side.
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Being that I like the bad guys…I went with the Empire.  From there, you’re given a small base of operations.  Of course your base is small, so you’ll have to add buildings, upgrade said buildings, train troops, and of course set up defenses.
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To do all of this you’ll need Alloy and Credits which the game provides a regenerating supply.  Each time you build, upgrade, or train it takes a predetermined amount of time.  At first minutes, at higher levels hours.
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To bypass the countdown clock you can use Crystals.  The game starts you out with a large amount of these Crystals.  Not wanting to wait out the timer, I burned through them rather quickly.  You can find additional Crystals by cleaning up debris around your base, or by completing missions, but those rewards are slim.  Of course this means that you have no choice but to wait out the clock.  Fortunately, you can start a task and close the app.  The timer continues to tick away, and the next time you fire up the game, you’ll find the task completed.  Now you’ll recall me mentioning that this app is free…but, and this is a big but, if you just have to have more Crystals, you can purchase them.  With real money.
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Rest assured, I’ve been playing for over a week now, and I haven’t spent one red cent on this game…and I won’t.  The trick is, start building something, start upgrading something and close the app.  Come back later, play some more…it’s all about patients.  If you have none, by all means spend your money on those Crystals.  Using my “start something…come back later” method I’ve made a lot of progress.  Besides the various missions you get sent on, you can attack other players bases, and of course that means you can be attacked as well.  I found this aspect of the game particularly fun as I built up my defenses to protect against invasion.
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This game is a lot of fun, and it’s free so you have nothing to lose.  If you enjoy strategy games, this will be right up your alley!  Until next time, may the Force be with you!