Frontline Commando: D-Day – Review
Frontline Commando: D-Day is the sequel to Glu’s previous title Frontline Commando, it does away with the modern day setting and replaces it with a WW2 style game. Some time ago the market was flooded with world war style games, but recently this has changed for a gaggle of modern style shooters. Glu’s release of this game goes against the trend, making it a likely candidate to be very popular.
Though advertised as a third person shooter, I feel the gameplay is more akin to a gallery shooter. You play as a WW2 soldier and must move from cover-point to cover-point, making sure to kill all the enemies in that area to proceed to the next part. Once all areas are cleared, the level is completed and you receive points. There are also 3 challenges in each level, which when completed award you with stars to buy extra goodies for the game.
You control the game through a series of on-screen buttons and using a dragging motion to aim. On-screen buttons allow the player to move between cover points in an area and to pop out or hide in cover. The fire button is in the lower-right corner of the screen and easily accessible, while a “scope” button in the lower-left allows for zooming in. Other buttons appear as required, such as buttons to man stationary guns or switch to bazookas to take down armored targets. The interface is great to use and is introduced to the player in the tutorial mission, though I have found the aiming controls to be a little clumsy. The fact you cant control the players movement is not noticed as I feel this would over complicate the total gameplay.
As you progress through the game, you earn “soft” currency which can then be spent on the in-game shop to unlock additional more effective (better at killing) equipment. Much more powerful guns can be unlocked using cold hard cash (acquired via in-app purchase) which in many ways make it very easy to complete this game. These “pay to win” mechanics are not uncommon in Glu’s games and is something that will be argued way into the future. Though I would like to note, that I feel an in-app purchase would be needed to complete this game fully.
In the end Frontline Commando: D-Day is a pretty good game and you can see this by how graphically-impressive the title is. The repetitive controls may cause many players to get bored, but this is a fun free game and will keep you entertained, be it only for a little while.
As ever the link for the game is below:
