Remember Advance Wars? You know, the incredibly addictive, not to mention highly acclaimed, strategy series that's consumed countless hours across its GBA and DS iterations? Now, imagine if the series had a grittier look, a few gameplay tweaks, online multiplayer and the ability to download user-created missions. Ladies and gentleman, enter Field Commander on the PSP.

Of course, given the difference in developers, Field Commander isn't an exact clone of Advance Wars. Gone is the bright, pixel-based cartoon aesthetic that defined Advance War's battlefield, replaced by a darker, more realistic world built out of polygons. The characters of Field Commander likewise reflect this shift, lacking the personality and charm of those found in Advance Wars. However, the important part, the ever-addicting gameplay, not only remains intact, but has been slightly improved with a few welcome modifications and additions, such as the ability to layer units of different altitude on the same square (for example, a ground-based Scout and an air-based Gunship) and a variety of online features.

While the above paragraph should be enough to convince Advance Wars veterans of Field Commander's quality, it doesn't hold much weight for those that haven't played Advance Wars. And seeing as we're talking about a series limited to two Nintendo handhelds in a review for the PlayStation Portable, well, it'd probably be a good idea to spend a bit more time explaining the core gameplay.

In technical terms, Field Commander is a grid-based turn-based strategy game. Movement occurs on a per-square basis, with each unit able to move a preset number of squares per turn. Turns can last as long as a player needs them to, which is handy for both strategizing and also for the ability to squeeze in a quick turn or two during a brief moment of free time.

Most missions start the player out with a pre-existing assortment of troops, which can then be supplemented by building additional units at a Factory. Each unit costs money, earned each turn based on the number of Cities a player has captured. A variety of different units are available to the player, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some, like the Scout, can travel a large number of squares in one turn, but lack the offense and defense necessary to be a major force in battle. Meanwhile, Tanks can't move very far, but they're very useful in destroying enemy Scouts, Tanks, Half-Trucks, and so forth. And despite their defensive weakness, Grunt and Spec Ops units are needed to capture locations, a battlefield necessity. Each unit in Field Commander has a role to play in battle, and the trick is to balance that role against the enemy unit's weaknesses.

Battle itself is based on numbers. Before engaging in battle, the game will display a series of numbers along the bottom of the screen. These numbers indicate the range of damage a unit can inflict on an enemy, and the range of damage they're likely to receive in the counterattack. A unit's strength is also relative to its health, the lower the health, the less damage it can dole out. Units can be healed by either spending turns in Captured Cities or by combining their health with another unit.

Though a variety of different criteria for success present themselves throughout Campaign Mode, the most frequent objectives are to either capture an enemy location, such as Headquarters or a Factory, or to destroy all enemy units on a map.

If this sounds confusing or overwhelming, don't worry. First off, the game provides a wonderful trio of tutorial missions that clearly explain and demonstrate all of this, with an informative manual backing that up. Additionally, the game is designed in such a manner that all of this seems intuitive, which only adds to the addictive quality.

Backing up the single-player Campaign Mode are a variety of strong multiplayer options. Hot Swap allows two players to compete using only one PSP, passing the PSP back and forth during their respective turns. And though online multiplayer may be just as addictive and self-explanatory as it sounds, the coolest feature here is Transmission Mode. Instead of requiring both players to be online at the same time, Transmission Mode keeps a record of the game-in-progress on the server. After logging in, players receive their opponent's turn, and then submit their own turn in response. Also known as Play-By-E-mail, this mode tends to be slower-paced than the other multiplayer matches, however, it's perfect for people who don't have the time to sit down and play battle after battle.

A Mission Editor is also available, complete with the ability to upload and download missions from the Field Commander server. As of this writing, only about a week after release, hundreds of missions are already available, including some inspired by Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. The only downside to the Mission Editor is that it only permits players to create their own missions, not maps. However, with over fifty completely customizable missions, it'll take a long time to grow tired of all the potential variations.

The only other flaw with Field Commander is the slight choppiness that occurs when the camera zooms in to display battling units. But as these displays grow tedious and repetitive after the first few missions, it doesn't matter much as most will eventually disable them in the ever-handy Options menu.