Just like in other aspects of life, first impressions in a videogame are key. The first level of an RTS title, or even a game's title screen, can sometimes have a big impact on a gamer. Goblin Commander thankfully did a fantastic job orienting me to the controls and mechanics of gameplay. By the end of the short training levels I way setting waypoints, building turrets, and controlling titans like a pro. Some of the later levels in the game showed me that I wasn't quite as much of a pro as I thought I was, however.

Just like fighting games, no one (well, almost no one) is playing an RTS title for the storyline. It's one of those aspects that's overlooked when it does a good job, but is highly distracting when it fails. Throughout nearly the entire campaign it was painfully obvious that the plot was just there to explain the fighting, and sometimes only managed to half succeed at that. Every time you defeated one of the other goblin clans, you'd have access to their units from then on. Doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense, does it? Neither does the majority of the dialogue and rationalization that takes place. Towards the end I found myself skipping the dialogue and going straight into the (thankfully) highly entertaining battles themselves.

Again like the fighting genre, I can more than forgive the weak storyline if the gameplay is solid, and GC's most assuredly is. Gamers probably shouldn't think of GC as a traditional RTS, and should look at it as more of a squad-based tactics game. You can't build buildings or a base wherever you please, and there's no minerals or gold mines to have grunts mining. Instead, there are rocks, enemy structures, and other various object littered across the map that supply you with gold upon their destruction. The other resource in the game is souls, which is either obtained by dispatching enemy goblins, or controlling soul fountains that are found at specific places on the map and provide you with a steady trickle of souls (no mining required).

Each Goblin clan you control has a different button assigned to it, on the controller. Hitting A will send every goblin of one clan to that location, while gamers could use B sends a different clan in a completely different direction. It's in this way that GC obtains its strategic depth. Perhaps you'll leave one clan to patrol your base while the other two loop around the enemy base and meet back up before invading. Although the different clans do have different strengths and weaknesses, it's unfortunate that there's not more variation in the units. There are short and long range units for varying strength, but it always felt like all the goblins I was commanding were pretty much the same.

Another cool feature of Goblin Commander was the inclusion of Titans. Just like their name implies, Titans are really, really big units, that have to be controlled manually by the player. They cost a heck of a lot of souls, but can often times turn the tide of a battle. One swing of clan Stonecrusher's titan could easily take out 10 enemy goblins. Or he could just eat them all, one by one.

Although I've already stated that I enjoyed GC's campaign and it kept me engaged from beginning to end, one complaint I have is that it never felt like a competition. It was plenty difficult by the end, but I never saw the AI attempting to destroy structures for gold, or make a serious attempt to take over soul fountains as if their livelihood depended on it (which it obviously should have). It just seems like the computer didn't have to follow the same rules I did, and instead was just set to a certain difficulty, which determined the rate at which they spit out units.

Some people might think it's unfair to be comparing Goblin Commander to PC RTS titles, but I think the comparison needs to be made. How many basketball games or 3D action/platformers do you see on the PC? A few, but in general some forms of delivery are simply better suited for certain genres than others. I didn't dock GC points because it wasn't as good as its PC competition. I docked it points because the limitations of the console also limited the fun factor, somewhat. The developers did a great job with the title and a lot of smart decisions were made to better suit console playing, and the end result was a good title that I can recommend; just not highly recommend.