Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command seems to have been made for an entirely different console. A turn-based strategy game featuring the popular Warhammer franchise should fare well, and at first it does. Graphically, the game shines and the cutscenes are great. Even the gameplay itself can be fun for awhile. However, Squad Command eventually becomes hampered by a horrendous control scheme and non-existent story. Inevitably, the game becomes yet another flawed PSP release that fails to live up to expectations.

There is essentially no story in Warhammer 40,000, something that tactical games such as Final Fantasy Tactics typically strive on. Here, there is an emotionless war being waged between the Imperium and soldiers of Chaos, with little to no context for their fighting. Generally, while you're in control of the Imperium, the game does absolutely nothing to make you care about these soldiers. In some ways this is a good thing, as it avoids some of the common clichés found in this genre. There are no lone soldiers who must save the world or wise cracking partners spewing "amusing" anecdotes. Instead there is zero in the way of personality for any individual soldier, leaving the story without much consequence.

The game can be fun when you aren't wrestling with the controls.

The gameplay itself uses a cursor to select and move your units, with each one having a set amount of hit points per round. Like most tactical games, the player must try and eliminate the enemy, while using a squad to flank and generally out maneuver their opponents. The actual strategy is sort of secondary though, as some of the game's flaws make it very difficult to perform even the most basic of actions. There are some interesting aspects of Squad Command's gameplay however, such as the ability to hide in or behind buildings, using them as cover. If an enemy knows you're there or finds you, they can potentially blow up the building using a rocket launcher, leading to some tense moments as you attempt to position your squad while remaining hidden. Unfortunately, the terrible control layout makes these moments few and far between, as simple tasks become a chore.

The biggest downfall of Squad Command lies in its control scheme. With no grid featured, the gameplay becomes needlessly difficult. Movement is imprecise because players are forced to use D-pad to position a cursor. Too often, while attempting to move, soldiers will not go the correct way, as the cursor will go in an entirely different direction than where you wanted it to. In addition, moving all six units at once is a real pain because there is no hotkey to select them all. Instead, you can try to move them individually, but the game's pathfinding often makes that more of a chore than it already is. As a result, soldiers will move wherever they like or get stuck on walls, even if they are all given the same exact command. With the game's turn-based gameplay limiting you to a handful of moves per round, a single move can be lost entirely due to these glaring flaws.

Additionally, the analog stick is used solely for camera movement. On paper this sounds great, as the game is rendered in full 3D; yet in practice it's not as good as you think. The game's top-down isometric view remains static, with the camera limited to simple back and forth movements. When camera control is featured in a game like this, it should be to rotate entirely around the characters. Because of this limitation, enemies can remain hidden from view even if their locations are already known. Similarly, an enemy may be standing in a window and because of the restricted angle, it can be difficult to find where shots are coming from, leading to many needless deaths. At times, both of the control inputs fare so poorly that the game becomes almost unplayable.

Once these issues are acknowledged, there is still some enjoyment to be had here. The environments are all destructible, which both looks great and can be a lot of fun to do. Graphically, the game shines on the PSP, with few issues to speak of. Also, the cutscenes generally look excellent, with a few of them looking like big budget movie sequences. The levels themselves are laid out fairly well, and there are some tactical actions you can take as a result, like flanking enemies and using height to your advantage. The enemy AI is not particularly smart; however, they generally react well enough to your advancements, hiding behind and inside buildings. There is a degree of strategy to the game as well, and assuming you can overlook all of the problems, things can get pretty fun, especially in the later missions.

Multiplayer is fully featured in Squad Command and works well enough. It has the option for both ad-hoc and infrastructure gameplay, but unfortunately, finding a game is not easy. Ranked matches can be difficult to find, mainly because the number of players online seems to be quite low. Setting up a sound strategy against an opponent that is smarter than the enemy AI is a much more rewarding experience, and having that option helps to elongate the overall experience.

All other issues aside, Squad Command at least looks good.

The sound design in Squad Command is both bland and uninteresting. There is no battle music whatsoever, so even the most interesting battles seem to be missing something. On the flipside, the weapons sound great, and each one has a distinctive firing noise. Hearing a rocket launcher or laser gun fire might mean the destruction of your hiding spot, so that can help draw players into the game a bit, but the lack of music really hurts the overall audio presentation. The voiceovers are also lackluster, with the corny acting becoming almost distracting at times. To have so little noise in some areas and then have to hear these clunky readings can actually get annoying, and it would have been better if they were left out entirely.

For a game called Squad Command, the inability to actually control your squad becomes a huge issue. Between the lack of accurate controls and the general inability for full squad movement, the game quickly becomes frustrating. By adding a grid and fixing the control issues, this title could have been one of the more interesting releases for this platform. Instead, PSP owners are once again left with a game thwarted by the limitations of the console itself. In the end, Squad Command quickly moves from being a game with great potential to yet another bust on Sony's handheld.