Toy Commander puts you in the sneakers of a little boy by the name of Andy. A handful of Andy's toys have come to life, and are threatening to take over the entire house. It is up to you to command your own fleet of toys, in order to dispose of the looming toy threat.

As with many military themed games, Toy Commander is all about missions. There are about 50 missions to play through, with a portion that are somewhat standard "seek and destroy" type deals, and others that are just totally wacky. Mission objectives range from "destroy the toy submarines in the flooded kitchen", to "take out the enemy bridge" to "fly down the toilet with your helicopter and destroy the queen roach". Those aren't the actual mission titles, but they should describe your goals well enough. Each mission varies in difficulty (emphasis on the "difficult"), and are categorized into one or more of the following 5 types: strategy, racing, dexterity, fighting, and boss encounter. Throughout the game, you will take control of many, many different types of toys, often during a single mission. Tanks, various choppers and planes, cargo trucks, jeeps and even RC cars are at your command. There are 35 different toys in all.

Graphically, Toy Commander looks great. The huge rooms are rendered, textured and lit very well, and feature tons of interesting little details. The environments are more or less, fully interactive. You can turn on/off light switches and stove dials, annoy the family cat, chase the mouse around, push things around, break glasses and bottles, and so on. Exploring each and every room in the house is almost worth the price of admission alone. The toys you command and battle against, all look and sound just like toys. The plastic soldiers really look plastic, the tanks and such are painted and built to look like everyone's favorite G.I. Joe vehicles, and the RC cars sound like little electric cars.

Toy Commander is not without it's small graphical problems. The reviewable version which I have based this review on, is currently at 90%. And though I don't expect much to change, there is one small issue. For the most part the game remains at 30 frames per second, but in certain areas, during certain missions, there is a bit of slowdown. Sometimes it's when a lot of things are going on onscreen, but occasionally, it is when there is nothing at all happening. It doesn't occur much, or for very long, but it is in there. (Eds note: according to Sega, some of the slowdown problems have been cleaned up in the final version)

Aurally, Toy Commander does a good job of putting you right there in Andy's house with the toys. The music is pleasant, and there is a nice amount of ambient sound effects going on in the background. The toys make appropriate sounds, as do objects you interact with in each of the rooms.

The other little snag that Toy Commander hits is in the control department. Variety is certainly one of the game's strong points, but as far as control is concerned, it is also somewhat of a weakness. Because there are so many different toys, each must have it's own method of control. Trucks do not control like helicopters, which do not control like planes, which do not control like RC cars, etc. As a result, when switching between toys mid-mission, you can become easily confused with which buttons do what. Sensitivity is also an issue, depnding on the amount of patience you possess. Some missions require you to be pretty accurate, and not all the toys react as quick or as slow as you would like them to. Expect to splash down into water or fall off of high structures more than a few times. If you are VERY careful, and practice, it can be avoided. But some missions are on timers and require you to complete certain goals in a short amount of time. There are tons of in-game camera views to choose from by using the digital d-pad, but I have noticed that one view, which would have been very useful, was missing. Some missions that require you to drop objects directly below you, would benefit from a top down view.

With the difficulty of the game being somewhat high, and the sheer amount of missions you must complete, Toy Commander lasts pretty long. Thankfully, No Cliché still saw fit to include a decent multiplayer (2 - 4 players) mode. You and a group of friends can fight it out in the various rooms, with many of the toys being selectable. It's not the best multiplayer mode ever created, but it still adds to the overall longetivity of the game.