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 Home -> Reviews -> Game Commander MX
Game Commander MX By John "Award" Del Percio, June 28, 2000
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Developer :Mindmaker, Inc.
Publisher :Mindmaker, Inc.
Release Date :> 1 year
Demo Available :Yes - Download
Table of Contents

· Introduction
· Closer Look
· Facts
· Final

It's a Winner!

So what is the diagnosis for my little Klingon Academy demo problem? Most likely is just a poorly written template. A lot of commands in there sound alike, which was likely throwing Game Commander off.

Overall, I must say that Game Commander is absolutely spectacular. Certainly not just a toy or a gimmick, it is an indispensable part of most every game for me from now on. I couldn't imagine playing another game without it. Ease of use, completely configurable, superb recognition, it can truly mean the difference between life, and death at the hands of the enemy. My all-time worst error in deathmatch in a shooter game, is just sticking with one weapon, and never remembering to switch. Game Commander makes it far easier to switch, and makes you a far deadlier opponent. While they say that it can slow a game down if you're running on the cusp of the game specs, I did not find that to be the case. Running Freespace 2 with higher resolution and detail than I should have for my system, I did not notice a single slowdown, or HD grind.

Commands list for Freespace2
Setting a command for explorer

Typically in a review, I try to split the review half-and-half, and show half the good side of the product, and half the bad side. Game Commander did not give me that opportunity, it was nearly flawless. If I did have to pick something to name as a "flaw", I would have just one tiny little snafu to bring up, is that I'd love for it to be able to be minimized to the system tray. It can be cumbersome having the tiny window at the top of the screen, not to mention how having anything at all opened causes Freespace 2 to crash on me. While a minor cosmetic change, it would have been nice. Also, while not a direct problem of GC, Getright keeps interrupting explorer in it. It would be a nice add-in if they would allow you to block certain programs from being detected.

[Editors Note: Award: The folks from Mindmaker sent me an email after reading the review to tell me that infact, you can confine the toolbar to the system tray icon by hitting "hide toolbar" in the menu. I somehow overlooked that one. That leaves only the interruption problem, and none other that I can think of. It even starts minimized to the tray the next time you start it. Thanks for the tip, Mindmaker!]

On a bit of an off-note, for those of you who do have a bit too much time on your hands (you know who you are), or are really a trekkie enough to want to control your entire system by voice command, GC allows that as well. It actually can detect (by the way, it actually automatically detects what program you're running and switches to its command-set) *ANY* program, even explorer. I had quite a bit of fun playing around with checking my email, or launching GameVisions by voice.

Ordinarily, we would provide a GameCave link to purchase the software. Unfortunately, GameCave does not sell Game Commander. You can; however, buy it directly from Mindmaker, or purchase it at many software stores.

Overall Rating



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