Submarine Commander PS1 Review

Expert PS1 Review

Expert is very rare and yet often unknown first person shooter that was released for the PlayStation in 1996 and the game plays very similar to the likes of your old school Doom style games where you have to traverse around different types of corridors and taking out enemies and terrorists while completing objectives to complete your missions.

The game also has a very similar look and feel to the earlier Wolfenstein 3D game that would have been seen on the PC that has a very similar look in terms of its graphical style, where you have the ability to explore, but you spend a lot of your time walking around very linear style corridors opening doors finding keys and clicking switches to open another area in the level, all while trying to avoid different types of enemies that can creep up on you at any time and even other types of enemies that can do severe damage to you.

They can literally kill you very very quickly.

So while it's an older type of game, you have to deal with the likes of the clunky elements of the controls that would have been reflective of the PlayStation at that time, but there is also a tactical style approach as you can't just wander in and just gun everything down at will.

If you do that very quickly you'll find out that you will get overwhelmed and enemies will destroy you at a moment's notice.

So you do have to take more of a cautious approach on how you engage with enemies because even when you try to shoot them with various types of weapons especially if you're using like to hand guns and so forth, because the enemies are 2D Sprites they have a tendency to move around very fast and sometimes you will end up shooting off shots, and you'll end up missing them entirely so you can end up wasting a lot of ammo trying to take them out.

Now depending on the levels, you do have the ability to at the start of each level to change your weapon loadouts so you'll always start off with your basically a combat knife and then you can choose between primary or secondary weapons where you can use a handgun or a machine gun or you can choose a grenade launch or a shotgun or another variety or type of weapons.

You can also use grenades and majority of the weapon types you can pick up throughout play.

Now you will eventually meet enemies that will drop various ammo types, but if you don't have the particular weapon, let's say for instance, a grenade launcher equipped on you at the time, you won't be able to pick up the ammunition for it because again you won't be able to use it.

So the whole premise of the game is that you're part of a tactical military Squad that sent into a hotel that has been overrun with terrorists making various demands and threats while taking hostages, and it's your goal to eradicate all of the enemy threats and to save any hostages within the building and to again save everybody and to save the entirety of the building to keep it all intact.

So you have to couple the gameplay Style with the mixture of trying to defeat enemies even end of level bosses that you will meet at different stages throughout the game while being aware of your weapon loadouts because each weapon that you choose will have a direct impact on how you can proceed through levels to know whether the level will be easier to approach or more difficult and you also have to cope with that with the likes of the enemies that you have to face.

But then you have to deal with solving puzzles, finding key cards or keys to unlock various doors or elevators to move up or down to the next levels and then you have to pick up various weapons and health packages as well to obviously keep you engaged in combat so if a player is taken out of the equation by the terrorists at any point you will end up having to start the level from scratch and the levels themselves can vary from being somewhat short to being quite long and it all depends on how you progress through each level depending on your play style, how cautious you are, how you're able to dispatch enemies but even understanding the various puzzles and trying to find their various key cards so that you can again unlock different doors because you will have to do a lot of backtracking throughout each of the levels in this game.

So you'll have to get one key card, open another area at the start of the level and vice versa, and with each new area you unlock will present a new challenge with new enemies to face.

So you have to be always mindful of your surroundings in this game, as the funny thing is, this game is very often overlooked and for most people, they don't even know it exists.

But this is a good solid shooter that I recommend if you're a fan of old school type of FPS Shooters, especially on the PlayStation.

This is definitely one of those games I think you should try out.

It definitely has a really good balance of playability and also challenging features but it is difficult, I'm not going to sit here and say that it's not but if you're familiar with the likes of Wolfenstein 3D which this game plays, like you will be able to understand the various elements in the game.

It has some decent graphics for its time for what is represented and it just offers something unique and something a little bit different to your typical style of FPS shooter seen at the time and it does have some decent Graphics.

The levels themselves are presented in 3D environments even with 3D objects but your character and the enemy characters are all 2D Sprites so that does change up the dynamic to some degree but it's very similar and reflective of Wolfenstein and even Doom or Duke Nukem that would also have been seen on the PlayStation and other types of FPS games.

That was the common Norm for FPS games during the mid-90s and that would be later changed with the implementation of full 3d visuals later on with games such as Quake and Quake 2 and so forth later on.

But still, this is a good game to look into the history of the PlayStation and to just look at the types of games that were being represented and made at the time and like I mentioned there are very few people that even know that this game exists.

There's very little information about this game online and this game can sometimes often be referred to as a hack of Counter-Strike even though it doesn't have anything to do with Counter-Strike.

But there would have been elements of this game that you would have been able to get copies in certain areas years ago in various marker places and if you managed to modify your PlayStation you would have been able to gain access to certain copies of games and this game primarily if you actually happened to see it or to gain a copy of it, it wouldn't have been really known as expert and would have had an image of Counter-Strike on it so people would have thought that it was a counter strike game that would have been on the PlayStation.

But it isn't, it has elements that kind of would remind you of it but it isn't Counter-Strike, essentially it's its own game.

In its own right just many people just wouldn't even know the name of the game itself but if you do happen to get your hands on it or if you can even play through emulation, it's one of those games especially if you do like FPS games and primarily on the PlayStation I do think it's another one of those games that you really should experience.

As it does present many elements that I've discussed in the video like with challenges and various different set pieces and various puzzle-solving elements and a lot of exploration.

It does present that in a good format and presents a unique balance that definitely will keep you on your toes for quite some time as again it's not an easy game to pick up and play but it is enjoyable once you give it time.

But I do recommend that you try it out and just experience the game at least to see what you think for yourself and I would love to know your thoughts on the expert for the PlayStation if you have managed to play it back in and if so what did you think of the game overall.

Do you enjoy these older style of FPS games seen on the PlayStation or even on the PC or other types of consoles and if so what do you think of them overall.

I'd love to hear whatever thoughts you do have at this game so be sure to share it in the comments below and as always keep those gaming memories alive...!

If you want to watch the video review, you can check it out here.