Ergonomically designed, the controller's curved shape is comfortable to rest your left hand on, leaving the right hand free to operate the mouse. The Commander sits on a base and moves in all directions so that players can scroll through the map of any game. The unit has six numbered buttons that light up when programmed and three shift buttons, for a total of up to 18 programmable options.

Beyond the three shift buttons, there is a slide switch shift allowing three additional combinations of 18 settings that can be used for different games, or for more moves within the same title. Perhaps a set of commands for each age in Age of Empires: The Conquerors? Though that may not be necessary, there may be some titles that require more commands, and the tiers of commands could be helpful.

Beyond the feel of the design, the Strategic Commander looks attractive, but can be a bit bulky, especially on a compact computer desk. It does, however, work fairly well resting on your lap while playing, and can be set aside (carefully) while not in use, with the rest of the game controllers that you may have collected.

The Commander is specifically designed to take over hot key settings, and can be programmed on the fly during gameplay, though I would suggest you program it during a test game, and then venture into multiplayer games if that is your thing. You don't want to program this device with all your commands while taking on some 12-year-old who knows and implements all of the cheats while you are losing time with your units standing around.

The buttons are easily programmed. You start by pressing the record key, hit the button on the Commander you want to program, hit the hot key on the keyboard and then the record button again to complete the process. You have to know the hot keys on the keyboard beforehand or dig out the manual to program this device, so anyone who plays RTS titles mostly by pointing and clicking will face extra headaches trying to figure out the hot keys before they can implement those features.

Catering specifically to RTS genre titles, the Commander works on any program on the computer and could be put to use in games of other genres, but the Commander will probably not serve well for those titles. For instance, in a shooter, the swivel will control moving and strafing, and the buttons could be programmed for other actions like crouching, toggling weapons and firing – anything that is achieved using a keystroke. However, the device lacks the precision that you can get with a mouse or the Sidewinder Dual Strike. The swivel function on the Commander has a little too much play, and excitedly pushing the buttons to fire, as sometimes happens during shooters, would probably cause some unwanted shifting in position too. I would recommend keeping this device within the RTS genre, and looking into the Dual Strike, or even a good joystick, if the mouse just isn't doing it for you anymore while playing Quake III Arena.