I'll start with a disclaimer: though you can play this game in MAME version .245, it's still officially listed as "not working". I didn't encounter any big glitches or weirdness or anything, so I assume this is just some internal technicality, but I feel like I should point it out just in case.
Anyway, it's one of two attempts made by Konami in 1993 at releasing a competitive first person shooter with polygon graphics to arcades. (The other one was called Poly-Net Warriors, and has a similar "unofficially emulated" status in MAME, if you're curious.) Consider that at the time, the biggest FPS on home systems was Doom, which was all sprites, and this is a pretty big deal. Or it would have been if anyone took any notice at the time. Since they were both released in the same year, it's hard to get a solid answer on which of the two came first, but I'm covering this one because I thought it was the most interesting to play.
Of course, I've only been able to play it as a single player game, but I think Konami put enough effort into the single player experience to make it worthwhile. You start the game by picking one of eight stages, and in the stages, you have a quota of AI-controlled tanks to kill. It's all time limit-based, and getting killed just wastes a few precious seconds, like crashing in most arcade racing games. Fulfill your kill quota, and you get a new quota and a bunch more time added. Each stage has a few quotae, and getting through them all gets you a big score bonus and passage to the next stage. It should also be noted that, the stages are very small. This does give a different feel to later first person shooters, and it also means that even on the low-powered hardware, there's no need for pop up or fog or other methods of hiding a short draw distance.
A big point of interest to me, aside from the very nice low poly graphics, are the controls. There are two joysticks, but the control scheme is totally different to what you're probably accustomed to in modern first person shooters with twin stick controls. It is instead closer to the way you control the mecha in the PS2 RPG Steambot Chronicles/Bumpy Trot. Each joystick represents one of your tank's two tracks, and they each only register up and down inputs. You move your tank forward by pushing both joysticks up, backwards by pushing them both down, and turning is done by pushing them in opposite directions.
It takes some getting used to, and since you're thrust straight into combat on even the easiest stage, you'll probably have to play a few practice credits before you're actually able to achieve any kind of success. Other than the movement controls, it's all pretty simple, though: there's a fire button on each joystick, though you only have one weapon to fire, and there's no power ups or other items to collect at all. Your tank can take five hits, and you heal one hit every time you destroy an enemy tank.
Polygonet Commanders is a pretty fun game! Unless you get really into trying to get a high score and survive through all the stages sequentially, you probably won't be playing it for a long time, but the time you spend with it will be a good one. And of course, those flat shaded polygon graphics look great, and they're probably as big a draw now as they were when the game was released, if not more.
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