Is it just me, or is Capcom one of the few gaming companies
in the world who have put out high-quality games ever since their
inception? From the old school (Rescue Rangers, Mega Man) to
the games of today (Street Fighter, Resident Evil), they
have always been consistent. Capcom's take on the one-man killing machine
genre may not be anything spectacular, but Commando does
manage to give players enough thrills throughout the game to keep most
people involved.
It's happened hundreds of times in our daily gaming lives. Some psycho in 20XX has decided to conquer the world and only one person (this person just happens to be you) is man enough to get the job done. You got a trusty automatic machine gun with an infinite amount of ammo and a couple of grenades latched onto your belt as you first drop into enemy territory. Along the way, hostages can be found trapped in the middle of the battlefield and will supply player with points, earning valuable extra lives in the process.
The villains have been programmed to be one thing: dumb. Watch any
screen fill with enemies only to watch them walk around the
screen with no apparent place to go. Their movements are completely random
and the only ones who will stick around for the fireworks are the ones
located in bunkers. Even then, getting close enough to them will cause
them to ditch their allies by simply running off the screen. Maybe it's
the sheer irony of it all, but I find it incredibly amusing to see my so
called "hero" unable to walk on water without dying. You'd think
the government would at least give the guy swimming lessons before sending
him into a swampy jungle.
For those of use not up on our video game vocabulary, this is a great game to get you started. Flicker and slowdown are apparent throughout the game making some enemies appear out of thin air. The graphics are crude, but get the job done. Animation is limited, but this obviously lets the game throw countless enemies at the player with only a few of the above mentioned issues. Along with the graphics, the sounds prove to be simply adequate with little standing out. Things blow up, the music is the standard Rambo-style theme, and the grenades have that Looney Tunes kind of falling sound to them.
So what if later games did it better? Commando still proves to
very playable and fun if one can overlook the flaws that plagued this
genre for years. You really can't go wrong with games like this when they
only run a couple of bucks on today' market. While it may never be as well
remembered as games like Ikari Warriors, Commando is a
worthy addition to any war fans game collection.
