Intelligent Game Reviews

Eidos Interactive has been on a roll the last couple of years. Everyone has heard of the mega hits Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy of course. Eidos is intent on continuing this trend and has begun releasing it’s strong fall line-up of games. Their latest title Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines has just been released. Will Eidos score another hit with Pyro Studios’ Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines or will it be a flop? Lets take a look into this interesting game and see if it can live up to the competition and its predecessors.

The Story

It is late 1940 and Axis forces control all of Western Europe. Momentarily stopped by the English Channel, the German army is gathering strength for an imminent invasion of Great Britain. But there is one man in the British ranks that will not resign himself to play a merely defensive role. This man is Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clark. His plan was to create a special unit with a handful of exceptional men. Men skilled at handling any type of weapon and that excel in all forms of combat. Men who are able to hit the enemy hard in the most dangerous circumstances and live to fight another day. Men who could change the course of the war by taking the fight behind enemy lines. The Commandos were born.

Basics of Play

PC games often fall into one of two categories: gameplay rich and graphically rich. Games such as Red Alert feature engrossing game play but adequate graphics, whereas others like Forsaken have killer visuals but less interesting game play. For me, gameplay is by far the most important aspect of any game. I remember playing games like the original Warcraft which had mediocre graphics but was a blast to play.

So it’s fortunate that Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines has gameplay that really rocks. It’s not like anything you’ve seen before… it puts the strategy in real time strategy games. Unlike Doom or Red Alert where you have power ups or a constant supply of new men and materials, in Commandos you have only a small team of men. When one dies… the mission is over.

This puts a premium on precise planning and careful execution. If you make one mistake you may have to load your last saved game. And it’s precisely because the game is so original that it is such a blast to play.

The Commandos

Commandos features six different men, each with special skills and attributes. First there is Tiny, the green beret. He is the leader of the group, the fastest runner and an extremely violent character. He can climb walls and set decoy radio traps to lure the enemy into an ambush. He can also bury himself in the snow and hide dead bodies so that the Germans cannot discover them. If he doesn’t hide the bodies, another German may find the body and alert the rest of the forces arrayed against you.

Tread, the driver of the group, can control motorized vehicles and attack tanks. He is an expert in the line of driving and can heal himself and other troops. He wields a machine gun and the normal gun and knife which all characters are equipped with.

Fins, the marine, is an expert in the water. He is equipped with scuba gear and has the ability to steal German rafts and drive his fellow commandos in them. His favorite weapon is his silent yet lethal harpoon gun.

Inferno, the pyro of the group, is the bomb man. He can detonate bombs big enough to damage any German fortress. He has the ability to lay decisive bear traps to ensnare the enemy. He can also throw grenades and has the ultimate set of wire cutters which can bring down any metal fence.

Duke is the distance man… he is lethal with his sniping ability. No German soldier is safe unless he is concealed behind doors. Duke can take out troops with a single shot from his sniper rifle… but be careful, he has a limited amount of ammunition.

Spooky is the most important commando in the group. He can steal German uniforms and go undercover as a German commander. With this skill, Spooky can walk right by any German guard, sneak behind them and kill them with his deadly knife or a poison injection from his needle.

With this diverse group of six men it’s your task to make things tough on the Germans. Sound interesting? It sure is!

Playing the Missions

In order to complete each of the 20 missions in the game you have to use each commando perfectly. You have to hide the bodies out of view and plan carefully which weapons to use to take out the enemy. A gun will be heard and enemy troops will rush to the area where you fired shots. The easiest way to kill an enemy is to sneak up behind him and slash with your knife. It’s a silent kill and you can easily escape once the operation is complete. But, that isn’t always possible.

Of course sneaking up on an alert guard can be difficult. To help you Commandos has a feature which allows you to click on any soldier and a green path will show where they are looking. This lets you see how far you can advance without being seen. Without the feature the game would be nearly impossible to complete.

Missions have various tasks to accomplish. You may need to blow up an entire German base or just blow up certain parts of it. In most cases you’ll need to achieve several objectives to complete each mission. The levels are extremely difficult but after precise planning any mission can be conquered. You can also alter the difficulty level to make your job easier.

In any case, this is not just your average real time strategy game. Sure, the clock is always ticking, but you don’t gather resources, build buildings and crank out units for a huge battle royal. Rather, you carefully guide your team, silently, stealthily, to its objective. Combat does occur, but it is cunning that is rewarded, not brute force.

Multiplayer Features

Pretty much every strategy game today offers multiplayer support. The real question is does it enhance the game experience? In some cases the multiplayer experience can be better than the single player game, whereas in other games, Unreal comes to mind, lag, poor implementation or other problems ruin the fun.

Although Commandos is a fantastic game for a single player, online gameplay with friends may be even better. The game is a serious challenge with multiple players. Because coordination amongst the players is crucial, each controls one of the commandos, I found it much better to play with friends than with random people on the Internet. If one player moves too fast or pulls a stupid maneuver, it’s game over for everyone. This cooperative play, rather than the all too common, “Let’s deathmatch! u SuK!” mode all too common these days is a great change of pace. It will definitely be a new experience for Quake fanatics.

Graphics, Sound, etc.

When I first started playing Commandos, I noticed the fine graphical detail in the game. From the top down view on the buildings to the marching German guards, the realism was excellent. The game uses an isomorphic 3D engine for all of its characters and objects.

A plethora of details are found in nearly every object in the game. You can see the soldiers or track their footprints in the snow and electric fences twitch with voltage as you try and scale them for safety. Overall Commandos game has some power packed graphics. If you have the machine to support it, you can even run the game in 1024 x 768 high resolution and be blown away.

The game certainly doesn’t lack in the sound category either. Sound effects are crucial to the game… every tiny noise you make can be life or death. Enemy soldiers will hear a gun shot, a radio, nearly anything. This is one game where you have to have your speakers turned up to catch the nuances. If not, you’re a dead man.

The sound is astonishing and ti
es together with the graphics and gameplay perfectly. German sergeants commanding their soldiers and the crunch of wire cutters as they cut through a fence has never sounded better.

The Verdict

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines shows that the real time strategy genre is far from having had its last innovations. The game gives strategy gamers a whole new way of playing and in the process elevates gaming to a new level. While this sort of thinking man’s game might not be for everyone, you owe it to yourself to at least try the demo. Me, I can’t wait until the mission pack comes out so I can have another go!

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines Screenshots

Oops. One of my commandos is killed. Not the best outcome!	Completing missions earns you promotions, merits, and the ability to move on to the next challenge.
The sniper takes careful aim. With one shot this guard will be dealt with.

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