Commando: Steel Disaster – NDS – Review

If this turns you off, leave now. If the
retro screenshots, Metal Slug-inspired appearance and Metal Slug-inspired
difficulty are music to your ears, then this just might be the best DS game
you’ve had in months.

Good Enough to Shoot

Remember what it was like to play with GI
Joe? You keep shooting at his plastic enemies (fictitiously, of course –
plastic ammo and spring-loaded guns weren’t always available), but in the
end, the toy soldiers never stop coming. That’s kind of what it’s like to go
through a level in Commando. Enemies are a never-ending occurrence; you
can’t avoid more than a handful of them, and those that are avoided may
prove to be the deadliest of all. Bullet streams are unleashed at a
near-continuous pace.

Save slots – those handy areas for recording
game progress – are non-existent until a stage is fully completed. Mid-level
success is not recorded, and with only one life to get you through the
entire game, expect to start over several dozen times per stage. This is how
Commando makes up for its insanely short length – by not allowing the player
to achieve any victories without mourning his or her own death 30 times
over.

Again, if this isn’t for you (and wasn’t an
appealing feature in Metal Slug, a series that doesn’t record your progress
at all), Commando won’t spend much time in your DS. But if you’re still here
and curious to know more, keep reading. This game is just getting warmed up.

Gamer Tested, Sanity Disapproved

Each stage is divided into several different
areas, each with a special, player-annihilating treat waiting for anyone who
makes it there in one piece. Most areas begin with just a few enemies, but
you can be sure that many more are just around the corner. Normal range fire
can be evaded by ducking, causing some to shoot while crouching. All
grenades bounce in Commando – this is great when trying to bounce one into a
foxhole but is terrible when two or three enemy grenades are bouncing in
your direction.

Special weapons – flamethrowers, machineguns,
rockets, etc. – are about the only advantage that can be gained over
opposing forces. But the joy of receiving them is limited by the dearth of
ammunition, infrequent level placement, and the ability to accidentally
override them (only two weapons can be carried at one time; if you conserve
ammo, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll mistakenly erase one of them with
a new weapon down the road). And then there’s the biggest joy-crusher of all
– the fact that enemies have tanks, helicopters, mechanical monsters and
other giant threats that make your puny weapons seem insignificant.

Incredibly, boss battles are not the biggest
threat in Commando. The challenge comes from everything encountered up until
that point. That’s not to say that any of the bosses are easy. But after
fighting through several areas on low health without any hope for survival,
an oversized monster with an obvious weak point isn’t all that threatening.

Even so, the overall experience of playing
Commando can be overwhelming. You won’t be able to just sit down and finish
this game in an afternoon. There might be some players who can – those
unimaginably gifted souls that finished each Metal Slug in a day – but they
are not the norm, even among the hardcore.

For $20, Commando isn’t a bad deal. It won’t
appeal to every gamer. And it’s certainly not for the casual types (don’t
buy this for your friend or relative whose favorite game is Madden, Halo or
Smash Bros.). But when placed in the hands of those it was developed for,
the experience is golden – even if you spend every minute pounding on the
wall and wondering if you’ll ever finish the current stage.