Commandos Strike Force – PC – Review

Commandos Strike Force is the series
debut in the first-person shooter genre. Since 1998, the series has always opted
for the strategy genre. Nowadays, strategy titles find it hard to capture the
attention span of console players. Not many have been successful during the last
few years on the consoles, so it’s fitting to see Commandos jump ship to a new
genre. The FPS genre is overly popular here in the U.S., so it’s no surprise to
see Eidos deciding to send the game in a whole new direction. Does it fair well
enough to be compared to hot games in the same genre, such as Battlefield and
Far Cry? Will it leave hardcore Commandos fans in the dust without any signs of
the past? Continue reading on to find out my full impressions.

For those who know nothing about the Commandos series, here’s a short briefing.
Originally, the series closely resembled real-time strategy games –they had an
abundance of puzzles, and were filled with action from a top-down perspective.
Although Eidos has always made sure Commandos was a strategy game, it often
packed in action at a constant rate. They were challenging, fun, and had you
choosing your own paths to accomplish the missions. The transition from WWII
strategy game to WWII first-person shooter shouldn’t be hard right?

It’s a lot harder than anyone can
imagine. It has always been a thought-provoking strategy game that required tons
of methods to go about the missions. With changing genres to a first-person
shooter, the general consensus is that it would be dumbed down and easier to
play. That assumption is correct, the simplification of Commandos is evident
right from the get go. Only three character classes are made available: the
sniper, spy and Green Beret. In comparison, Commandos 2: Men of Courage had nine
classes to use. Exempt from Strike Force are classes like the Seductress,
Sapper, Thief, Driver, Marine and, oh yeah, can’t forgot about the dog!

In the original Commandos, the attack on the Nazis felt as if they were a
full-frontal invasion. With Strike Force, the missions are like simple recon
missions, with no clear vision of a war attached to the game. The larger scale
missions are broken into small zones. The smaller scale missions have you
sneaking around hiding from Nazis without too much action. In all reality, the
missions all could be finished with minimal effort, and don’t have any real
sense of danger. If there’s one thing positive about the missions, it’s that
they are still open-ended. The objectives are able to be accomplished in any
order.

The real detractor for me was that I
could never catch on to liking the main characters. Generic and forced upon the
player, they come on too strong as nobodies. The story never branches out from
being another clichéd WWII shooter. It hinged on the characters and their
personality for this title to be a success in my opinion. It failed in this
category, so I am let down on what they could have done storyline wise. All
three different character choices have unique abilities. The Green Beret is your
assault gunner; the sniper is associated for long range affairs and spy is for
infiltration beyond enemy lines. All have distinct advantages over one another.

Online matches allow up to 16
players to join. I am sure many of you can predict what is available in terms of
what modes are offered to play. There’s the usual team and solo deathmatches
that are included in virtually every other FPS. Those are no longer an
attraction for any FPS. Strike Force does sport its own unique multiplayer mode
– sabotage mode. You’ll be in control of a spy and you will have to attempt to
interrogate foes that you take down. If you are successful, you can learn of the
code to sabotage the enemy base. Beyond the default match types for Strike
Force, the problem lies in the fact that no one is playing it. Good luck on
finding any worthy opponents.

I’d compare Commandos Strike Force
to being somewhat like the movie ‘The Great Raid.’ The movie was released at a
particular time when not too many people wanted to see a war, especially WWII,
in their movie theaters. Commandos Strike Force is in the same boat – not too
many will want to play it because they have already had their fair share of WWII
first-person shooters. Games like Battlefield, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Day
of Defeat, Brother in Arms, and even Wolfenstein dominate the FPS realm
currently. You’d be hard pressed to have me play Commandos over any of those
mentioned shooters.

Minimum Requirements:
Pentium IV 1.8 GHz
512 RAM
4x DVD-ROM Drive
3.5 Gigs of Hard Drive Space
64 Mb 3D Accelerated Graphics Card (GeForce 4Ti / Radeon 9 series)

Gameplay: 6.1
The intelligence of the enemies is disappointing. You can sneak right up on them
by walking right in front of them. All you have to do is crouch down. Yup,
crouching is the only tactic you need to know for the stealth portion of the
game.

Graphics: 6.3
Not the best I have seen by far. It’s on par with the Conflict series I have
to say as second-rate war game.

Sound: 6.4
The sound effects are decent. The voice acting is Ok. It just doesn’t stand
out in any fashion.

Difficulty: Easy
You can save anywhere! How much easier could they possibly make it? If you
played any other FPS in the last year, you’ll be able to jump in no questions
asked.

Concept: 7.5
I liked that they took a chance with switching up genres. Sure it didn’t
work out so well in with a quality FPS, but, they do have a good starting point.
I am still a fan of the series, even if it continues to try its hand at the FPS
gene.

Multiplayer: 6.2
This is nothing special. The real problem with the multiplayer is the fact
that no one is playing it!

Overall: 6.8
Dull and boring, not too many will play it longer than one sit through. For
the fan of the series, you may want to rent since there is no nostalgic moments
to reminisce about.