Commando

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Commando is a classic, vertical scrolling, arcade shooter in which you control a special ops soldier named Super Joe. Joe's mission is to infiltrate enemy bases and kill anyone that gets in his way. The available weapons are simple and effective: an M60 machine gun and some precious grenades. The grenades are limited though and must be collected on the way (via crates) since they are very effective when a bunch of enemies are coming towards Joe. Unfortunately, the grenades can only be thrown forward, which is rather frustrating. The enemies attack from all directions and they even hide in foxholes or behind sand bags, shooting like frenzy (but no worries, no surprise here, they are visible during gameplay (even when hiding behind sand bags). As Joe progresses through the six levels of the game, difficulty level gets tougher and tougher, with larger numbers of enemies, including military vehicles ready to crash the commando! Joe has to also rescue fellow soldiers captured by the enemy forces. Commando is a really addictive and a very tough game, that keeps you coming back for more even today!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Commando features good visuals for its age without having to fill the screen with impressive details. The coin op conversion from Elite Software is almost perfectly done on the 16bit home computers (while it’s great on the 8bits too), keeping most of the original level details. The Amiga and ST versions sport smooth and fast sprite animation and they are almost identical in terms of graphics, without having the need to use any extra power. The in-game sound is equally good, including the original music and sound effects (like gunfire and grenade explosions) but, we must admit that the 8bit intro and gameplay tunes sound better than the 16bit conversions! Namely, the Amiga and ST version play a small and repetitive tune while the Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum (128k) and C64 offer a full-length music during gameplay! Quite odd huh?