Commandos 2: Men of Courage

"A 100 button keyboard on a 8 button controller?"

Oh my god, what were the developers smokin' when they made this up? Commandos is a strategy/ combat game originally launched for the Pc, well ladies and gentlemen, that was not just because the pc just looks nice if you get my point here.......

Graphics

Okay, just about the only category this game impresses in. The graphics are really top of the bill and although some environments look very dark and some others tend to make enemy soldiers completely disappear, they look absolutely breathtaking. Even from so far away, the characters look very detailed and so do even the smallest things like tiny packs of cigarettes and footprints.

Graphics 8/10

Sound

The background music is really good, but some of the sfx sounds sound like complete rubbish, and even others sound like they were used for the wrong thing, footsteps sound like you're walking through water, guns sounding like peashooters, my god!

Sound 4/10

Gameplay

Okay, this is what REALLY destroys this game. Commandos is a very complex and involving game. The Pc version used a keyboard configuration where just about every key was used for a specific action. Well.....how do you convert that to a 8 button controller? Answer: you shouldn't!
The whole thing is to take a team of specialized soldiers, each with it's own unique abilities, and complete a bunch of missions which will demand some extreme brains and strategies in order to complete them.
Sometimes you have to press 10 buttons before you finally have the thing you want, but by the time you have it, you have already been killed by the enemy 10 minutes ago.
Besides that, the characters sometimes seem to ignore orders (?????) and enemies seem to blend into the background way too easy, but they ALWAYS see YOU! And it is very easy to loose track of your men, sometimes they stick into lampposts, crates, buildings, and when one of your teammembers is being shot at, the controller seems to refuse to let you switch to that man end run away, so if one of your men get's shot at, he's dead for sure.
There is a tutorial in the game which takes you about 3 hours to complete if you do everything right from beginning to end without failing, but the button configuration is just so unbelievably illogical and fiddly you'll be returning this game the minute you got it should you be foolish enough to buy it in the first place.

Gameplay 1/10

Rent or buy?

Neither, period! Go pick up the Pc version, it's a lot better then this piece of crap.

Overall score: 4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 02/08/03, Updated 02/08/03