Someone call the A-Team. Review

Someone call the A-Team.

Strategy games often have a hard time making the adjustment from PC to console. Maybe it’s the control limitations. Maybe it’s the different audience. Maybe it’s poor production.

In the case of Commandos 2 for the PS2, it’s a little bit of all three.

This direct port of the PC hit

doesn’t do its forbear justice.

The

story in Commandos 2 involves a motley band of commandos (there’s a marine,

green-beret, demolitions expert, spy, hussy, dog and sniper) who are faced with

huge tasks (killing so and so, retrieving such and such) which must be completed

against all kinds of ridiculous odds. Unfortunately, some of the odds include

a crappy tutorial and a terrible control scheme. However, if you’re hardcore

enough to take on this incredibly challenging game, you may actually enjoy Commandos

2.

But I didn’t. My smile began to fade as soon as I checked out the ‘command’

list in the instruction booklet. Every single PS2 button is used. Now, every

single button is on the control pad for a reason, and a game that utilizes them

all is bound to have some involving gameplay, but it is obvious that the controls

could have been streamlined.

For example, if a Neverwinter

Nights style radial menu could have been applied to the R3 button, Commandos

2 might have been a lot more playable. Instead, you’ll find yourself constantly

stopping to figure out which button to press to bring up which menu or perform

which action. It takes away from the game’s fluidity and can be very frustrating.

As though a really intricate control scheme weren’t enough, the Commandos

2 tutorial is just as daunting. Not only is the tutorial long, it also takes

forever to load each lesson. Plus, each lesson is basic to the point

of being extremely boring. You’ll feel like skipping the tutorial altogether

and going straight for the game.

Which would be a huge mistake, because nothing in Commandos 2 is intuitive.

You cannot pick up and play this game. You must play through the tutorial and

study the instruction manual as though preparing for a test because otherwise

you will have no idea what’s going on or what you can do about it.

Which is a shame, because in Commandos 2 you can do a lot. You can

climb, crawl, swim, hog-tie enemy guards, distract them with the allure of your

hussy for hire, blow stuff up and all sorts of other things. The details and

interaction with the environment is great. Skills are usually particular to

each of the Commandos (the demolitions expert is the only one who can plant

bombs, while the Green-Beret is the throat-slasher extraordinaire), and you

never get to choose who you want to bring along on a given mission or what they

bring with them.

This makes Commandos 2 as much a puzzle game as a strategy one. How

do you get from here to there with all these guards around? While there are

usually several ways to complete a mission, most of the time you’ll be happy

enough just to discover one of them, as the missions are very difficult. I thought

the Normal difficulty mode was pretty unforgiving, and then I played Hard. And

then I stopped playing video games for the rest of the day.

It

seems like some tips or hints or highlights would have greatly aided Commandos

2 because you won’t always recognize that a given maneuver is a possibility.

The ability to ask each character what he thinks he should do or some highlighted

‘advantage points’ would have made the game much more accessible and entertaining.

The camera also could have used some work. As opposed to seamlessly scrolling, you’re presented with one of four angles (basically north, south, east, and west). Toggling between these angles is very discombobulating and it often takes a few moments to figure out exactly what you’re looking at and from which angle.

Commandos 2 doesn’t look nearly as good as it should. Even though it

looks great in screenshots thanks to some beautifully crafted backgrounds, the

smaller details are extremely blurry and confusing. A PC monitor is capable

of high-resolutions – your TV isn’t. This hurts, as icons that are impossible

to decipher represent your gameplay options. Do I want my green-beret to perform

the tan blob thingie, or the odd, white circle?

The music is decent, military fare, while the aural responses of your men

to your commands lack any personality. Come to think of it, for such an interesting

crew, personality is conspicuously absent. There is no smarmy dialogue between

the hussy and the spy or veiled threats between the green-beret and the marine.

Not even a little “I ain’t got time to bleed.” I guess they’re not in a joking

mood.

Commandos 2 is simply a subpar port of a pretty good PC strategy game.

The difficult controls coupled with the difficult gameplay lead to a game that’s

just too difficult for most console gamers, and not in a good way. However,

if you set out to enjoy this game and are meticulous in your efforts, you’ll

find a creative, demanding strategy game underneath the flaws.