 Overview
Woooooooooo Hooooooooo. The boys are back in town. Inferno, Tiny, Fins, Tread, Duke
-- all your favorites from the original
Commandos are back after some much needed R&R, and now they’re ready to take on the German and Japanese armies. You’ll be sneaking into enemy bases, stealing Enigma machines to help the war effort, flying in hot air balloons and posing as a German officer,
all in the name of democracy. Commandos 2 comes with two training missions and ten game missions. While this may seem small in size, you have to remember that a full install for this game is a huge
three GB. This gives you an idea of how large the maps are for the ten missions, not to mention the bonus missions if you and your commandos find the hidden bonuses throughout the game. Throw in Multiplayer and you have one huge commando sandwich on your hands.
Commandos is as good a game as they come in regards to the RTS genre. All of the missions look beautiful, with huge attention to detail and challenging objectives. What are you waiting for? Sharpen up your bayonet and read on.
Gameplay, Controls, Interface
Commandos 2 is a real-time strategy game that puts you in charge of
nine commandos during WWII. Each mission has a list of objectives that must be completed for the mission to be considered successful,
and at the end of the mission you are graded on how well the mission was executed.
Commandos 2 has the same feel as most RTS games with a "look down" view over the entire map. All actions that your Commandos perform can be done using either the point and click method or hot-key method. I highly recommend that you learn to use all of the hot keys; it just takes too much time to be pointing and clicking, especially when a German patrol needs quick killing.
One of the best aspects of Commandos 2 is the ability to play missions and find a different way to complete them. I like to sneak nice and quiet in
Commandos, then stand up and rip out my enemy's throat with my knife.
Other players might prefer shooting everything, but it really doesn’t matter because most times the missions can be completed playing either style. You’ll also notice that it will take your entire group of commandos to complete a mission. Each one of your commandos has special skills that only they can use, so if you’re in need of explosives only your Sapper commando can do the job for you, which really makes you learn each commandos skills and how to use them best. Another thing that will have you drooling all over your green beret
will be the huge number of weapons you can use to subdue, kill, incapacitate or just generally raise some hell.
Commandos 2 had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. The game is that good at sucking you in. I would find myself holding my breath as a German guard passed by Tiny just out of view. I would also wait tensely for a few seconds after taking that same guard out, wondering if the alarm was going to sound.
Unfortunately there are usually bad points to a game and I’m saddened to report there are a few in
Commandos 2. The first thing that really sucks is the save feature. Why is there no instant quick save in the game? In this type of game it is a must to have a Hot Key quick save
-- I don’t want to have to hit the escape button and then save. The entire
save process screws up the whole flow of the game. My other rant has to do with the mission briefings. I really wish they would have included a replay button on the mission briefs because they go entirely too
fast and it would be nice to go back and view the movie mission brief instead of having to read it. Okay I’m done, other than that, I’m a happy commando.
 Multiplayer
I really feel that Commandos 2 is a single player game that is best enjoyed by yourself with a cold brew. I found it was extremely difficult to play with people that I’d never met before because they didn’t really know my style of play, which at times turned missions into a total nightmare. But there is good news to be had. I had my buddy buy a copy of the game and we had a blast playing missions together. The reason it worked well was because normally we’d take turns playing on my computer, so we have
each learned how the other likes to play the game. Now when we play online, it works very well because of our teamwork.
Graphics
Can you say the word beautiful? If not, then you’d better learn because that’s exactly what you’re going to be repeating over and over when you see the different missions throughout the game. The attention to detail is amazing. My favorite mission has to be
Mission Two because of the size and beauty of the map. You must covertly
enter a German submarine base and rescue some allied soldiers and their sub, and then blow the whole place up with some remote bombs. What made this mission my favorite was the attention to detail concerning the German base. There are mess halls filled with German soldiers
and a fuel depot that is being repaired by workmen. I could go on and on for days about all the eye candy that is included in each mission, but just trust me when I say that
the graphics will suck you in like a black hole and keep you coming back for more. Another thing that
will really pop out at you is the wonderful use of colors in the game, everything is so vibrant but not loud. This is one game that is pleasing to the eye in every way.
Audio
The music is absolutely wonderful in Commandos 2. During tense scenes in the game the music will pick up speed and sound a little more ominous, but if you’re in no immediate danger the music stays at a mellow pace. The entire musical soundtrack has a distinct WWII feel to it which really draws you into the game even more. I did find that mission briefings were sometimes difficult to understand and I could never pinpoint why that was the case,
aside from being poorly recorded. If you’ve ever played any of the earlier installments of
Commandos you will notice right from the start that the voices of your
Commandos characters really suck big time. The very first Commandos
games had a cast of voices for the characters that was great. Each voice fit that character perfectly and sadly they were not able to reach that goal in
Commandos 2, but if you’ve never played this series of games before then that won’t be an issue. I do need to point out that the character voices also get a bit repetitive when issuing commands, but you’ll hardly notice because of how hard you’re concentrating
on reaching your mission objectives.
System Requirements
PII 300 MHz or better, Windows 98SE or ME, 32MB RAM, 4X CD-ROM, DirectX 8.0 or higher, 2GB hard disk space, DirectX compliant sound card,
and a DirectX 8.0 Video Card with 12MB VRAM.
 Documentation
The only complaint I have with the manual has to do with the fact that there was no “Hot Key” card enclosed in the game.
Commandos 2 has such a huge list of hot keys that it is absolutely necessary for a hot key card. The other thing that bothered me about the manual is that nowhere does
it tell you that you must play with CD#3; you just have to figure it out on
your own. Things like that should be very straightforward in documentation.
Bottom Line
If you’re looking for a tough and challenging RTS game then you should stop reading this review and get your butt down to the local software store and buy this game. I know for a fact that this fall I will be spending many a sleepless night taking my
commandos on treacherous missions in hopes of killing as many Nazis as possible. On that note: feed the dog, kiss the wife goodbye, and tell work that you’re very
,very sick then start playing Commandos 2, and don’t blame me when you’re staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night thinking about how you could have completed the mission a better way. 89/100 enough said!!!!
Review Posted On 15 October 2001.
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