10 replies to this topic

[SirRH]

Hello, I'd thought I'd start a topic on which Commandos games are good and bad or just average, feel free to put your own interpretation and what games you thought were good or could be improved.

 

Here is the series from the best to worst in my opinion

 

(This isn't including mods or fan made add ons, this is about Pyro's games as default, feel free to include mods in yours)

 

Lets start of with my favourites:

 

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines - This game was the game i started on, it's also probably the most challenging of the series (not including mods like Destination Paris / Strike in Narrow Path), it's probably the most lengthy of the series too, and everything about this game in my opinion is near perfect, there's good replay value because of the so many different ways to finish objectives, there are a few problems however, the ai exploits for example, you can just keep you're sniper stood up in 1 spot as a bait, get all the guards to make him halt, just don't move the sniper and they wont fire, then you can get green beret to knife the 20 guards pointing there rifles at him, this can be a good tactic but using that doesn't feel like you're doing the game properly, also the difficulty of the levels tend to jump all over the place, for example mission 8 is a massive step up in difficulty over the previous missions, then mission 9 is as easy as the early missions, and mission 14 and 15 for me felt harder than all the missions after it (atleast on my first playthrough), but beating a mission feels so rewarding, more so than it does in any other commandos game (atleast for me), and I highly recommend you play this if you haven't yet.

 

Commandos 2: Men of Courage - I liked the improvements, the replay value was very good because of the bonus levels, and the scores (although i personally never really payed attention to them) however what made me put this below behind enemy lines was the fact it wasn't as challenging and felt rather easy (however this is fixed with the Destination Paris mod but I'm not including mods in this review, if I did, Destination Paris would be first and BEL second), I'd recommend getting this game if you've not played any of the others though, whether you prefer c1 or c2 is completely subjective, as they are both brilliant games, but they feel a little different to eachother, for example my dad could pass commandos 1, but couldn't even do the training missions of commandos 2, i have no idea why, but it's an amazing game and a must have.

 

Commandos: Beyond The Call of Duty - The new abilities were a nice touch, missions were bigger, and maybe the maps were a little better designed, but the killer for me is how short it is, only 8 missions, also it throws you into a very difficult level which you will struggle at if you've never played commandos before, I'd play behind enemy lines first and only get this if you want more levels, because you will struggle playing this with no experience, I also hated the changed voice acting, it was much better in behind enemy lines, in here it sounded like 1 voice actor doing all the voices with a robotic tone (at least on the English version, can't speak for the others). This is a standalone expansion and not a sequel, however your opinion could vary and you may end up preferring this to behind enemy lines. I would highly recommend getting this either with BEL, or if you have finished BEL and want more levels, it is a very good expansion.

 

The average, could of been better but not terrible:

 

Commandos: Strike Force - if the word "commandos" wasn't in the title, you'd think this is a random ww2 shooter, it has nothing commandos like in it, other than the characters you play as, even the charactors have been changed, the Green Beret is suddenly a yank, and the spy isn't even French any more. Okay I will admit, this is actually a very good fps game, but it's just not a commandos game, if this was an fps list however i'd list it pretty high, about the same as the early call of duties and medal of honors. As a little "spin off" and something different, it is a very good game, it just shouldn't of been named commandos and named something else in my opinion.

 

Commandos 3: Destination Berlin - This game is a huge disappointment in my opinion, it's not a bad game, it's enjoyable, it's just that it could of been so much better than it was, but for some reason they decided to make a game inferior to the games before it because of stupid limitations and very average level design, most of all it felt more like a expansion for commandos 2 than a new game, yes it may of been a bit more challenging but its not a good factor here, its so much more linear and then there's the time limits, there's 11 levels overall, but they all felt like small early BEL Norway missions instead of the massive Commandos 2 levels, there's not as much replay value as the games before either, and they removed the scoring system, even though personally I never really pay attention to my stats in Commandos, but it would of helped the replay value for some people if they didn't remove it. Then there's the new controls which are clunky, most the hotkeys are removed, sure you can use a mod to get them back in, but that's not the point, they should of not been removed from the start. The resolution being locked to 800x600 is silly, even in 2003 that is very low, that's the equivalent of releasing a game now but only letting you use 720p, even BEL which was released 5 years before supported a higher resolution. However, the game is still playable and can be enjoyed, but I'd defiantly go with the first 2 games over this, i'd only recommend playing this after finishing commandos 1 and 2 and you really want a few more maps.

Edited by robb, 22 May 2015 - 11:37 PM.

[extrano1955]

Best to worse games: Commandos 2: men of courage is the best, because it was the the best seller and it improve the original game. 3d graphics, invasions, more options for win a mission, and the key point: A great experience playing it online. You can save games and continue with your friends in another moment, send save games by mail or something, all commandos can kick and tie, definitely a great coop game. Bad things: can be more hard, too many items and too strong commandos sometimes. But anyway with destination paris the game become longer and harder. Commandos BEL: because is the original and also a perfect game when they released it. A true and addictive challange for your brain. The disadvantages: worse experience playing online; you must restart the mission if anybody lose the conection, and it happend usually, Some commandos useless almost all the mission. And after win a mission it lose the fun the second time you will play it again. This game made history and some people still editing and playing it. Commandos BCD: 100% same as BEL, it´s only 8 missions more with same difficulty as the advance BEL missions with a bit of developments. Commandos 3: Is not too bad game, the history and action is fun and still being a commandos 2 game, I really enjoyed playing c3 on c2 online. But this game is the start of the end of "commandos" They try to transform bit by bit into a shooter. Not driver, not natacha, fins in only 1 mission, too action. And the game is shorter than c2. And the main problem: Can not play coop online. Commandos strike force: finally they did it, they destroyed the essence of commandos. If I see the game like a shooter is a fun game, with bad animations and graphics. You can enjoy it like 5 years ago playing some medal of honor, but is not a commandos game.

[SirRH]

I agree with most of your points, i have never played multi player on commandos before so i can't speak for that area, i've only ever played single, i disagree with what you said about commandos being useless in BEL and that you can't replay the missions in different ways, personally i thought most the commandos felt more useless in commandos 2 because they lost there unique abilities, for example, all could carry bodies, all could drive, the driver in particular was completely useless in commandos 2, atleast in commandos 1 he was very useful if there was a tank in the mission, or if you set off an alarm by accident hes the best for taking down patrols with his machine gun, sure you'd end up using the green beret and spy more than anyone else, the marine, driver, sapper, sniper were also useful at certain tasks, where as in commandos 2 you could probably beat the whole game using the sapper only, also i thought the missions were replayable, not as replayable as commandos 2 but they still could be done in different ways, with a few exceptions such as Mission 15: End of the Butcher which is the only mission in commandos 1 i hate and found very linear, and i found it and Mission 14 both harder than all the missions after including the final mission, also another thing about bel i disliked was that the difficulty of the levels were all over the place, for example in the africa missions, mission 8 is massive step up in difficulty over the norway missions, but then the mission after (mission 9) is as easy as mission 2.

Edited by robb, 13 May 2015 - 01:01 PM.

[Jeroen]

Mission 9 is just a nice, easy little extra. It would have been more obvious if they had done it after Icarus or In The Soup. A bit more like mission 5.

The Driver can be left at his starting position in mission 1 did you know that? That's how he got his bad name. His specialties are underused in the game and his crossbow (to be able to kill silently) he lost all together.

[SirRH]

I guess it's a little relief mission, but that's not the only mission that is a lot easier than the last, other examples are mission 5, mission 13, mission 16 and probably a few more. And about the driver I agree on the first mission he is completely useless, maybe the devs were originally going to make you escape with the truck at his start point, but decided to remove it because it's only the first mission. But in most other missions he did have a use, also he only has his sub machine gun in the norway missions, after that he only has a pistol, so even his ability to take down patrols was gone, also a shame the crossbow was never used, would of made him alot more useful, but hes not completely useless, only in the first mission he is completely useless, because whenever there is a drivable tank or armoured car then you are just so glad you have him, but when he does nothing other than take the rest of the commandos to the escape point then thats where he's more useless, but still even then he had a use, on commandos 2 he was pretty much a generic commando that had the ability to throw molotovs, and some extra trap abilities that i've never used, and to be able to drive tanks, (which only happened on bonus mission 9 and a tiny part on mission 10), but all the other commandos could drive any other vehicle, in my opinion he was far more useless in c2 than c1, and i can see why they removed him in c3

Edited by robb, 14 May 2015 - 02:58 PM.

[FH Naseer]

BCD is my favorite. I think it was more balanced than BEL. In BEL I found some commandos useless in many missions. Like in last mission (Operation Walhala), all commandos are there, but you can complete the mission using green beret, spy and sapper. C2 was good, but easy. C2 DP is better, because of difficulty. C3 was short, less commandos and shorter missions. Campaign thing was good, but missions were really short,

[SirRH]

Good points, I agree about C3, it's not a bad game by any means, it just could of been better if it wasn't for the few problems you said, also forcing the resolution to 800x600 was silly, considering even commandos 1 had an option for 1024x768. And as for bel vs bcd is mostly subjective, there are some elements in bcd i prefer but it was a bit too short having only 8 missions, however they were all big missions that took a time to complete mostly, also btcod chucks you into a pretty hard mission right at the first level so for new players i'd say bel is better to play first, but they are both great games  

 

As for the whole "commandos being useless", it mostly depends on how you play it, sure it's possible to beat some missions without using a few of the commandos, but being "possible" is different to completely useless, that applies with all commandos games, although for a test in bel i tried playing the game without ever using the green beret, only taking him to the escape point once all the objectives are complete, think i got all the way upto mission 8 then it was impossible because the only other commando is the sniper

 

Little question: Am I the only person in the first commandos games that always never uses the sniper to "conserve ammo", but at the end has all my bullets left?

Edited by robb, 18 May 2015 - 04:02 PM.

[FH Naseer]

In BEL, green beret was present in most of the missions. And if you have him i think you don't need anyone else. Sapper if need to blow, driver if you need to drive, marine if you want to swim. Green beret is true fighting machine,

If you have spy, then you don't need sniper bullets at all,

I played BCD first, BEL later. May be that's the reason I like BCD more than BEL,

[SirRH]

Well green beret and spy did the dirty work, the spy was probably even more overpowered than the green beret in the first game especially where no rank could detect him, and a lot of missions he had his uniform from the start

Edited by robb, 19 May 2015 - 06:25 PM.

[Salvadorc17]

I think the BTCOD is most balanced for gameplay, in BEL you cannot complete mission without green beret

[SirRH]

Updated my reviews a little bit, had a little play through of the games a few times since I written them and changed them accordingly.

Edited by robb, 22 May 2015 - 11:38 PM.