I fully expected to like Commandos Strike Force. It’s set during World War II, which is my favorite era in which to play these kind of first person shooters, and it’s from EIDOS, who have a pretty proven track record with their game lineup. Too bad none of it added up. I ultimately found this game to be more frustrating than fun.

I have never played any of the Commandos games before, so I was surprised to find out that this one is the fifth in the series. The first four games were tactical type combat games where you used strategy and teamwork to get through the missions. It was played sort of like the Command and Conquer series with its overhead view. In this game, it is a pretty straightforward 3D shooter with not much in the way of strategy. Basically, it’s just a big WWII shooting gallery with too many limitations.

My favorite kind of first person shooter (FPS) are the ones that let you freely explore maps and do whatever you want. This way, you can figure out your own plan of attack. Some good games that are played this way include the Battlefield series and Far Cry. This game is incredibly linear in that if confines you to certain areas and restricts your movement so much that it’s a major fun inhibitor. The Medal of Honor and Call of Duty series are also very linear, but not as much as this one. I found this game to be a lame attempt and imitating MoH or CoD.

A good example of what I am talking about comes in the second mission. The first mission is mostly like a training session where you sneak up on a few guards and take them out. It’s also a good indicator of how bad the AI is, especially when you snipe one guy then watch another one just walk away like nothing happened. The second mission is one of those ‘defense’ missions where you have to hold off an army of attackers long enough for help to arrive, then fight off more people after the help gets there.

During that second mission, you are out in a field and under heavy fire. I found a trail that ran alongside the field and would have allowed me easy access to flank the enemy machine gun placements and really helped out my team. The problem is that as soon as you get on that trail, your men will be overrun and you fail the mission. It doesn’t matter how many men you have left or how fast you run, because you will always lose. If the people who made this game didn’t want me on that trail, then they should not have put it there. It was just a lame way of forcing me to stand out in the open and dodge bullets while I waited out the timer. There’s no strategy to that. None! Most of the other missions play out the same way where you basically move from one spot to another and shoot people until they quit coming out of the woods. That just makes this game nothing more than a glorified shooting gallery.

Graphically, this looks like most every other WWII game released a few years ago. Everything is in drab gray and green and brown, but at least the characters and vehicles look realistic. I found this game to be on par with the first Medal of Honor PC game as far as appearance and animation. For me, visual appeal comes second to gameplay, and the gameplay here is a poor imitation of superior games. I also didn’t like how the level design basically served as a fence to keep you in certain areas. This lack of freedom really brought down the game, no matter how good some parts of it may have looked.

The sound also failed in comparison to other games. I’m used to playing Battlefield 2 where you can hear a grenade hit the ground near you, or you can hear bullets barely missing and hitting next to you. In this game, you get a lot of repetitive rifle fire and screaming soldiers, but the overall audio experience just isn’t as good as the other games this one tries to copy.

I’ve heard the original Commandos games were pretty good and I may have to check one of them out, but for now you might as well stay away from Commandos Strike Force. If you want a good WWII shooter, play one of the Medal of Honor or Call of Duty series instead. My personal favorite is Battlefield 1942, but it is starting to show its age a little now.


Recommended: No