Reviewed: January 18, 2004
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Eidos Interactive

Developer
Pyro Studios

Released: October 14, 2003
Genre: Strategy
Players: 12
ESRB: Teen

9
9
9
9
9.0

System Requirements

Prepare to take the Commandos on their deadliest mission yet, as you venture deep into enemy territory across three extensive campaigns. From the frozen ruins of Stalingrad, through to the forests of central Europe, and onto the beaches of Normandy, your men must use their skills to confuse and defeat the enemy.

Key Features:

• Take your team of six elite Commandos through 3 varied campaigns - each one vital to the outcome of WWII
• Completely new environments and dynamic mission objectives will keep your squad on their toes!
• An all-new tutorial system will make sure that you and your men are fully trained and ready for action
• For the first time ever in the Commandos series up to 12 players can engage in deathmatch and cooperative multiplayer combat

The game starts in Stalingrad where the player will have to kill an elite enemy sniper, protect a general from an assault of German paratroopers then follow a series of events leading up to where you have to kill a Nazi general preparing an ambush in the middle of Berlin. The second campaign takes place in the French-German border where the player will have to take control of a train to recover a shipment of art masterpieces that the Nazis have stolen from Paris. This is by far one of my favorite sequences in the game.

The last campaign will take place around D-Day landings and will not only include a mission where the player will have to storm the beach but also sabotage and infiltration operations. There are 12 missions in all spread across these three campaigns and this time the missions are integrated into a very good story.

The lengthy tutorial covers all the basics and even some advanced stealth tactics. You’ll come away from these two lessons more than ready to face the challenges that await. On more than one occasion I had flashbacks to my days playing Lost Vikings, the old puzzle game where you had three Vikings, each with unique abilities that complemented the others and you had to work them all together to finish the levels. Commandos 3 is very much like that, only in this game you have up to six elite soldiers and a whole lot more skills and abilities making the puzzle-solving possibilities nearly endless.

The missions are tightly scripted but the gameplay isn’t exactly linear. You have ample freedom to plan your own course of action within the confines of the triggered and scripted events. A great example is the mission where you must defend the Russian headquarters in Stalingrad. There are literally dozens of ways to complete this mission.

Keeping on top of six commands can be challenging, but the interface is not only intuitive it is also optimized so you can bounce around your entire team and execute a flurry of commands with only a few mouse movements or the occasional keystroke. The icons and commando portraits are very nice and the ability to toggle the label keys between the game screen and a text window is a nice touch that keeps the game area clean.

Puzzles come in a variety of flavors but most rely on strategically moving your men from point A to B. You might have to subdue or kill a guard and get a disguise or use tools or other inventory items to blow up a tank or disable a sub. It’s all very cool and authentic WWII type objectives and really immerses the gamer in the genre.

Multiplayer gaming makes its series debut and there are a number of deathmatch modes available ranging from strategic ones to those that are more action oriented. Basically these games are based around teams of Commandos where two to four teams (up to twelve players) will be playing one against the other on capture the flag or score based games. The only thing I really missed was the ability to play the campaign mode cooperatively. Working in tandem with live teammates would be an unparalleled experience.

Even with the new rotational panning for the interiors you will still find yourself tweaking the view and the zoom level more than you’d expect and probably more than you should have to. There were times, even during the tutorial, where you simply cannot see your objective until you stumble onto the proper view. Thankfully, if you are outdoors, you only have four possible choices. There is also a small problem of the game relying on the player’s point of view (camera angle) rather than the actual character’s line of sight when trying to target enemy soldiers.

The game is locked at 1024x768 but is still a masterpiece of stylistic rendered visuals. The 2D exteriors look as close to 3D as it gets. The new engine provides for much more detailed environments with lots of new effects: explosions, weather and all sorts of particle effects. Each level is more impressive than the last and the environments are very immersive, almost alive, especially action levels like the train level that transports the player into the middle of the action.

The entire game shares a common and quite realistic color palette that keeps everything looking very real and dismal. The enemies have a tendency to blend into the backgrounds so you will undoubtedly find the enemy locator function useful as it turns all onscreen enemies red. You can also toggle the green view cones for selected guards so you can avoid their detection, and red line-of-sight lines show guards that are “keeping an eye on you”.

Sound effects are varied and work well with their respective visuals. The weapon effects seem to be reasonably authentic but don’t offer the punch I would expect from a military game. Explosions are also a bit weaker than I would have liked but overall the audio package supports the visuals and provides an authentic war-gaming experience.

There is a moderate amount of speech that starts with the tutorial. I was a bit annoyed that the tutorial kept going without waiting for any confirmation on my part, so if I got caught enjoying the scenery or lost in the interface I would miss out on a few screens of instructions. The quality of the voices along with the accents for the various nationalities all sound authentic enough and a few are even a bit humorous. The German accents and dialogue is very authentic.

The multiplayer modes add a bit of extended value but the versus only modes aren’t nearly as fun as a cooperative game could have been, and the game really only runs well enough on a LAN or the fastest of Internet connections. While I commend Pyro for included a multiplayer component I only hope they develop it further in the next game.

It’s not for beginners and certainly not for impatient gamers or those looking for lots of action, but Commandos 3 is one of the best WWII strategy games you can play on your PC. A definite recommendation if you have the courage to enlist.