Commandos Strike Force is the series debut in the first-person shooter genre. Since 1998, the series has always opted for the strategy genre. Nowadays, strategy titles find it hard to capture the attention span of console players. Not many have been successful during the last few years on the consoles, so it’s fitting to see Commandos jump ship to a new genre. The FPS genre is overly popular here in the U.S., so it’s no surprise to see Eidos deciding to send the game in a whole new direction. Does it fair well enough to be compared to hot games in the same genre, such as Battlefield and Far Cry? Will it leave hardcore Commandos fans in the dust without any signs of the past? Continue reading on to find out my full impressions.

For those who know nothing about the Commandos series, here’s a short briefing. Originally, the series closely resembled real-time strategy games –they had an abundance of puzzles, and were filled with action from a top-down perspective. Although Eidos has always made sure Commandos was a strategy game, it often packed in action at a constant rate. They were challenging, fun, and had you choosing your own paths to accomplish the missions. The transition from WWII strategy game to WWII first-person shooter shouldn’t be hard right?

It’s a lot harder than anyone can imagine. It has always been a thought-provoking strategy game that required tons of methods to go about the missions. With changing genres to a first-person shooter, the general consensus is that it would be dumbed down and easier to play. That assumption is correct, the simplification of Commandos is evident right from the get go. Only three character classes are made available: the sniper, spy and Green Beret. In comparison, Commandos 2: Men of Courage had nine classes to use. Exempt from Strike Force are classes like the Seductress, Sapper, Thief, Driver, Marine and, oh yeah, can’t forgot about the dog!

In the original Commandos, the attack on the Nazis felt as if they were a full-frontal invasion. With Strike Force, the missions are like simple recon missions, with no clear vision of a war attached to the game. The larger scale missions are broken into small zones. The smaller scale missions have you sneaking around hiding from Nazis without too much action. In all reality, the missions all could be finished with minimal effort, and don’t have any real sense of danger. If there’s one thing positive about the missions, it’s that they are still open-ended. The objectives are able to be accomplished in any order.

The real detractor for me was that I could never catch on to liking the main characters. Generic and forced upon the player, they come on too strong as nobodies. The story never branches out from being another clichéd WWII shooter. It hinged on the characters and their personality for this title to be a success in my opinion. It failed in this category, so I am let down on what they could have done storyline wise. All three different character choices have unique abilities. The Green Beret is your assault gunner; the sniper is associated for long range affairs and spy is for infiltration beyond enemy lines. All have distinct advantages over one another.

Online matches allow up to 16 players to join. I am sure many of you can predict what is available in terms of what modes are offered to play. There’s the usual team and solo deathmatches that are included in virtually every other FPS. Those are no longer an attraction for any FPS. Strike Force does sport its own unique multiplayer mode – sabotage mode. You’ll be in control of a spy and you will have to attempt to interrogate foes that you take down. If you are successful, you can learn of the code to sabotage the enemy base. Beyond the default match types for Strike Force, the problem lies in the fact that no one is playing it. Good luck on finding any worthy opponents.

I’d compare Commandos Strike Force to being somewhat like the movie ‘The Great Raid.’ The movie was released at a particular time when not too many people wanted to see a war, especially WWII, in their movie theaters. Commandos Strike Force is in the same boat – not too many will want to play it because they have already had their fair share of WWII first-person shooters. Games like Battlefield, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Day of Defeat, Brother in Arms, and even Wolfenstein dominate the FPS realm currently. You’d be hard pressed to have me play Commandos over any of those mentioned shooters.

Minimum Requirements:
Pentium IV 1.8 GHz
512 RAM
4x DVD-ROM Drive
3.5 Gigs of Hard Drive Space
64 Mb 3D Accelerated Graphics Card (GeForce 4Ti / Radeon 9 series)

Gameplay: 6.1
The intelligence of the enemies is disappointing. You can sneak right up on them by walking right in front of them. All you have to do is crouch down. Yup, crouching is the only tactic you need to know for the stealth portion of the game.

Graphics: 6.3
Not the best I have seen by far. It’s on par with the Conflict series I have to say as second-rate war game.

Sound: 6.4
The sound effects are decent. The voice acting is Ok. It just doesn’t stand out in any fashion.

Difficulty: Easy
You can save anywhere! How much easier could they possibly make it? If you played any other FPS in the last year, you’ll be able to jump in no questions asked.

Concept: 7.5
I liked that they took a chance with switching up genres. Sure it didn’t work out so well in with a quality FPS, but, they do have a good starting point. I am still a fan of the series, even if it continues to try its hand at the FPS gene.

Multiplayer: 6.2
This is nothing special. The real problem with the multiplayer is the fact that no one is playing it!

Overall: 6.8
Dull and boring, not too many will play it longer than one sit through. For the fan of the series, you may want to rent since there is no nostalgic moments to reminisce about.