One of the many great things about Steam is its range of cheap classics. I downloaded Commandos 2 a few weeks back and even though I’ve already finished the game before, it’s been lots of fun playing it again.
One part of the game that stood out this time around is the subtle yet brutal level of cruelty available to the player. I’ll gloss over the ability to shoot penguins and seals, as I think the options available with captured German and Japanese soliders is far greater.
There are a total of eight commandos: each with different abilities. There’s the thief, the sniper, the spy and the diver… it’s all fairly obvious what each one does. Using their bare hands or objects like wine bottles, it’s quite simple to walk up behind an enemy soldier and knock them out. Once that’s done, you can tie them up and steal their equipment — and uniforms.
But what do you do with a bunch of gagged, bound and naked enemy soldiers? Well, the possibilities are endless it seems.
You can use the nifty Kübelwagen to run them over (or tanks, Jeeps and trucks).
Or, just burn a bunch of German officers with a firebomb.
I think The Weinstein Company could’ve easily rebranded Commandos 2 as ‘Inglourious Basterds‘ and made a fortune flogging it as merchandise. It’s a great game with wonderfully illustrated settings, and as illustrated, a wonderful freedom that allows you to do awful, awful things to people. That is if you’re that way inclined: the game itself encourages you to sneak around and do as little killing as possible and evade detection, but it’s entirely possible to go at it like a Tarantino film.
However you want to play, Commandos lets you. And that’s what really makes it great, even if you can do unspeakable things to a bunch of defenceless German or Japanese soldiers. If you really want too. Just leave the penguins be.
Tags: "inglourious basterds", commandos, eidos, film, games