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"Die...all of you...die!"

Capcom has a legacy of providing some pretty simple concept games, but adding in a ton of addictive qualities that make it all worth while to play. Commando is no exception to the rule, providing the gamer with plenty to shoot at, and several bonuses and even secrets to uncover through the seemingly never-ending stages! You take the role of a commando in an attempt to rescue some hostages while kicking the crap out of an evil enemy force. Through this, you'll find secrets and bonuses waiting for you at every turn as well as some wild difficulty and endless incoming fire. As one of the best games that the Nintendo Entertainment System had to offer, the sheer length of the game was enough to make some gaming magazines create level maps to make it apparent that the game actually did have some different variations to it! In many instances, the conversion port of this game has several problems that do and do not appear in the arcade brother. This isn’t very surprising that these problems come up, but they do tend to detract from the way that most gamers see the game. Regardless of the problems, the game is an action game that offers plenty to shoot and plenty to blow up from that rarely well done overhead view!

Probably Capcom's second best genre next to the fighting games that it constantly creates, Commando gives you an overhead view, while rushing and blasting through waves of incoming enemy soldiers! You'll travel through several different stages, trying to rescue hostages, and trying to uncover the various secrets that lay hidden beneath trees and behind enemy trenches. You have two different weapons, one of which being your trusty machine gun, and the other your holy grenade, capable of wiping out the entire screen of enemies! Using these will get you far into the game, but it doesn't do everything, and you'll have to rely on your ability to move and traverse through incoming bullets.

Something that most gamers will immediately pick up on is the fact that the game has several instances of repeating battlegrounds and otherwise. Even though this is the case, in the different areas there are several secrets that you can find just by throwing a grenade in the right direction, or even by shooting something that looks slightly out of the ordinary! These little bonuses only increase your score, but ultimately create a different style of game play that you can increase the time that you play through and really give a sense of challenge and accomplishment when you find them all. Sometimes these bonuses are extra grenades or a powerful machine gun or they are points and hostages, but either way, you’ll have a hell of a time trying to find them all.

The control in the NES version of Commando is easy enough to learn, and takes a little practice to master, but with enough time, you'll skillfully weave through the various stages with no problem! The control set up is easy enough to use, with a directional pad, a firing button and the grenade button. Controlling Joe through the jungles will test your reflexes when the bullets start flying and at some points, you may find that he doesn’t move just quick enough to dodge all of the bullets that are being fired at you, so be prepared. There aren’t any instances of special moves or otherwise, so anyone who can learn to press a single button and use a direction pad can play through the game without having any difficulty!

Even though it is an action game, enough with the action game music crap already! Every stage has the same music, which loops up and through without pause, and even the sound effects blare and seem to get louder with each passing stage. There are only so many explosions, gunfire and grenade blasts a person can listen to before going mad. To top this off, the NES has a way of making the sound effects a little tinny to the ear, and the music without any variety to it can only drag on an lull you into a sense of boredom. Suggestions to this, as most NES games aren’t sound intensive, is to pop something into a CD player and hit the play button, which can be more gratifying than listening to what the game has to offer!

Bright and relatively detailed in every way, Commando offers bright colors and distinctive stages as well. Every stage has a certain theme to it, but the action on screen will deter you away from the occasional image break up when the bullets really start flying! Actually the truth of the matter is that the game suffers from more than just image break up but also cases of missing frames of animation, slow down and when the action gets very intense, game freeze. NES always had a problem with these visual bugs and it can and will show while playing through Commando. The stages are well detailed, and even though there are distinct changes in some parts of the game, you’ll still be seeing the same area for three or four stages before you see something a little different!

Commando offers up good old fashioned action game play from Capcom that you might expect. With plenty to blow up, and several secrets to uncover as well as just plain shooting and running, you'll find that the detail, and the game play well make up for the lack of audio. A classic game on the NES, Commando is worth all the time spent in most cases even though the instances of visual problems and game freeze can cause some serious stress. The fact that the game is extremely long will also turn off some NES gamers, but the function of a continue option when you die will keep some going through to the end! With the amount of secrets and bonuses that can be found, anyone with a pinchete for killing and wanting to blow things up will find this to be the perfect outlet for their destructive needs.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10 | Originally Posted: 11/26/01, Updated 11/26/01