Commandos Strike Force
Strikingly blah.
Published: April 15, 2006
Madrid-based Pyro Studios has been pumping out real-time strategy games for years now -- long before or since it's been fashionable to make a top-down RTS with fancy pre-rendered graphics -- but they've finally made the jump to 3D and the result? Well, let's just say it's certainly a console-oriented experience. Taking what was a very intricate (and difficult) PC strategy game and turning it into a faster, more action-driven first-person shooter meant a few concessions had to be made, and sadly this is where the game loses its appeal.
Commandos has always been hardcore. The enemy AI could be unpredictable, the mission layouts were exacting, and the teamwork required between the members of the small team meant through careful planning, a few multi-national soldiers could overcome seemingly impossible odds and troop numbers.
Strike Force tries to compress the kind of planning and specialization that the top-down RTS games had, and in some ways it works; teamwork, when the levels help it come together properly, can make it more than a simple WWII shooter. Sadly, the rest of the game falls far, far below the kind of immersive WWII shooter experience that has been carved out by games like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor.
Pyro basically boiled down specializations in previous games to three roles: a spy, a Green Beret and a sniper. In a lot of cases, stealth is the idea, but the game's AI is rather lax and short-sighted. Enemies that aren't on your close-range radar won't see you, even if you're walking in the open, and those that are on the radar will cast vision cones out so you can see where they're looking. So long as you're crouched and don't cross into their line of sight, you can charge right up behind them and give 'em the shiv -- or, in some of the more entertaining cases, a garroted neck.
If you're using Colonel Brown, the Spy (and you can switch between characters in a mission on the fly), sneaking up on an enemy and snuffing them out via a wire and play dress-up, walking right by enemy soliders, though there is a catch: enemies a rank below you won't suspect a thing, those on the same level as you will get suspicious if you hang out around them, and higher-ranking officers will call you out right away. Usually this leads to a lot of trial-and-error as you track down the highest-ranking officers, but when it all works out, these are usually the best missions.
Captain O'Brien is the American Green Beret musclehead, useful for gunning down huge swaths of enemies. Since a lot of missions can break down into heavy fire (and the trial-and-error gameplay gets stretched thin), it's nice that you can blow off steam by just laying on the trigger. O'Brien obviously makes the most use of it, but all characters can pick up health packs and stow them away for use with a press of the Circle button -- either on themselves or downed troops.
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Lieutenant Hawkins. The easygoing sniper relies almost exclusively on getting the drop on enemies and finding a vantage point for hits. Though he has the obvious sniper rifle, he can also toss knives for a silent takedown. Of all the classes, Hawkins seems the most underdeveloped, as he's often right in position for where he needs to be. While looking down the scope, he can take a deep breath, which slows everything down and allows for some great shots; tagging two guys in the head with two shots does indeed feel slick.
Aside from the obvious lack of atmosphere (the game world just feels a little too static), there's the issue of level size and immersion. Too often missions are broken up into compartmentalized sections that don't give you a sense of the bigger level. Part of this comes from the graphics as a whole, which are a painfully large step down from the work that was done in the earlier RTS titles, and while that's a bit of an unfair comparison, the visuals are just nowhere near other shooters in the genre.
This is even more surprising given the decision to go with Criterion's RenderWare engine, which has pumped out some damned impressive graphics on the PS2. Granted, the finest example of these visuals comes from Criterion themselves, but Pryo's inexperience with not only RenderWare, but the PS2 in general has led to a game that could be confused with a second-gen game; muddy, dark textures are overstretched, and low-color, there's a lack of decent effects, the animation is rough, and characters lack quite a bit of detail.
I will admit, though, the audio portion of the game is quite good. Great swells of music during dramatic scenes, superlative voice acting (I particularly enjoyed Hawkins' lines), and most of the weapons have a lot of aural kick to them. I mentioned a lack of atmosphere, and for my money there wasn't quite enough of a sense of ambience in things, but then this is deep behind enemy lines rather than right on the front line clashes. Still, there isn't a feeling of life to the world, even with dozens of soldiers pouring in from all over, mostly due to a lack of small aural touches.
By far the game's biggest fault is the graphics, though. For what it was trying to do, there just wasn't enough detail and subtlety. It's an amazing thing when the game's sound and sheer soldier numbers meet up a couple missions into the game, but it's just not enough to redeem the overall experience. There are some positive experiences, but there's a very real sense that Pyro may not be ready to make the jump into a FPS yet -- at least not in this generation.
Commandos has always been hardcore. The enemy AI could be unpredictable, the mission layouts were exacting, and the teamwork required between the members of the small team meant through careful planning, a few multi-national soldiers could overcome seemingly impossible odds and troop numbers.
Strike Force tries to compress the kind of planning and specialization that the top-down RTS games had, and in some ways it works; teamwork, when the levels help it come together properly, can make it more than a simple WWII shooter. Sadly, the rest of the game falls far, far below the kind of immersive WWII shooter experience that has been carved out by games like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor.
Pyro basically boiled down specializations in previous games to three roles: a spy, a Green Beret and a sniper. In a lot of cases, stealth is the idea, but the game's AI is rather lax and short-sighted. Enemies that aren't on your close-range radar won't see you, even if you're walking in the open, and those that are on the radar will cast vision cones out so you can see where they're looking. So long as you're crouched and don't cross into their line of sight, you can charge right up behind them and give 'em the shiv -- or, in some of the more entertaining cases, a garroted neck.
If you're using Colonel Brown, the Spy (and you can switch between characters in a mission on the fly), sneaking up on an enemy and snuffing them out via a wire and play dress-up, walking right by enemy soliders, though there is a catch: enemies a rank below you won't suspect a thing, those on the same level as you will get suspicious if you hang out around them, and higher-ranking officers will call you out right away. Usually this leads to a lot of trial-and-error as you track down the highest-ranking officers, but when it all works out, these are usually the best missions.
Captain O'Brien is the American Green Beret musclehead, useful for gunning down huge swaths of enemies. Since a lot of missions can break down into heavy fire (and the trial-and-error gameplay gets stretched thin), it's nice that you can blow off steam by just laying on the trigger. O'Brien obviously makes the most use of it, but all characters can pick up health packs and stow them away for use with a press of the Circle button -- either on themselves or downed troops.
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Lieutenant Hawkins. The easygoing sniper relies almost exclusively on getting the drop on enemies and finding a vantage point for hits. Though he has the obvious sniper rifle, he can also toss knives for a silent takedown. Of all the classes, Hawkins seems the most underdeveloped, as he's often right in position for where he needs to be. While looking down the scope, he can take a deep breath, which slows everything down and allows for some great shots; tagging two guys in the head with two shots does indeed feel slick.
Aside from the obvious lack of atmosphere (the game world just feels a little too static), there's the issue of level size and immersion. Too often missions are broken up into compartmentalized sections that don't give you a sense of the bigger level. Part of this comes from the graphics as a whole, which are a painfully large step down from the work that was done in the earlier RTS titles, and while that's a bit of an unfair comparison, the visuals are just nowhere near other shooters in the genre.
This is even more surprising given the decision to go with Criterion's RenderWare engine, which has pumped out some damned impressive graphics on the PS2. Granted, the finest example of these visuals comes from Criterion themselves, but Pryo's inexperience with not only RenderWare, but the PS2 in general has led to a game that could be confused with a second-gen game; muddy, dark textures are overstretched, and low-color, there's a lack of decent effects, the animation is rough, and characters lack quite a bit of detail.
I will admit, though, the audio portion of the game is quite good. Great swells of music during dramatic scenes, superlative voice acting (I particularly enjoyed Hawkins' lines), and most of the weapons have a lot of aural kick to them. I mentioned a lack of atmosphere, and for my money there wasn't quite enough of a sense of ambience in things, but then this is deep behind enemy lines rather than right on the front line clashes. Still, there isn't a feeling of life to the world, even with dozens of soldiers pouring in from all over, mostly due to a lack of small aural touches.
By far the game's biggest fault is the graphics, though. For what it was trying to do, there just wasn't enough detail and subtlety. It's an amazing thing when the game's sound and sheer soldier numbers meet up a couple missions into the game, but it's just not enough to redeem the overall experience. There are some positive experiences, but there's a very real sense that Pyro may not be ready to make the jump into a FPS yet -- at least not in this generation.
