Commando ・ 戦場の狼
Developed and published by: Capcom (NA, JP)
Released in: September 27, 1986 (JP) | November 1986 (NA)
In one of my previous reviews, I talked about this crazy pawn shop that was in my hometown. It was a horrible death trap inside, but they had a treasure trove of older games on the cheap. As I got my NES in the mid 1990’s, games weren’t available in retail stores near me anymore, so this place was my only source for new Nintendo tapes outside of lucky finds at garage sales.
The time had finally arrived. I had saved up enough of my paltry allowance to get a brand spankin’ new game. This wasn’t an everyday occurrence; my childhood shoe box of NES games had but nine humble carts inside. Not only was today special because I was getting myself a sweet new game, it was doubly special because my older brother took me into town for this pilgrimage! He’s nearly twenty years older than I am, and only came to visit home once in a blue moon, so I thought he was pretty much the coolest dude ever as a kid.
I was planning on getting Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that day, but on my brother’s suggestion, we came home with Commando instead. From what I’ve heard of Dr. Jekyll’s reputation, I think my brother made the better call. And would you believe it, my mom took one look at it and told me I shouldn’t be playing games with guns in them. I got scolded for picking out Commando on the NES because it was too violent.
For those of you who don’t know, this is what Commando on the NES looks like:
Too violent. I wasn’t allowed to watch The Simpsons or Ren and Stimpy, either. So it goes.
Commando plays exactly how one would expect a top-down run-and-gun shooter to. This is because it was a mega smash hit that set the standard for all run-and-gunners that would follow in its footsteps. If you’ve ever played one of these before, like Ikari Warriors or Guerilla War, they owe Commando a cheque. As one-man army Super Joe, you shoot the bad guys, save the P.O.W.’s along the way, and move onto the next level. Controls are nice and responsive, but this is a game that steadily wore out my aging thumbs with the lack of autofire. The graphics are simple, and the theme tune is a catchy little 8-bit bop with a suitable military sound that fits the action to a T. This tune has been lodged in my brain for nearly three decades now. As a matter of fact, I was the first person to upload the NES version to Youtube almost two decades ago. Seriously!
What else…there are secret ladders dotted about the levels that contain reserves of grenades and point items – only a grenade thrown in the right place will reveal them. To this day, I have never found a single one on my own. Why start now?
There’s not too much more to say about Commando, because I find it harder to write about games I actually like. There isn’t an overabundance of power-ups or rules to bog it down; it’s entertaining in its simple, yet addictive arcade-y gameplay. Sometimes you can’t go wrong with a bit of runnin’ and gunnin’ through…some nondescript war, even without the heaps of nostalgia I have for it.
What war is this supposed to be, anyways? I wondered if it was meant to be WWII, as the German release of the Commodore 64 port (renamed Space Invasion) censored the bad guys to be weird robots? But there are no naturally occurring palm trees or deserts in Germany, so this four decade old mystery lives on…well, whatever. Commando is pretty fun, check it out sometime.
Final Rating:
NESJunk 