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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gripping WWII Action, 2 Aug 2002
The original Commandos came out of nowhere to deliver some of the best tactical gameplay in a wargame for some time. Commandos 2 represents a complete overhaul of the first game, both technically and in the best gaming sense.Your elite team now share many of the skills that were limited to each man before. They are still limited however, for example only the sapper can throw hand grenades. But this means you have to think about what you are doing with your team, even if there is still the old problem of relying on the green beret, driver (who does precious little driving now!) and diver for most combat duties. The graphics are intricately detailed, with a new camera that rotates fairly well, but especially well when you are inside a building. Animation is superb and the variety of enemy characters and uniforms is great. Sound is also good, the commandos all have new speech. It still repeats quickly, but in the same endearing way of the original. Commandos 2 is difficult, and sometimes it's a matter of time and error rather than sound tactical thinking, but then this is a game and to be expected. Many of the missions take an obscene amount of time but offer great satisfaction upon completion. Slowly building up to an action-packed, explosive mission climax is as thrilling as ever. There are an awful lot of controls and NO KEY CARD in the box. There is a list of the keyboard commands hidden away in the Readme file, and believe me you need it as the hot keys are invaluable. There are now bonus missions included which you unlock by picking up picture pieces during the regular missions. These bonus missions are great for practicing new skills and are usually short and good fun, making a welcome break from the intense full missions. Now, there are problems with this game unfortunately. Not enough to totally ruin it, but they can make your teeth clench with frustration or just plain old amazement at times. Whilst the graphics are very good, there is now a zoom in function that could be so useful but is largely redundant. Zooming in presents a mass of pixels that are not really much help, making it a waste of time. AI is suspect. There is still the old Commandos problem of the enemy field of vision - you can be standing right in the open just outside the cone and be perfectly safe. Detonating a grenade does not give off anywhere near enough noise, surely it should bring half the Whermacht running? BUT in fairness, the AI working in this way does make the game a bit easier. You can now hook up with other Allied soldiers and command them yourself. As long as you have one of your commandos next to them. Grrr, this is bery restricting. It would also be nice if your commandos could exhibit a bit of common sense. For example, the sapper can use a mine detector in minefields. Very useful, but if he is walking along and detects a mine, he doesn't stop to avoid a messy death, instead he keeps walking to the point you clicked on. Pyro - why??! Your men also will stand stock still whilst being shot to death. Please let's give them a little more intelligence in C3!! There is a quicksave, but no hot key for it! You have to instead bring up the pause menu to quicksave. This is annoying as it could so easily have been avoided. But these are minor niggles. Commandos 2 is frustrating, at times hard but at all times good fun, gripping and absorbing. It's a must have if you have a degree of patience and enjoy a damn good challenge.
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