Genre: Strategy
Developed by: Pyro Studios
Published by: Eidos Interactive

After the huge success of Commandos: behind enemy lines and the add-on Commandos: beyond the call of duty, there had to come a sequel. Finally, after years of waiting the game was released. Commandos was an innovative strategy games with you leading a small group of Commandos who had to complete certain key objectives and thus sabotaging the German war effort. Each commando had his own special characterics. You had the sniper, the marine, the sapper etc... Those special characterics required intensive teamplay in order to complete the goals of each mission. Commandos was a very hard game (even at easy) and you have to save the game after the slightest progress you made. Nevertheless the game was addictive and the magnificent graphics were irresistible. Now it was the question if Commandos 2: Men of courage were a digniful sequel….

Installing Commandos 2 takes a huge piece of your disk space. 1.5 GB for the minimum install and 2 GB for the regular install is quite the highest I’ve ever seen actually. You would expect dozens of movies to fill up this space but besides the intro movie (which is lo-res actually) there wasn’t any footage. Before beginning the 10-mission long campaign you have to complete the 2 training missions. Even for a hardcore Commandos-player as myself these missions were quite necessary... Changes in the interface of the game require some training. Already in the first training mission I was confronted with the changes Eidos has implemented. Every commando is able to knock down an enemy soldier and every commando is also capable of carrying various items. In the first mission you only have two commandos to play with: the sapper and the thief (yes, he’s new). The sapper has to detect and defuse some mines and blow up some troops. Now, he doesn’t have a mine detector or hand grenades so the sapper has to climb the telephone wires, steal the items and give them to the sapper. Many people argued that if the commandos would have less specific tasks, the game would lose it charm. But I think it’s not more than normal a commando is able to carry something for another commando... and I also think this will reduce the linearity of the missions. Yeah, Commandos has become slightly easier and if you’re a die-hard fan you should start on hard, not on normal as I did. But I think that’s more a commercial decision as they don’t want to scare of people who want a game to be enjoying instead of stressful.

Indeed, there are several ways to accomplish a mission and every mission is very lengthy and requires several hours of gameplay because while playing the mission the list of objectives becomes longer and longer. Just when you think you’re almost at the end, you get some new task. You like it or not but I think it’s not bad because there are only 10 missions and it would be quite foolish to play all missions in a week while it took Eidos two years to make the game. Graphics have improved quite a bit but I think you would expect that after two years of development. Everything is must more natural and looks nice on the eye. The scenery too is just awesome. Inside a German U-boat base gives you the shivers and when you see snow falling in a arctic theatre where the U-boat and a German destroyer got stuck in the ice you just start drooling…

Voices are well done…. The typical Irish accent of the Green Beret, the German of the… Germans (surprise surprise ) and…. Japanese ! Yes, after having received thousands of pledges to please make some Japanese missions, Eidos features also some Far-East missions. It was actually quite amusing hearing the Japs shouting when they see a dead comrade. It’s also a smart move since Eidos has financial problems and thus will reach a much more broader market. The music on the background really adds a sphere of tension as well.

EP sez:

If you like any form of strategy game, you’ll surely like Commandos 2.

Pros and Cons:

+ Excellent graphics
+ More realistic and less puzzle-like than the first one

- Takes too much of your HD
- Only ten missions
- Only cooperative multiplayer supported

Score:

Gameplay: 8,5
Graphics: 9.5
Sound: 9
Addictiveness: 9

Overall: 89%

© 2001 Erwin's Pages
Paul "Spetsnaz" Praet


Links:

> Official Commandos 2 Site
> Eidos Interactive
> Pyro Studios