Commandos: Strike Force

Commandos: Strike Force is a first-person WWII stealth shooter. Unlike the previous five games in the Commandos series, this game takes a first-person perspective. However, the fundamental premise of the game remains the same: you take control of an elite squad of allied commandos during the Second World War and send them on a series of dangerous covert missions behind enemy lines. Because you're outnumbered and outgunned by your opponents, mission success relies on stealth and planning more than combat. There is shooting, of course, but you need to apply violence in precisely the right place and time rather than just blazing away at the first enemy you see.

The different members of your team have different abilities, ranging from expertise with different weapons (the Sniper's scoped rifle, for instance, or the Green Beret's high-volume short-ranged firepower) to special abilities such as the Spy's technique of wearing stolen German uniforms to avoid detection. Unlike earlier games in the series, you'll spend most of your time in Strike Force playing one character per mission; your teammates can help you, but their input is relatively minor. Each character's special abilities are relevant to particular missions and provide different methods of solving them.

There are three main campaigns within the game: the first takes place in France, the second in Norway and the last during the battle of Stalingrad.

Although the game did retain some elements of the series' strategy-focused gameplay, it didn't win over fans of the previous games, who missed the maddeningly difficult strategic puzzles of previous instalments. In its effort to be similar to the popular WWII shooters of the day, Commandos: Strike Force did little to distinguish itself from them other than to focus on stealth missions rather than full-scale battles. The game's graphics were also not on par with those of bigger-budget contemporary WWII games. On the other hand, some reviewers commented that the reduced difficulty made Strike Force more accessible than the previous Commandos games.

Overall, Commandos: Strike Force remains an interesting game; an early attempt at a WWII shooter focused on tactics and stealth rather than reflexes and accuracy. Its differences with its own predecessors meant that it never quite received the audience it deserved.

Pros

• Compelling special abilities
• Authentic weapons and settings

Cons

• Dated graphics
• Weak enemy AI