Commando Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]

Developed and published by Elite in 1985.

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An early classic arcade release from Capcom, this game got the usual slew of conversions for the home computers of the time. For some reason, I never owned this game back in the day, but I understand it's well regarded by C64 aficionados, so I was keen to see how it played.

Commando is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up where the objective is to run and gun soldiers for points across three different levels, although it's worth noting that the arcade version actually has a total of five, so you're not getting a true conversion here. Each level features a large number of hostile troops for you to shoot, obstacles to overcome and a fortress to topple. Enemies spew forth from the gates and must be gunned down to gain access to the next area.

Your soldier is armed with a machine gun with unlimited ammunition with which to blast the bad guys, as well as a limited stock of grenades. Extra grenades can be earned by collecting the glowing crates that can be found within the level, although their usefulness is questionable at best; it's only possible to throw them vertically and not left or right and seems to be something of an oversight. While the grenades are of little use against the highly mobile enemy ground infantry, they must be used to clear out enemy gun emplacements, towers and bunkers that can't be damaged by regular bullets.

On first inspection, the game's graphics aren't exactly startling. Almost everything is rendered in a lovely shade of brown or grey, which makes the game look somewhat drab and uninteresting. However, the character animation and the movement is actually quite faithful to the arcade version, so the developers appear to have captured the soul of the game, even if it is a little bit grubby to look at!

Rob Hubbard produced a great music track to accompany the gameplay and is probably the best thing about the game. The same cannot be said of the sound effects, low quality and do little else apart from use up one of the C64's voice channels, thus cutting out part of the music.

Perhaps the biggest issue the game has is it's longevity. Three levels is pretty stingy and they don't take long to compete; at £9.99, this wouldn't have represented good value for money. What content does exist is pretty good fun while it lasts and there's certainly some fun to be had from ploughing your way through the ranks of enemies ahead.

If you can forgive the game's shortcomings then there's some fun arcade action to be had here. It's just a shame it doesn't last very long.
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