Review: Commando (Atari 7800)

In this review, we check out the top down shooter action game Commando for the Atari 7800. We find out if this is one of those games worth a revisit.

This particular game was released in 1990.

Basically, you are a commando and your mission is to stop the enemy. That’s about what I gathered while playing this game.

You start off with a simple rifle after you get dropped off by a helicopter. You have to press the fire button for every shot you take. It doesn’t sound like much, but when you are staring down legions of enemies, it’s not impossible for you to get overwhelmed with such little weaponry. Luckily, there are weapons you can pick up along the way. One weapon is the knife. The knife allows you to have a chance at killing enemies by touching them. Unfortunately, most of the time, the enemies are also armed with knives. So, there is a possibility that you’ll die along with the enemy when touching. An additional item is the automatic rifle. This weapon makes your life a lot easier because you can simply hold down the fire button to unleash a steady stream of bullets as you run through enemy territory. The final item you can pick up are grenades. These are found through the flashing crates you can collect along the way. Grenades can be used to take out enemies hiding behind sand bags, enemies hidden in bodies of water, enemies hidden in holes, gun placements (requires two hits to take out) or you can take out a few enemies at the same time who happen to be concentrated in a small area. The grenade usually lands and explodes half way up the screen and you can only aim directly ahead.

The only other thing you can earn in this game are precious free lives. For every 60,000 points, you gain a free life. Since you operate on a one hit kill basis for yourself, you can probably take any free lives you can get your hands on.

The enemies are numerous in this game. There’s the standard grey soldiers that shoot randomly. They also man small protected areas such as behind sand bag walls and inside bodies of water. They can also use fixed gun placements (typically mortar cannons). The good news is that if you run past them, those enemies will flee. Additionally, there are green soldiers that can stab. Typically, they run off of the screen, but if you kill them in your trek north, you get a nice sizable 2000 points. There’s also fortified gun emplacements that fire at you too. On occasion, you’ll come across a grey soldier that fires an RPG at you. These are just as easy to take out as normal enemies, but their fire power is increased. to add to this are vehicles that can travel left to right or up to down. It’s easy to get run over by them and it takes multiple shots to destroy them as well. At the end of each level is a sort of boss area. Sometimes it’s a small building, but often it’s just a giant door. You have to kill every enemy that runs out as well as other enemies that happen to pop up along the sides of the screen. Not an easy task to say the least.

After completing an “area”, you’ll get a small animation of your commando taking a break along with a message that goes along the descriptive lines of “broke through the 1st area, now rush to the 2nd area”. There are four area’s to complete. If you complete all four areas, you’ve completed your first of two duties. The second duty also has four area’s (so, 8 areas in total). Complete the second duty and you basically “win” the game. You are then transported to your first duty in the first area and you get to complete the levels you’ve already been to all over again while retaining your high score. At that point, the only point of continuing is to get the highest score.

For a game of its time, it was definitely a game that had some thought behind it. Unfortunately, games like Super Mario Bros 3 and Snow Brothers were around at the same time. So, while there was some entertainment value to be had here, there were more developed games to be had at the time.

Graphically, the game did have some interesting cutscenes. A lot of what was seen in game was decently designed, but I think hardware limitations held this game back a lot compared to other games released in the same era.

There is some decent music in this game. While no one track stands out in particular for me, the music did add a nice element of action to this game. The sound effects were fairly basic.

Overall, if this game was released a few years earlier, I would say that this was a great game. Unfortunately, technology was moving in leaps and bounds and this game seemed to be held back by the hardware limitations found in the Atari 7800 console. It’s an interesting way to blow through an hour or so, but beyond that, the game loses its shine. There’s better games to be had that were released at around this time.

Overall

Furthest point in game: Completed game with a score of 397,500.

General gameplay: 15/25
Replay value: 5/10
Graphics: 3/10
Audio: 3/5

Overall rating: 52%

Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85