Commandos 3: Destination Berlin

Review - Tough, gruelling and occasionally enraging. This is Pyro's latest...

Pyro's hugely successful Commandos series, arguably the brand that kicked-started the gaming world's current obsession with World War II titles, enters its third incarnation with this outing - cunningly timed to coincide with the Christmas season that will see many a copy fly-off the shelf once again no doubt. However, it comes as something of a surprise just how successful the series is - after all, this isn't a first-person shooter or a sports title, and more over, it certainly isn't friendly or indeed accessible. Sure, the basics of how to play are simple enough. But mastering and progressing Commandos 3 (like the smash-hit couplet that came before it) is an absolute bitch of a task and is certainly not for the faint-hearted. Why is Commandos so popular then? Well, I can only assume this is because it embodies the age old saying that 'war is hell', and in re-creating this torment through its gameplay also delivers an experience that in look, style and sound calls to mind many popular cinematic WWII tributes; Enemy at the Gates, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line. The Medal of Honour series garners it's justly-earnt success from a similar cultural founding. War is fascinating; whether we like it or not.

But is Pyro's latest outing actually any good; and how does it improve and change the formula that was so successful in the games last two incarnations? Not a lot is the simplistic answer to the latter - whilst 'strangely, yes' is my response to the former. Let me explain...

The basics of the gameplay remain almost untouched from the 1999 original. You're placed in charge of an elite squad of Commandos in authentically inspired WWII situations and locations. You have a series of objectives to complete in your mission, but to triumph over the aggressors you'll need to use all the skills at your diverse team's disposal. Commandos 3 gives us the use of a spy, a sapper, a thief, a sniper, a green beret and a diver. All have very specific abilities that you'll need at various points in the games missions. Sometimes you'll have the full compliment of Commandos at your disposal; on another occasion you might only have one loner to utilise.

You control your team using a left mouse-click to select, and a right-click to direct. The cursor is context-sensitive and will therefore change depending on the options available to the selected character in a given situation. This keeps things simple, and at least means that you won't find movement and actions a problem. However, this simple approach to controlling Commandos 3 belies excruciatingly tricky mission design, that will test you to the limits of your tactical ingenuity - and sanity - if you're to make any progress whatsoever. Commandos 3 is very hard indeed.

Not only do foes vanquish you with one shot at times, you'll also find that keeping yourself concealed from the vastly more numerous enemy soldiers is also a big problem. Timing and patience is key, as often you'll find yourself biding your time - memorising enemy patrol patterns and timing movements accordingly. This is not a game in which going all-out guns-blazing is an option.