Commandos 4 Gameplay

[Casimiro Lurten]

TheCommandos series of games and its similar western counterpart, Desperados, use a mix of 2D and 3D elements to achieve a very pleasing and immersive atmosphere. Apart from the concept that alone made the series a best-seller, the graphics eye-candy was also a much appreciated asset of that game.

I was very curious on what was the technique used to model and adorn the realistic terrains in those titles? Below are some screenshots that could be relevant as a reference for whomever has a candidate answer:

The commandos titles look like they use prerendered backgrounds. This means that one or multiple artists design the whole wort in a 2d or 3d programm. Commandos looks like it was done in 3d and then post processed in like photoshop. The exporter of the 3d programm used a special export method, as the viewing perspective is not physically correct. Objects more to the north should be smaller, but the size doesn't change correctly according to the perspective. If I'm not mistaken this mode is called "Orthogonal Mode".

Parts of the generated map are splitted into different groups. There are some graphics, that only are used as ground texture (this may be the biggest part of the exported map), there are parts that are animated or can change (a door for example can have an opened and a closed state) and there are graphics, that sometimes are drawn behind the soldiers and sometimes in front, depending on the standing position.

The Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale series used the infinity engine, which uses a similar rendering style (the setting may be fantasy, but the graphics always looked kind of realistic to me, just like commandos). There has been a strong modding community around the infinity engine and a quick look to wikipedia revealed to me, that there is an open source clone / implementation of the engine in the works.

Real-time tactics WW2 game Commandos is coming back from the dead to quietly, methodically dismantle the Nazi war machine once more. Three years after we reported on the development of a brand new game in the series and 18 years after the most recent one came out, Commandos: Origins promises to tell the tale of how the games' titular commandos met.

I'm cautiously intrigued by this. I played a heck of a lot of Commandos 2 as a kid (and original Desperados, which had a very similar style despite being an old west game from a different developer and also recently got its own third entry), and very little has scratched that itch since. Hopefully, this brand new game will fare better than the remaster of 2, which left a fair bit to be desired and still sits at an unenviable "Mixed" user review rating on Steam.

Not every team member from earlier games is returning, though. Or if they are, they're being held back as a surprise. The announcement of the game only mentions the Green Beret, the Sapper, the Sniper, the Driver, the Marine and the Spy as making an appearance. There's no word on the Thief, the Seductress (probably could do with a name change), or the, ah, Dog.

If you have the same warm memories of the earlier Commandos games or, heck, even Desperados as me, you can find Commandos: Origins over on Steam and the Epic Game Store, where it has a big wide open release window of 2024.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Joshua WolensSocial Links NavigationNews WriterOne of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Commandos is a stealth-oriented real-time tactics video game series. The five games released between 1998 and 2006 are all set during World War II and follow the adventures of a fictional Allied commando unit. Each mission is loosely based on historical events during World War II to carry the plot. The series was developed by the Spanish developer Pyro Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. The series has sold a total of 3.3 million copies and generated $41 million of revenue at retail.[1]

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (CBEL) was released on 1 July 1998. It was published by Eidos Interactive, and developed by Pyro Studios. It features 20 missions. The view is isometric with tactical gameplay. A Sega Mega Drive/Genesis version of Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, with the first 5 missions, was also made by Russian homebrew programmers, but lacked sound and certain other features of the PC version.

Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty, a set of new Commandos missions issued as a standalone game, was released on 31 March 1999. Despite it being much shorter than Behind Enemy Lines, it is a much more difficult game containing levels on a far greater scale to the extent of being comparable to those that were to be seen in Commandos 2. It has 8 missions, with locations including Yugoslavia and Greece.

A full sequel, released in 2001, was rebuilt with a 3D engine, more interactive environments, more skills for the commandos, and new characters. Like its predecessor, it drew heavily from war films and titled its levels in reference to such films as The Bridge on the River Kwai and Saving Private Ryan. The game received even greater praise.

Several new characters were added to the series in this sequel: a thief called Paul "Lupin" Toledo, a dog called Whiskey and Wilson, a shot-down pilot claiming to be from the Light Brigade.

This is the third sequel in the series and was released in October 2003. In this game the mouse wheel can be used to rotate the player's vantage point. It was the first in the series to use a true 3D engine, but the game was criticized for its short missions and lack of hotkeys.

Released during the first months of 2006, this game marks a diversion from the first three games. Although the missions are set up in a similar fashion (several different objectives, some to be achieved through stealth, others through use of force) and in most occasions the player is allowed to change between different characters, this is the first game in the series to apply a first-person perspective, similar to Medal of Honor or Call of Duty games than to earlier entries of the series.

Strike Force only has three Commandos, making it the only game in the series to have the least amount of playable characters. They are the Green Beret, The Sniper and The Spy but they are not the same characters from previous instalments; they each bear different appearances, names, and skills.

The game attracted an overwhelmingly negative reaction, especially from fans of the earlier games in the series who saw this as a massive modification, concurrent with a great reduction in the series' trademark difficulty. Similarly, it was promoted as mixing elements of strategy from the past games with traditional first-person shooter game-play but instead only hinted at them whilst being predominantly action-oriented. As a result, both critics and fans felt it did little to distance itself from the recent flood of similar games.

Following the discontinuation of the series by Pyro Studios, a couple of mods have been developed by fans. Commandos: Strike in Narrow Path is a stand-alone expansion for Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines containing 9 missions and was released initially in 2010.[2] Commandos 2: Destination Paris tweaks the gameplay of Commandos 2: Men Of Courage and adds over 100 missions to the base game.[3]

The series was acquired by Kalypso Media, which announced work on a new game in the series in April 2020.[20] In 2020 and 2022 respectively, they published remastered versions of Commandos 2: Men of Courage and Commandos 3: Destination Berlin for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 with adapted controls for the consoles' gamepads.[21]

I've been a long time fan of Commandos and Desperados but let's get straight to the point. A kind person directed me to this forum because I do tutorials for unity and started a series about making a Commandos type game using Unity

You'll see that in Part 1 I go over the basic movement interface for a commandos game and after that I do a heavy focus on AI and it's basically tailored from the Commandos AI with a mix of Desperados and some more stuff I wanted to add. For example, enemies taking cover instead o standing in the open to attack you etc.

I haven't finished with this series yet, I still have plans to upload a lot more videos but since it's youtube I have to make some other stuff to ensure I keep that exponential growth of the audience. And to tell you a little secret, the AI i'm doing here is basically for my own Commandos-clone game and since I'm currently lacking the resources for it (better models and animations mainly) I don't mind sharing it so other people can learn, after all programming isn't a zero sum game.

I knew nothing about this game but saw it pop up on Steam, where it's now on the Top Sellers list. This game is very much like the old Commandos games but with ninjas and samurai. It has very similar mechanics (for example, vision cones you get from clicking on enemies, crouching v standing range on the cones, picking up and moving bodies, lots of patrols and puzzle like way to figure them out).

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