Games for Lunch: Commando: Steel Disaster
In a nutshell: Not a disaster, but hard as steel.
10/10/2008 6:57 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 3
Developer: Mana Comp Software
Publisher: XS Games
Release Date: Sept. 2, 2008
System: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: E10+
Official Web site
0:00 Yet another game I had never heard of until it showed up in my mailbox. The back of the box makes it look like a Metal Slug knockoff, which gets my hopes up a bit.
0:01 Synth-heavy metal-techno plays over a sprawling, two-screen image of a Commando with a huge gun slung over his shoulder. Normal and Hard are the selectable difficulties. I hate choosing the lowest available level, but I'm not quite ready to dive in to "Hard."
0:03 "Emergency! Emergency!" says Jessica. "Hey, what's wrong," asks Storm, the guy from the title screen. "Snow Lab is being attacked by X-1." Not Snow Lab! Apparently X-1 is OUR newest weapon, but it went berserk and attacked. The dialogue boxes don't have a space after the periods ... VERY annoying.
0:04 Just like that, I'm racing in on a snowmobile. I can jump over land mines and lean back to fire at rocket pack-equipped enemies in the air. This is fun!
0:06 On foot now, trudging across a snow-covered landscape. Immediately I'm annoyed that I can't seem to fire diagonally. Come on ... this has been standard since
Contra. It's especially annoying because I'm running up a slope and can't really hit the enemies ahead of me effectively.
0:07 A new cluster bomb weapon has a little more oomph and arc, but limited ammo. I use it up taking out a small green tank. The 2-D sprite animation is pretty good, but not quite Metal Slug-level.
0:09 The pathetic screams from these endlessly repetitive enemies are utterly ridiculous. Reminds me of
the Wilhelm scream a bit.
0:10 "You got a disk Red B4." Good for me. What does that mean?
0:11 A short, enclosed section where I battle a group of floating enemies makes the lack of diagonal fire even more annoying. I take heavy fire because I can't fire at them from across the screen. Like I want to.
0:12 My first death is also my last, apparently. As the last of my health goes away, "Mission Failed" appears on screen and I'm sent back to the title screen. This is Normal mode? Yeesh!
0:14 Watching my health and armor a little more carefully this time, I notice the floating guys do a TON of damage with their flashing red and orange shots. There's very little margin for error here, it seems.
0:16 I'm down to 8 health (out of 100) already, and I'm forced to be a lot more careful about avoiding bullets. Now that I'm paying attention, I'm doing pretty well. The floaters that gave me trouble last time go down without touching me this time.
0:17 I die in almost exactly the same place as I did last time. These guys are not messing around here...
0:19 The snowmobile section is still engaging the third time around, but I wish they would mix it up a bit with different enemies or layouts...
0:20 I just discovered a cool rolling ability by pushing down and jump at the same time. Seems to make me temporarily invulnerable. This could be helpful!
