Commandos 2 Preview

One of the most impressive games to be shown at the 2000 E3 was Pyro Studios' Commandos 2, the sequel to the Spanish developer's first real-time strategy game, which was originally released in 1998. Commandos put you in control of six elite commando units, each with his own specialized combat skill, in Europe and North Africa during World War II. The game heavily stressed the importance of proper planning and careful execution of each mission by making it nearly impossible to succeed without coordinating the use of all your commandos and making the most of each of their strengths. Commandos was certainly difficult, but its unique twist on standard real-time strategy games fell into favor with fans of the genre, and soon after the game's release, Pyro Studios started work on an expansion pack entitled Beyond the Call of Duty. Since the add-on's release in March of 1999, Commandos fans have been eagerly awaiting the inevitable sequel, and in the early months of 2000, Pyro and publisher Eidos kicked the hype machine into high gear by releasing a handful of impressive screenshots and by showing a playable albeit early version of the sequel at E3. Since then, however, both companies have kept relatively quiet about Commandos 2 - to let anticipation within the gaming press run high - by keeping new shots and preview builds of the game close to their chest. Recently we were invited to the Eidos offices to meet with the creator of the Commandos series and the project lead on Commandos 2, Gonzo Suarez. Pyro's Jon Beltran, the lead programmer on the sequel, was also on hand to walk us through the latest build of Commandos 2.

The first thing you'll notice in Commandos 2 is the game's greatly improved graphics. That statement shouldn't be taken as judgment of the first game's visuals, however, as the imagery in the original Commandos was beautiful and displayed some of the most accurate depictions of war-torn Europe at the time. However, in designing the sequel, the developers at Pyro completely scrapped the graphics engine of the original game in favor of a brand-new one. The results are truly outstanding. The resolution has been upped from Commandos' meager 640x480 to a more acceptable 1024x768, which makes it possible to view a wider area of the game's breathtaking vistas and expansive cities. And while the game is still played from a locked isometric camera angle, all of the terrain and buildings are actually rendered in 3D polygons. To better appreciate the game's beauty, you have the option of constantly adjusting your perspective 90 degrees for a total of four different angles. Were it not for this feature, the benefits of rendering the levels in Commands 2 using 3D technology, as opposed to prerendering an entire image onto a two-dimensional canvas, would be lost on the game.

But Commandos 2 does indeed have a new feature that takes full advantage of 3D acceleration. Whenever you take your commando indoors, the level will change from a static environment to a fully rotatable cutaway of that interior area. These indoor areas will undoubtedly prove to be even more challenging than the outdoor levels, as each is composed of tight corridors and narrow hallways, making combat all the more difficult. Thankfully, you will be able to rotate the camera 360 degrees to give yourself the optimal angle for surprising enemies. And since each level is intricately detailed, there are a number of areas where you can hide - like underneath a bed or behind a dresser - when situations get a little hairy.

Changes and Additions

The changes in Commandos 2 aren't just technical improvements over the original, either. While all six of the original commandos will be available to play, Pyro is introducing an additional three characters to the game. Those of you who played the Commandos expansion pack will recognize the sniper Natasha as one of the three newcomers. Natasha possesses the unique ability of distraction, and while unarmed, she can capture the attention of enemy soldiers to give your other commandos time to sneak past. However, her true skill lies in the art of sniping. If you perch Natasha on a windowsill, your mouse cursor will switch into a larger crosshair, which you can use to pick off enemy soldiers standing outside, so long as they fall within your line of sight. Furthermore, Natasha can also take aim at enemies standing inside other buildings. When your crosshair moves over a window or doorway, a small display window will pop open in the upper-left corner of the screen, displaying a 3D image of the targeted enemy and his surroundings.

The second addition to the Commandos gang is Paul Toledo, a small-framed thief from the French resistance movement. Also known as Lupin, Toledo is the quickest of all the commandos available to you, and he can dart from building to building without alerting patrolling soldiers. He can also scale walls and the sides of houses, much like a spider, to get a peek inside windows. And while he's not very adept at handling weapons, Toledo can easily help himself to any object that's being carried by an enemy soldier. He can also mimic an enemy's movements so that he's always standing behind that enemy's field of vision. This happens automatically and won't require you to frantically point and click around enemy soldiers to avoid detection.

The third commando to be introduced to the game isn't actually a commando at all. In fact, he isn't even human - he's a dog... a terrier to be precise. A favorite among the Pyro designers, Whisky the terrier is an interesting unit because you won't be given direct control over him. Instead, all your commandos can be outfitted with dog whistles, which when blown will summon Whisky to their side. Like your other commandos, Whisky has a finite inventory space with which to carry various objects and even weapons. No, he won't be able to actually use these weapons. Instead, Whisky's primary role will be to shuttle vital items and such to any of your commandos who might be pinned by enemy fire, for example. This is viable when you consider that enemy soldiers will pay Whisky nothing more than a passing glance, allowing him to get into and around heavily fortified areas.

Commandos 2 gives you the ability to control nonplayer characters as well. While the survival of your nine commandos is essential to the completion of each mission, these NPCs are more or less expendable. Regardless, they'll often prove useful when the odds start stacking up against you. To illustrate this point, Beltran and Suarez loaded up a mission that required you to ambush a group of a high-ranking Japanese generals. Simply walking up to the enemy and opening fire would have meant sure death. Instead, Suarez and Beltran began recruiting allied soldiers and placed them on the rooftops and balconies of a thin alleyway. After setting up the ambush, they ordered their commando, Tiny the Green Beret, to grenade the group of generals. Tiny broke into a run down the alleyway, and the Japanese soldiers started giving chase, only to be greeted by a hail of gunfire from the awaiting allied NPCs. You won't be able to micromanage these NPCs at the same level as your other commandos, but you can place them in key locations and set their readiness levels for ambushing, guarding, and so on.

Spanning the Globe

Like the original, Commandos 2 largely takes place in Europe during World War II and features locales based on actual locations and events from the war. New areas include the arctic reaches of Northern Europe, the South Pacific islands, and the Japanese-occupied Asian mainland. These new levels are host to some spectacular missions. Most notable is the scenario that takes place aboard the Shinano, Japan's largest (and shortest-lived) aircraft carrier during World War II. As is true with all the levels and objects in Commandos 2, the Shinano is built exactly to scale with the size of your commandos, and thus requires you to scroll the length of the screen four times over to view it from bow to stern. Additionally, all the innards of this massive carrier, including the bridge, con tower, engine room, and hangars, are accurately modeled and available for play throughout this level. In fact, you'll be required to traverse the length of this behemoth to successfully complete the mission, which involves you revealing the Shinano's position by radioing nearby Allied naval forces.

One of the more attractive features of the game is the influences it derives from popular war movies like Saving Private Ryan and Bridge Over the River Kwai. In the Private Ryan mission, which is one of the first levels in the game, you'll have to fight through a dilapidated town - much like the one in the final scene of the movie - to relieve a group of soldiers locked in combat with Nazi forces. The only way to successfully beat the mission, however, is to bring a medical pack to an injured private by the name of, you guessed it, Ryan. There will be a total of 12 missions in Commandos 2. This is certainly significantly less than the number of levels in the original game, but Pyro assured us that it'll take experienced players around five to six hours just to complete a single mission. Those of you concerned about the game's difficulty need not worry, however, as the game will have three difficulty levels to accommodate a wider range of users. These difficulty settings will affect the number of required objectives per mission, as well as the hit points of your commandos.

Commandos 2 is narrated through the use of gorgeous prerendered movies between each mission. In deciding how to flesh out the story, Pyro opted to use the same rendering technology for these cutscenes that it uses to draw the outdoor areas of the game. The end result is movies that retain the same look and feel of Commandos 2's main interface, which makes the transition from cutscene to gameplay absolutely seamless. Like the original game, Commandos 2 will also have a robust multiplayer component that lets a group of players each assume the role of a different commando and fight through the main levels in a cooperative mode. Pyro is also fiddling with the idea of introducing some form of deathmatch mode as well, although nothing has been finalized as of yet.

Eidos affirms that the game will hit store shelves in the first week of March 2001. From what we saw at the recent demonstration, we have no doubt that Commandos 2 will surpass the original in every respect. We hope to have preview copies of the game within the coming months, at which point we'll update you with more information regarding this impressive game.