In SAS: Commando, you control a member of the British Special Air Service across a series of simple, action-packed missions through 12 different levels. This shoot-'em-up can be fun, but the diversity of its missions doesn't impose variety on the gameplay, which makes this offering ultimately too repetitive for its own good.
The game is played from an overhead perspective, and it lets you both move your character in four directions and shoot any enemies along your line of sight. This is a little limiting, because many similar games afford you a full 360-degree shooting radius. Accordingly, there's something quaint about having to dodge back and forth into the line of fire from your enemy just to create your own line of fire to open up opportunities to off him. This could be construed as retro or oversimplified, depending on how you look at it, but ultimately it's just one of several gameplay elements here that can be fun in the short term but that can get very repetitive in the longer term.
From the very beginning of the game, you're in constant pursuit of the next mission objective. Though there are more than 90 of them in total, they are all executed in exactly the same way, despite their very different intents. Mission objectives are indicated by red circles on the ground and on the map that highlight the objects you must pick up, the person you need to meet, the place you have to drop off something, or your route to the next level. To complete each portion of the mission, you must merely make it to the red circle and be ready to receive your next objective. Had there been an action button and a more interactive way of completing each mission differently, these various objectives might have seemed less like window dressing.
You'll face a diverse array of enemies throughout the game. The opposing soldiers will fire upon you from tanks; they'll employ grenade launchers or rockets against you; and they'll even resort to calling in intimidating, screen-shaking air strikes to decimate you. However, your tactic against the enemy is always the same. You can choose to duck behind any object in the path, which stops bullets of all kinds, or you can simply choose to avoid confrontation. As it's often the safest method to complete a mission, nonviolence turns out to be the easiest course of action here, even if it unfortunately makes the game tiresome more quickly. Even the opportunity to unfold the events of the upcoming missions isn't appealing enough to warrant an extended play-through. To its credit, though, the game does ramp up in difficulty later on, which is nice. Consequently, if you play it in short bursts, the repetitiveness is much less noticeable.
The graphics are good, and there are quite a few noticeable details that add to the overall experience. Blowing up explosive barrels leaves behind blast marks, and bullets can be seen impacting everything, which clearly lets you see if you've hit your enemy or not. One somewhat confusing aspect of the visuals involves the fact that enemies at another height can interact with you as if they were standing directly in your line of fire. Although they seem to be above or below you, you can ignore the third dimension and shoot them or get shot by them in return. This doesn't hurt gameplay too much, but it does defeat the purpose of creating multileveled platforms.
There are some nice presentational details in SAS: Commando, including a storyline that unfolds during the course of the missions and music and sounds that relay the action well by enhancing the overall experience. Had a few of these features been displaced to make the gameplay more unique or diverse, the game might have been very worthwhile. As it stands, though, SAS: Commando wears out its welcome a bit too quickly.
