But there’s nothing here to compare to the incredible beauty and variety of that game, and the colours and buildings all end up looking a bit samey, despite the three campaigns being set in Stalingrad, Central Europe and Normandy.

Still, Commandos really is all about gameplay over graphics, and C2 managed to be breathtaking by the sheer detail of its levels. Even here though, should you get up close to aĬharacter (for example, when looking through a window to see a soldier standing right in front of you) you are treated to some shockingly low-res textures. The only noticeable improvement is the new interior 3D engine, that allows more zooming and rotating than before. The graphics are disappointing in that the resolution is still fixed at 800圆00 and there’s very little to distinguish it from the previous title. The only real novelties here are slight improvements in the Al and more weather effects (plus the online mode, of course). In case you’re new to the series, Commandos is less a strategy game than it is a mindbending series of puzzles, where you have to figure out a way of completing missions while coordinating stealthy attacks, distracting guards and timing your actions to perfection. The announcement of a multiplayer mode seemed a clear indication that Pyro were going to push the concept as far as they could in this last instalment (for more on this see the Axis Vs Allies panel), but as we're concentrating mainly on the single-player campaigns in this review, the answers to the above questions would have to be 'sort of’ and 'not really'.

Was this going to be just a last attempt to extract some more cash from one of the biggest-selling PC series in history? Could a rudderless team come up with enough surprises to match the infinite little touches of genius that marked C2 now the visionaries had left? When the main men behind the awe-inspiring Commandos 2, Spanish duo Gonzo Suarez (lead designer) and Jon Beltran (lead programmer), left Pyro Studios to form their own company, quite a few eyebrows were raised at the prospect of another sequel.

Jeux commandos 1