Commandos (Mega Drive)

Commandos
Commandos' cover art.
Publisher	Glorysun, New Game (Company)
Developer	Dragon Co.
Console	Sega Mega Drive
Sound engine	PCM

Commandos (рус. Коммандос, Kommandos) is a Sega Mega Drive port and, most likely, the only console port of Commandos: Behind the Enemy Lines for the PC, originally developed by Pyro Studios. The Mega Drive version was created by the remains of Dragon Co. and Hummer Software, powered by Tommy Xie's SDK.

Gameplay

Similarly to the original Commandos: Behind the Enemy Lines, the player is in control of a group of Allied commandos, each with their own set of abilities and equipment. The game's objective varies from mission to mission, but the general approach to completing all of them is to remain as stealthy as possible, as to not get the commandos shot by the overwhelming German army.

Commandos is operated mostly with point-and-click controls. Gamepad shortcuts for some common functions, like drawing a pistol or grabbing items, are also available.

Notable changes

• Only five missions from the original game are available, with some of them missing crucial shortcuts.
• More streamlined UI, now without the option to show the enemy soldiers' line of sight.
• Save/load functionality is non-present, with Load Game serving as a mission selection screen instead.
• The mission counts as a failure as soon as one of the team members is killed, as opposed to the original PC release that only warned about the mission probably becoming unbeatable.
• Green Beret can't dig himself in snow anymore.
• While Green Beret can still climb walls, he's no longer able to stand on them; instead, he quickly flips over to the other side of the wall he just climbed.
• The Driver class is missing, which means that no long-range weaponry, other than the harpoon and the pistol, is present in the game. First-aid kits, exclusive to the Driver, are now available to Green Beret. Ditto for driving vehicles.
• The Spy is now unable to steal himself a German officer uniform, so he carries it around at all times.

Reception

The Great Dragon has a review of this this game, the author of which signed as C.J.C. They said that perhaps the only unforgivable loss is the lack of line-of-sight visualization for the enemies, but otherwise, the game stays close to the PC original, with the most features, like interactive landscape and footsteps which may be left on the snow and noticed by the enemy patrols, still being preserved:

But the loss of one of the heroes is not such a big one. Since MD can't outmaster the PC by its' power, we have only five missions to play, compared to the original nineteen. However, even that is enough to spend at least a week in front of your TV set. And, to be honest, five missions is much better than no missions at all.
But in anything else, the game keeps itself close to the original. And you also play the game with cursor (D-Pad will replace a computer mouse in that case). Add the gameplay that will keep you on your toes where you have to be as quiet as a weapon stock mouse. An interactive world where anything may be destroyed. The availabilty of the footsteps on the snow which may be noticed by guards as a welcome feature as well.

Trivia

• Command & Conquer (Beta) might be reusing some of the code from Commandos, especially considering that both games were based on the same SDK.
• Li Meng, the composer for the majority of Dragon's games, is listed in the credits for this game, despite not making a single song for Commandos at all.
• There are two versions of the game: one in Chinese and one in English, the latter of which is currently undumped.