DeVuego ES_COR

Commandos: Strike force tries to shoehorn these series hallmarks into a first-person shooter but fails on nearly every level. 

Stylistically, Scrapland looks amazing. The characters have a cartoon-y, "Futurama" groove going, and the city itself is the kind of visionary, noirish setting Ridley Scott might have used in "Blade Runner" if he hadn't been so in love with rain and grime. 

Pure blah from the opening missions in snowy Stalingrad to the last hurrah on the beaches of Normandy. 

Mixing down and dirty hack-and-slash action with some light puzzle solving; Blade of Darkness makes a simple concept work. With enough blood spurting and gib spraying to send Joe Lieberman and his cohorts running for cover, this is slicing and dicing at its finest.

Commandos: Beyond The Call Of Duty continues the excellence established at the beginning of the series. The masterful interface with its windowed views is left virtually unchanged, as are most other aspects of the game. The big change is in difficulty and veterans as well as new players will often feel frustrated when faced with the incredible numbers of guards. It teeters perilously close to being too difficult, so those easily discouraged should avoid it. Those looking for a challenge, though, will most likely embrace this game and fight the Hun with cunning and elan.

The casual gamer, at whom this game is seemingly directed, may enjoy the cathartic nature of blasting away at the armies of his/her personal grudge or animosity, but the lack of variety (you do the same thing over and over again from the same bunker just quicker and more often) and the resultant brain-overload will have even the most tolerant (or naïve) gamer shelving this piece of software after a few hours.

The difficulty is daunting, the missions feel like intricate puzzles, and the frustration factor is high. Still, nothing compares to the moment when you finally get it right.