I don't know how I came to own Commandos 2: Men of Courage for the PlayStation 2, but I'm relatively sure I did own it, and I'm very confident that I was excited to play it. It looked like nothing my console-centric eyes had ever seen, and I was looking forward to commanding commandos behind enemy lines.
But I couldn't get past the first tutorial mission. I wasn't even told the controls, or how best to use them. I was dropped into a bush in front of a roadblock and told to get on with it. I never could. It's not like I tried for hours and got nowhere, no. More like I was disappointed in having this incredible game blocked off through difficulty and lack of new player support that I gave up in next to no time at all.
I haven't touched it since that day, whenever that was, the tutorial mission layout forever pictured in my mind when I come to think about Commandos 2.
So my objective this time around is simple: Complete Tutorial Mission 1.
Frustrations
To give myself a fighting chance, I'm avoiding the PS2 port at all costs and trying the original PC release instead. A point and click real-time strategy tactics affair works better with a point and click input device named after a rodent, and that's just what my PC came with. Smashing.
It opens with archival footage of the second World War, explaining that the German forces were so strong that unconventional methods of engaging with them were needed from the Allies - enter the Commandos.
First port of call for me is to check out the controls. Commandos 2 is heavy on the hot-key use for selecting weapons, items and actions, so getting them set up and having the most useful ones at the front of my mind is essential.
What the hell am I looking at? Even the menus are complicated! What is Ground Coverage? Who wears the Sergeant Uniform? I think every single letter on the keyboard has at least one use in this game. That's insane.
I back out and head to YouTube for some idea on what I need to do, before diving back in armed with the bare minimum of knowledge about the gameplay.
Fun Times
Here we go, then. Tutorial Mission 1. We're introduced to the area by some heavily accented characters, a British Sapper who sounds like an engineering sort of bloke, and an Asian Thief, who probably does the kinds of things thieves do.
They explain the gist of things: a minefield blocks our progress through the area, so we'll need to eliminate some guards, climb some poles, steal some equipment, snip through the roadblock, deactivate the mines and move through without dying. Piece of cake.
Commandos 2 looks fantastic. The detail of this one screen is unlike anything I was used to at the time. Even isometric games of the past don't look as good as this, though to be fair, I can only think of Fallout at the minute, and that's a fair bit older than Commandos 2. The point is, it's a looker, and I really want to finally play it like it was intended to be played.
Hotkey number one, the Enter key, allows us to click on a German soldier and see his vision cone. It's split into two segments denoting where it is and isn't safe to stand or crawl, and once you've checked the area, you're free to get on with your objective. Knocking out this first guard was my first task.
Wrong key. One dead Sapper.
Attempt two starts much better. The Q key selects your fist, and clicking on a valid target will send your commando to punch someone's lights out. From there, you can hold Control (or maybe Shift, I'm already forgetting) to bind and gag your victim, as well as pick him up and carry him behind a bush, or wherever else you feel is safe.
The iconography mostly makes sense, and things happen in a logical order. Everyone else on the map is still a lively German soldier, though, so you've got to get your act together and keep things snappy. Once we're out of the way, we can root through this guys pockets, with a press of the W key.
Taking weaponry gives you more firepower, but using anything louder than your fists probably means having much more skill than I currently possess, but at least we can take it off the enemy for safe keeping.
This guy had some cigarettes with him, which can be used as a distraction. German soldiers can't get enough nicotine, apparently, and will investigate a packet of cigs thrown by the side of the road (that'll be the T key) more than they'll investigate the disappearance of their squadmates.
Another soldier incapacitated, and we're making progress. The Enter key, as well as allowing you to click on an enemy to see their vision cone, will enable you to click on the ground to see if anybody can see that particular spot. In this case, there's a blind spot behind our next target. He won't be working on that fence for much longer.
A fourth guard smoking behind the bushes serves no problems whatsoever, and we're into the meat of the mission: getting the wire cutters to get through the minefield.
To do that, we'll need to send our Thief on a little trek up a telegraph pole. Characters can't act at the same time, sadly, so he's been laying in waiting for some time now. Standing up with the space bar brings him into the action, and (Shift? Control?) clicking on the pole is enough to prompt him into his acrobatic routine.
Nobody in the German military can look up, so we're good to swing from these wires all the way across the roadblock.
Maybe not that far, though... I was hoping to climb down the pole, not drop next to a German soldier...
You can see a little animated warping of the area around you whenever you make a noise. The more noise you make, the bigger the warp, and if the warp reaches the opposition, they hear something. It's a nice mechanic, and I haven't been caught out by it yet, thankfully.
Getting his lockpick out (that'd be the S key), the thief gets to work on the chest. The guard nearby isn't concerned in the slightest and hears absolutely nothing as I take the wire cutters and a couple of grenades out of the box.
I could have knocked him out, I suppose, but I would later find out that the Thief doesn't know how to tie people up. Handy.
After very nearly blowing all my work by crawling the wrong way back, I head on over to my Sapper to give him the goods, pointing him in the direction of the barbed wire to make a hole. I think that's the I key. He doesn't take too long, but now has quite the task ahead of him: sweeping the area for mines so that we can safely move through the area, all while avoiding the remaining guards.
The Mine Detector is on the D key and does what you think it does.
The mines themselves also do what you think they do...
Further Frustrations
Attempt number four and I'm getting a little bit grumbly about this game. I know I'm making progress and I'm learning as I go, and I'm getting quite efficient with the first few tasks of this map, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking 'this is meant to be a little practice area of sorts, the actual game is going to be mental'.
I'm able to detect a mine without using my foot this time. Deactivating them doesn't require a hotkey, luckily, and you can pick them up afterwards for added security. Sweeping the area to the right reveals a couple more mines, so thinking that the Germans wouldn't mine their own guard post, I headed left and found a medkit. I'm sure that'll come in handy when I learn which key it's on.
Now armed with grenades, I get the bright idea to lob one into this group of soldiers. It goes quite well, and we can scratch off another four soldiers from this area.
The last remaining soldier was concerned about the explosion, running over to it to investigate, but upon seeing a pile of dead bodies, he resumed his regular routine as though it was the norm to see your squad explode. He didn't enter any alert stage, or stay in place and survey the area, he just gave up and went back to his job.
I can imagine that's for gameplay purposes so that players can actually complete stages or something, but it does break the illusion of a living world somewhat. For a game to look as detailed as this, but to have enemies who just don't care about explosions is a little weird. I'm on normal difficulty, but the options were normal, hard and very hard. Does the AI get smarter on harder difficulties? I hope so. Not that I'll ever find out at this rate, but I hope so.
I get back to mine detecting, and it is at this point that the soldier decides to look out for suspicious activity.
Scratch one Sapper off the map...
Attempt number five then. We're close. We're really close. We just need to not be an idiot. Can we do that?
Further Fun Times
Hell yes, we can. I've finally done it! With the aid of some YouTube hints and a lot of failed attempts, I've completed the first tutorial mission for Commandos 2, some 15 or so years after first trying. It feels good.
I look at the next tutorial mission, where a squad of troops are pinned down by fifteen or so German soldiers, and I know for a fact that it's too much for me right now. It can wait. I've not got another five attempts in me. Besides, I'll probably not have a clue how to tackle it until I see another YouTube video.
Final Word
And that's where I am with Commandos 2 - I can sort of play it, but have to rely on YouTube walkthroughs to know what to do (or try every single mission using trial and error, like I should do, but I don't have the patience for that, do I?). If I'm at that point, I might as well watch someone competent play the game instead of watching myself faffing through it, slowly.
It's great to finally be able to see what I was hoping to see way back when, but I've barely seen the tip of the iceberg here. There are multiple stereotypical characters to take on missions, and while there aren't too many missions, they're bigger and more detailed than what I've seen in this tutorial, and the detail on display there was enough to amaze me.
Each character has their own abilities, from setting traps to donning disguises and driving vehicles, and finding out how and when to use them results in maps becoming grand puzzles that'll test your timing and strategy.
Commandos 2: Men of Courage isn't without its flaws and funny ways of doing things, though. It's not as welcoming an experience as you might have hoped, for one. What it is is a joy to look at, and I'm going to be watching what I've been missing for however many years from the comfort of my chair, no inputs needed.
Set some time aside to try it, but do go in armed with a list of hotkeys. You'll need them. All of them.
FILLING YOU IN
What an insanely detailed, infinitely infuriating game. At least I'd imagine it'd be infuriating were I to have tried playing it, based on me remarkable efforts in the tutorial. No, I instead took to YouTube to watch Commandos 2 in all it's glory (or most of it - I think it has an HD re-release these days), and that's where the whole 'insanely detailed' part comes in.
It's kind of like Hitman meets Company of Heroes, which sounds great, but with greatness comes great long lists of reasons why your best plan failed. Do you have the patience to learn how to perfect your gameplay? Have you mastered the controls for when various levels go 'Ok, we're about to unleash waves of enemies onto the map. You prepared?'
Having watched hours of it, and remembering how far I got in my youth, and in this blog post years ago, I know I'm not ready. But I'd like to think that in some alternate universe there is a me who thoroughly enjoyed slogging through this game.
I say slogging, because there are some rather completionist-like objectives you're tasked with, although I suppose this particular one is a secondary objective: To clothe 80 (eighty) Colditz prisoners in individually stolen German uniforms... Yeah, I'm good, thanks.
If there's a game like this that isn't hard as nails, I think I'm interested to know about it. But Commandos 2: Men of Courage will perhaps forever be that title that proves I'm nothing of the sort.
Fun Facts
Despite a strong launch across multiple platforms, Commandos 2 didn't meet sales expectations. It's the peak of the series according to fans, and efforts to make it easier in later games only ended up making it more challenging to get into.
Commandos 2: Men of Courage, developed by Pyro Studios, first released in 2001.
Version played: PlayStation 2, 2002, via teenage memory
PC, 2001.
Version watched: PC, 2001 (Steve Ramsden)