Commando Zzap Review

• Elite, £9.95 cassette, joystick only

Elite's Commando is the licensed version of the classic Capcom arcade game which has captivated thousands of arcade gamers all over Britain.

The game places you in the role of a super crack commando with a mission to penetrate deep behind enemy lines and destroy their well guarded fortress. This mission takes place over a vertically scrolling landscape and you, armed with a few grenades and a sub machine gun, have to take on the entire enemy army single handed.

There are boxes of grenades lying around the battlefield which you can pick up to replenish your stock, but otherwise you just have to use skill, reflexes and sub machine gun to survive.

To reach the fortress you first have to pass through two areas, each with its own mini fortress at the end. When you take a mini fortress you are transported to the second area, and after that it's the final run up to the main fortress. If you take and destroy that then you start the second mission which takes place over the same landscape and has to be completed in similar style, although the soldiers are far more hostile.

When you approach a fortress its doors open and loads of soldiers pour out, spewing bullets from their guns and lobbing grenades all over the shop. To take the fortress you have to destroy every soldier — not a trivial task by any means. When you've killed all the soldiers your man automatically runs through the fortress gates, a message of congratulations is printed up on screen and you are taken to the next area.

Each area has its own features and hazards. Level one is comparatively easy, but by the time you reach level three the going gets really tough, with lots of obstacles to thwart swift forward progress. Naturally, there are loads of enemy soldiers swarming all over the place, but luckily they're only armed with single shot rifles and grenades. Even so their sheer numbers often becomes totally overpowering.

There are two specialist weapons used by enemy soldiers: bazookas and mortars. Mortar bombers don't pose too much of a threat, since they can only fire one pretty inaccurate shot at a time. Bazooka carriers, on the other hand, are deadly and fire round after round of lethal shells which explode in a large cloud of deadly flak.

Vehicles trundle about the landscape. They come in various shapes and sizes and include trucks, jeeps and motorbikes. They've all got to be avoided, but can be destroyed with a well-aimed hand grenade. Jeeps can cause problems, as they carry a gunner armed with a sub machine gun and spell doom if you're not busy pegging it in the opposite direction. Lorries, too, are deadly and carry many soldiers who pile out when their transport stops.

Super Commando takes out a threatening tree — you can't trust em...

The landscape is very barren — well, what do you expect for a desert? Dotted around are trees, little hills (usually the enemy come belting down their slopes) and rivers (there are always bridges to cross them — you might be a commando but you can't swim)!

Area one is pretty deserted with only a few trees and hills, although there is a bridge under which you have go. The bridge is narrow, and there's usually plenty of enemy soldiers just waiting to pounce on you on the other side. After the bridge there are rocks which the enemy use for cover and after these, the first mini fortress.

Area two is where things start getting tough. Foxholes filled with soldiers block your path, and the only way to kill the soldiers is by lobbing grenades on them. While you're trying to do that they're busily trying to machine gun you down, just to make your life a misery. There are also another two bridges, one to go under and one to go over (it gets you across a river). Buildings and bunkers start to make an appearance too. Yet more soldiers pour from the buildings, while a fusillade of bullets comes from the bunkers.

The final run, area three, has all the hazards found in the earlier sections, only in far greater numbers. On this rush you're forced to cross an airport which has lookout towers complete with machine gun wielding soldiers at the top. Great gangs of bazooka carriers make the going really tough — they emerge from each side of the screen and fire their shells diagonally, making them very difficult to dodge.

Points are awarded for disposing of enemy soldiers and vehicles and a hefty bonus can be earned by killing two guards who hold a colleague of yours prisoner. However, once you liberate you ally, he disappears, rather than helping you fight your battle.

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