Monday, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day.




In 1985 I first encountered Commando at the One Stop mart in Farmington...it was not in good shape but after a few moments of playing I fell in love with the game. Luckily I found a better kept version at Showbiz Pizza on my first visit! The music for the game by the way is pretty dang addicting so be forewarned if you ever get the chance to play it.

The story is pretty simple. You are 'Super Joe' and it is your duty to wipe out every poor sap that happens to get in your way. You have unlimited ammunition, a handful of grenades, and the will to free P.O.W.'s and get 'em home. You can take on a massive horde of enemies, dodging their gunfire and returning it in full. Hopefully you can dodge their jeeps, this always gave me a problem back in the glory days. After clearing a level you a treated to an enemy dead count and witness Joe taking a smoke break.

Now I've always assumed this 'Super Joe' was the same character from the NES version of Bionic Commando, the guy you rescue, but a little research shows that in the states the Arcade version of B.C. states you are Super Joe and it is a direct sequel to Commando. The best bit of info I could find states that in Japan, Commando is called Wolf of the Battlefield. I like that name better.

An arcade sequel, not including B.C. was released and was called Mercs and just recently a third game was released to the X-Box 360 entitled Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3.

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