By Commandos: Origins delivers quite a nostalgic journey that brings back a lot of fond memories from my early days of playing PC games for the first time.
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines and Beyond the Call of Duty were two of the first games I ever played on the very first PC I owned.
Those two games actually arrived pre-installed with the Intel Pentium II PC that my parents bought me, which was a pre-owned machine. And I remember playing the hell out of these games back then.
I later played Commandos 3 and then Commandos Strike Force, which was a first-person shooter-style experience. I loved every one of the games in this series.
As you can imagine, I was looking forward to playing Commandos: Origins for a long time, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it as a solid title in the real-time tactics series.
Commandos: Origins is definitely worth playing. Since the game is a prequel to the first Commandos game, it can be considered a great entry point for players who are new to the series. As well as a must-play for long-time fans of the original games.
What is Commandos: Origins
Commandos: Origins is a real-time tactics game where you take control of a group of World War II veterans and command them on various secret missions.
Each commando is specialized in a different set of skills, and it’s your task to use them to complete the missions.
Commandos: Origins features 14 different missions that take place in a variety of environments. Most of the missions are based on actual historical events from World War II, and they have multiple objectives for you to complete using the provided resources.
You can complete these missions in many different ways. Stealth is key to completing these missions and achieving the highest ratings. But you can always use guns and explosives to do the missions your own way.
Commandos: Origins is a prequel to the first game of the series, Behind Enemy Lines, which came out in 1998. In this game, you will experience how this group of commandos meets each other and gets their band together for the first time.
Classic Gameplay
Commandos: Origins brings back the familiar classic top-down gameplay experience from the original games, but with a few modern twists.
When I first launched the game, I immediately felt familiar with the controls and the UI as it featured pretty much the same controls as the original games. Except this game made a few good improvements.
In the original games, players didn’t have much control over the map, and zooming in did not offer a great view. I was delighted to experience better zoom-in and smooth map rotation in this game.
Each commando in the game comes with their own special abilities and skills, as it always has been. And they have been completely revamped for this game.
Each skill, action, movement, and voiceovers has been crafted from scratch for Commandos: Origins. And it helps deliver a fresh experience through this game.
Origins focuses heavily on stealth gameplay. You can still run and gun, but you are only rewarded when you play as a group of silent assassins.
Origins also incentivize you to explore the entire map by placing collectibles in each mission to gather.
New Toys & Command Mode
The game also introduces a few new toys for each commando, which allows you to take down enemies in new and more creative ways. I had quite some fun experimenting with these tools by combining the abilities of different commandos.
The map is also much more interactive in Origins than in the previous games. You can now even utilize destructible parts of buildings and environments to get rid of enemies.
One of the best new mechanics in Origins is the Command Mode. In this mode, you are able to freeze time and plan your actions using multiple commandos. And then they will perform those actions at the same time.
This new game mechanic offers a better perspective for players to take time and plan their moves more carefully. Although, admittedly, I only used Command Mode a couple of times as I was completely in awe of the game while playing each mission.
Graphics & Performance
The map detailing and the visual atmosphere of each map were quite stunning. The same can be said about the sound effects and the voiceovers.
In the first few days, I experienced a slight lag while navigating the map. And then things improved by quite a bit after the 1.1 patch, followed by an NVIDIA driver update that smoothed things out.
Other than that, my experience with Origins has been quite stable. I came across a few minor sound bugs and glitches, like commandos getting stuck in places. But nothing game-breaking.
Is It Worth Buying?
One thing I love about Commandos games is that they don’t hold your hand. The game just drops you into a map with a set of objectives and it’s your job to figure things out.
This involves a lot of trial and error, but that’s part of the joy this type of game brings. You will have to stare at the map, plan ahead, and take your time with the game, but you will always feel rewarded every time you finish a mission.
Commandos: Origins is not a game meant for everyone, but if you enjoy the type of games that test your strategic thinking skills, you will enjoy this game quite a bit.
The game offers quite a lot of replay value as well. You can replay each mission to try different paths, like attempting to kill all enemies on a map or without using the new Command Mode. You can try to achieve the highest ratings and collect all the collectibles.
At $50, it’s a solid game to play, especially if you’re a fan of the series. If you managed to catch the game at a discount, don’t hesitate to grab it.
Commandos: Origins is like the modern reboot of an iconic series, and I hope the developers will continue to make sequels for this game.
