Commando

Commando Arcade Game

Commando was an award winning Capcom game released in 1985.  The game became the influential standard for a number of other games, such as Ikari Warriors and Heavy Barrel.  Many of you will remember that this game was vertical scrolling game, where the player controls a soldier called Super Joe through a jungle.  As the game starts, Super Joe is dropped off in a helicopter, armed with a machine gun and grenades, and he must battle his way ahead, past armed enemies and other obstacles.  The machine gun, which has unlimited bullets, can be fired in 8 directions, whereas the grenades can only be tossed directly ahead.  Along the way, Joe can free POW’s for extra points.  As the end of each level is reached, Joe must battle a contingent of enemy soldiers streaming from a centralized gate.  If the soldiers are defeated, Joe moves on to the next level.

Commando Arcade Game Cabinet

There was a sequel released in 1989 called Mercs, and a downloadable version, called Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3, for the Playstation and Xbox in 2008.  In the 80’s, Commando was released on just about every home console and PC platform you could think of, like the Commodore 64, Atari 2600, Intellivision, NES, Amiga, and later on arcade classic compilations for more contemporary consoles like the Play Station and Xbox.  Players of the NES version will remember that you could not only upgrade your machine gun, but you could also get special glasses to allow you to see into hidden bunkers.