Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3

March 13, 2008 - You, reader, are vigilant. If IGN screws up, you let us know. Whether it be a spelling error, a flub in summarizing the Metal Gear story or not knowing the latest street lingo, you're all over our mistakes. However, there's no need to pump out an angry e-mail to your favorite IGNer today.

This isn't a typo: Commando 3 is officially Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 now.

Capcom sprung the name switcheroo on the public this week at its Digital Day and let us get some hands-on time with the title as it rockets toward its spring release for 800 Microsoft Points or $9.99 on the PlayStation Network. The biggest news seemed to be that gamers who download the Xbox Live version of Commando 3 will be "automatically eligible" for the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Beta.

Yay.




Back to Commando 3, we took the trio of soldiers -- grizzled marine Wolf, knife-throwing Fox and explosives expert Coyote -- through a beach assault in October and had our fair share of fun as the game merged old school run-and-gun with crisp, cel-shaded graphics. We played a similar assault this week and had the same fun running down enemy forces with two offline friends, but we did notice a few more bells, whistles and firm details.

Combat in the throwback is pretty simple. The left thumbstick moves the character while the right one fires whatever gun you have in whatever direction you're pointing the stick. Each character has a set number of grenades he or she can carry as well as a devastating M-Crash move. We wrote a little bit about these super-moves in October, but we didn't really know what they were. When you use one of these moves -- an "M" on the HUD informs you of how many you have -- the action stops and a quick cartoon cutscene pops up that features shots of the soldier about to attack. Back to the action, the character unleashes a brutal move that flashes across the screen and clears out the opponents foolish enough to stand in its radius. You can replenish your supply of M-Crashes by picking up the specified, glowing icon from the many power-ups you'll see as you blow up hostage cages, huts and tanks.

Beyond that, our assault on the forces of evil were about what you'd expect. Machine guns tore bad guys apart, a combo multiplier kept climbing as the bombs kept flying and we got to try out turrets, green broad shot as well as a flamethrower. When we got hit and our combo was broken, cartoon lettering popped up -- something along the lines of "$#&%@!" -- to let us know the character wasn't happy.




One of the nifty draws to Commando 3 is the fact that all three players can climb into a vehicle and take the firefight to the road. After we took out a watchtower and a few storage containers, our squad was able to climb into a pimped out Army Jeep. One of us drove, one of us gunned from the shotgun seat and another guy manned the turret in the back. When the Jeep was wasted, it exploded, and we were tossed to our backs and ready to fight some more.

There are five levels to Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 -- our play session ended with us piloting a raft down a bad guy-lined river -- and they all seem to share the blast anything that move mantra. Shoot'em-up fans should be ready for deployment this spring.