Earlier this year, the developers of Yippee! Entertainment & Pyro Studios gave us a lovely present: a remastered edition of Commandos 2: Men of Courage called Commandos 2 – HD remaster. It’s a polished version of the game that was released all the way back in 2001 and changed the RTS genre for good. A lot has changed since 2001 when it first was released for PC, Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Mac OS. Now there are better graphics, faster consoles and the players of then are 19 years older. So let’s have a look at Commandos 2 – HD remaster and see if it’s still gold.
What we liked!
- Graphics: To improve the graphics of a game that was released all the way back in 2001, you usually don’t have to do that much. Yet, the developers have managed to keep the old vibe alive with this remastered version, and although everything looks better and newer, the game still provides that classic feeling that it had back in the days. And I’m sure that a lot of people who played the game back then will get relive those nostalgic feelings when playing the new version.
Somewhere between
- Sound: An aspect that they clearly didn’t remaster is the sounds of the game. Okay, yes maybe they polished this up a little bit, but they didn’t change much music-wise. On the one hand, it’s nice that they want to keep the old spirit alive, but on the other hand, why not remaster everything when working on a remastered version? In the end, everything still ties together very well, and it isn’t necessarily bad.
- Censor: One controversial point is that the developers censored and removed certain Nazi and Japanese symbols from the game. I can definitely understand why they would remove such things from the game since it’s 2020 and the events are in the past. And of course, some countries could forbid that the game is being sold there if some symbols were in it. Yet, there is still a discussion going on whether or not it is good or bad that they censored everything, and eventually, everyone should decide for themselves.
What we disliked
- Bugs: One of the major problems within the game, is the presence of tons of bugs. The developers try to come up with solutions for them but where one disappears, another one shows up. And it isn’t just the tiny things that are buggy, it’s the controls, opening your inventory, and even just clicking on certain things will trigger a bug. It’s such a shame the original game has been around since 2001 and worked perfectly, and now the remastered version, which should be better, is actually worse.
- Missing features: Another really bad point is that the game is missing certain features that were around with its original release. I won’t go through all of them but the biggest one is the option to play in multiplayer mode or even in split-screen. They have completely removed it from the game. Sure, it’s still a good solo-player game (not taking into account all the bugs), but the multiplayer option would’ve added a lot more value to Commandos 2 – HD Remaster.
After all this time, the game is still a classic in the RTS-genre. And if you really, really love this game, I’m sure you will still enjoy it. However, there are a lot of problems and bugs with Commandos 2 – HD Remaster, which just doesn’t make it worth the 20 Euros that they are asking for it.
Also, removing the multiplayer is a bad move in my eyes. It’s 2020 and one of the most important things in games at this moment. But again, if you really love the solo-player campaign and are willing to accept the bugs, you can give it a go.