A Real Commando Steel Disaster
I had walked passed Commando Steel Disaster a few times at Gamestop before resolving to buy it and give it a shot and coming down from playing Metal Slug 7 I was disappointed to say the least. For a title that seems to blatantly rip-off the Metal Slug series there are sharp contrasts that place it far below the source material. In addition to an exceptionally weak plot as well as difficult that would make even the most grizzled Metal Slug veteran curse and throw their DS in frustration, the overall presentation of the title makes me wonder why I ever picked up the title in the first place.
But reassuringly, it gives me something doubtlessly fun to hate.
Well, maybe hate is too strong of a word. But there were points in the game where I definitely felt that it just may not be strong enough of a word. During the opening level of gameplay, which smacks of nuance to Metal Slug, the frustrating difficulty slightly aggravated me to the point of having to walk away a few times, only to come back and be freshly irritated with each new playthrough. Eventually, I made it through the first level and onwards, but the title only has five levels. Believe me, after initially judging this as being a prospectively short game, the ridiculously steeped difficulty with keep anyone crazy enough to play this title beginning to end busy for months, if not longer. I have no problem with short games, as long as they are fun, interesting and overall an enriching gameplay experience and make me a happier gamer all for it, but this had none of that for the length of the presented title .
Length taken into account, the plot of the title is ridiculous at the very least. Side scrolling shooters are not meant to have stories, and while some have presented them exceptionally well, they have either fleshed out the initial story in later iterations or it has all been on paper for those willing to hunt for said backstory or read through the manual for it. I never really felt attached to the main character, his mission or anything of the like beyond shooting the bad guys in front of me and dodging the obscene amount of ordinance being returned in my oncoming direction. On the contrary, I've played Metal Slug since the series was released, own the anthology and prior to playing Commando Steel Disaster played through Metal Slug 7, which left me feeling quite warm and fuzzy inside.
My largest contention with most comparisons in the video game world is when titles are compared that really have nothing to do with each other. However, this title is a obvious play off of the popularity that has been achieved, cult status or otherwise, by Metal Slug but fails to deliver on the enjoyable gameplay that made the series so popular and give it such a longevity that has kept it on the radar of most gamers since the Neo Geo days. But I don't feel like I'm griping in the wind here when I say that if the intention of CSD was to capitalize on what made Metal Slug so well done, they could have done it far better than what I picked up off the shelf and put in my DS.
I won't say that this title will even come close to alienating me from randomly picking up games for my DS, because then I would run out of things to hate, but if you are going to go to the trouble of having a title go from storyboard to design and beyond into implementation and sale, then at least try and steal the ideas from the original that made it a well done title instead of sucking the fun out of it like a knife-wielding monkey in a moon bounce. For the money I paid, which thankfully wasn't much, as the title was used during my initial purchase I would rather have picked up something closer to the passable game Commando Steel Disaster was trying to be instead of the pile of mucous that it ended up being.