One of our favorite genres is definitely the Shoot-‘em-up(shmup), and the Xbox Live Arcade is in no short supply of games to scratch my itch. Arcane-Gambit and I have blown our way through hordes of enemy troops, and hope to see no end in sight. The most recent shmup to feel our combined strike is Backbone Emeryville’s Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3. In such a saturated market, do these commandos have what it takes to eliminate hostile competition?
Gameplay
Shmups aren’t typically known as juggernauts when it comes to compelling stories, and Wolf is no exception. You play as the Jackals, an elite group of commandos called in for those situations that require a “delicate” attention to detail that only they can provide. The story begins in the past, with Wolf, Coyote, and Fox taking on an enemy force at a beach, only to be captured. Five years later, they are found by the government and commissioned to prevent nuclear war and stop the evil Zalestad. This story is delivered through two sequences that are essentially just nicely drawn still shots. The story is a bit shaky and hard to piece together, and sometimes feels like a tacked-on afterthought.
No shmup can stand without good gameplay, and while Wolf offers a solid experience, it never excels. Gambit and I both agree that the best aspect of this gameplay is the wonderful 80’s feel the top-down gameplay provides, while still being distinctly modern. Each character has his or her own feel, with different ratings in health, speed, and grenades. At the start of the game, each commando has a standard machinegun, but this weapon can be upgraded in power, or switched with one of three other weapons: the spread gun, flamethrower, and the rocket launcher. The commandos also have a trump card at their disposal with the powerful M-Crash attack that wipes out any foot soldier on the screen after an animation unique to each character is displayed. Through the course of the game, the Jackals will make their way through five levels, ranging from a jungle to a prison. The levels are of a fair length, around 7-10 minutes each, depending on how much time you spend exploring for secrets. It is a bit irritating that you cannot utilize the level select until you beat the game, making it harder to practice certain areas. Although there are four difficulty settings, the enemy AI and health doesn’t seem to change, the only difference is how many lives you have. The game is fairly easy to begin with, and this doesn’t help make it any harder. Sadly, the bosses are fairly uninspired, with two of them being palette swaps with slightly different attacks, and the third being a multi-formed but predictable enemy with low health. It’s also a moot point, but fans of achievements may want to be wary of this title, as it does have a few that are worth an odd number of points. While the gameplay is solid, it’s fairly commonplace for the genre and there is never anything that really stands out and makes Wolf seem like a unique entry.
The highest billed aspect of Wolf is undoubtedly its multiplayer component. While there is no offline multiplayer, Wolf does allows for up to three people to take on Zalestad via Xbox LIVE, and is a very smooth mode, as there is little to no lag present. The enemies also have more health depending on how many people you have in the room. Teamwork is essential to this mode, and Gambit and I often found each other shouting out enemy locations or telling one of us to watch our six. There are some irritating aspects to this mode, though. For example, you can only launch full rooms, meaning that if you create a room for three people, but your third doesn’t show up, you have to recreate a room for two. You are also dumped back to the main menu after completing a game on LIVE, meaning you can’t easily get back with the same group of people to try again if you failed your mission. It’s also no fault of the developer’s but the online community is rather dead, and it’s hard to even find one match at any given time.
Graphics
Wolf uses some nice 3D graphics in its top-down gameplay, and they look smooth and crisp. Gambit was a huge fan of the animated, cel-shaded look used, although I would preferred for the animated style to be given more opportunities to shine. There is very little slow down during when things get hectic, although there are a couple of chugs during the game, most notably in the prison level. On the subject of the prison, the first part of the level has some falling ash or snow that is very easily confused with bullets, and there are also some other effects used in the game that can obscure the action. More troubling is that there are some enemies that look a bit like Fox, so it can be hard keeping track of yourself during a hectic multiplayer game. The menus are done with the same animation style as the two story sequences, but they are a bit intrusive when you go to leave matches, as a whole screen transitions in and blocks what is going on.
Sound
The music in the game is a bit on the cheesy side and is the sort of clichéd military tough guy music you would expect from a bad action flick, but it seems at home in the game. As far as sound effects go, they are pretty standard shooting and grunting sounds, and the explosions sound decent.
Controls
One of the nicest parts of Wolf is how simple the controls are. The left stick is used to move, the right stick is used to fire, the right trigger handles your grenades, and the left trigger is the M-Crash. You get into vehicles by running into them, and leave them by pressing A. For such simple controls, though, there are some big caveats. The vehicles are a bit hard to control, especially if you are trying to turn yourself around or just trying to go in reverse. Gambit traditionally took care of the driving during our time playing, and he likens going in reverse to a nightmare, and he is right. Luckily, the vehicles have a high amount of health. On foot, the border of the stage presents some problems with trying to move around and dodge enemy shots, as you don’t have the very edge of a stage to move around. There is also some delay in switching shooting directions that can often end up with you taking a hit.
Conclusion
Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 is a fun game to play with a friend, and isn’t too bad by yourself either. It isn’t a bad game, it’s just simply mediocre and there never seems to be any one factor that really distinguishes it from other entries in the genre.
