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I was talking for a while with
some friends about the evolution of Capcom over the years, and
how whenever the company changes artistic directions and game
design styles they never, ever look back. Remember the
detailed, extremely colorful games like Final Fight and Willow
they used to release in the early '90s? Although they're
still attractive and very fun to play, it doesn't look like
Capcom will ever go back to that style of game design again...
and that's a little depressing. Similarly, Capcom hasn't
even touched the military shooter genre for almost a decade,
even though 1943 and Commando were the games that first got
them noticed in America. It doesn't look like they'll
ever make another game like Commando again, but at least the
fourth volume of their generation series lets you enjoy the
original as well as its sequel, MERCS, and Gun.Smoke, the
oddball sequel set in the old west.
Starting things off is Commando,
perhaps the first Capcom release that really clicked with
Americans. Its military theme, attractive graphics, and
an endless supply of Nazis to slaughter gave Capcom the solid
footing in US arcades they just couldn't get with bland
shooters like Vulgus. However, what was sadistic fun in
the late 80's isn't all that and a bag of K-rations now...
about the only thing in Commando that hasn't been surpassed by
more recent shooters is its level of difficulty. Not
only is your soldier grossly outnumbered, he's outgunned and
outclassed as well. Pat pointed out so many examples of
this while I was playing that I couldn't help but notice a few
myself... the Germans can throw their own body weight in
grenades, have motorcycles that can survive a direct hit from
a nuclear blast, and hide in Axis-friendly trenches that
double as death traps for American troops. Worst of all,
Aryan breeding (or more accurately, inbreeding) has made the
krauts deadly to the touch, and although there was a knife in
one of the home versions of Commando that let you survive one
encounter with Hitler's henchmen, it sure ain't
here.
 Commando
shows almost as much mercy as a drill sargeant frustrated with
his new recruits, and some players crave that kind of
challenge. However, if you'd prefer to put yourself on
more even ground with the enemy forces and call in a couple of
friends just to be on the safe side, you'll want to fire up
MERCS instead. I didn't notice much of a difference
between this direct port of the arcade game and the supposedly
diluted Genesis version, but it's a whole lot more impressive
than Commando... your troopers (up to three if you've got a
multi-tap) are given much more powerful weapons that can tear
through houses, tanks, and even entire cliff walls, and unlike
Commando, which demanded pinpoint precision when throwing
grenades, your emergency weapon is pretty much fire and
forget... just tap a button and everything in the middle of
the screen is instantly charred by a brightly colored
explosion. Pat complained that all this, plus the life
bar that lets you survive everything from grenade blasts to
tank shells, sucks all the challenge out of MERCS, but I don't
mind. I've always had a spot in my heart for games
intended to delight the senses rather than test the player's
skills, and MERCS is definitely one of those games.
Finally, there's Gun.Smoke, an
unintentionally silly Commando spin-off set in the old
west. Surprisingly, the sheriff in the game is much
better armed than his World War II counterpart, firing streams
of bullets from his pair of six guns (and apparently reloading
them at light speed). The tradeoff is that the gunman
has no grenades (seeing as they haven't been invented yet),
and he has a nasty habit of aiming his weapons in every
direction but where the enemies actually are. OK, OK...
that's a slight exaggeration. Still, if someone sneaks
behind you there isn't much you can do about it other than
dance around him or, if there are dozens of bullets headed
your way, just take a knife in the back. If you're
really lucky, you might find a horse icon hidden in one of the
barrels along the way, bringing out a bullet-resistant steed
which cushions you from a handful of these cheap hits.
While it's hard to complain about that, it doesn't really look
like you're riding a horse when you pick up this icon...
rather, it just looks like the sheriff's ass has grown three
times its normal size. If that's not weird enough,
picking up lit sticks of dynamite gives you points rather than
blowing your arm off. Maybe the sheriff is defusing them
by stuffing them up his gigantic butt... I don't
know.
Getting off that topic (as
quickly as possible), the emulation of all three games is
close to perfect... it's certainly a lot better than what MAME
could do on a computer with the Saturn's clock speed.
The games on Midway's two greatest hits collections seemed
just a bit closer to the arcade versions, but that's probably
because Midway had less complex games to emulate, and used
more accurate resolutions for each of them. Capcom
Generations Volume 4 lets you try three different screen sizes
for each of the games on the disc, and none of them are quite
on target. One puts the screen on the left and a status
window on the right, and although Capcom tried to make up for
this by putting the selected game's cabinet artwork in the
status bar along with your score and number of lives, it still
takes away from the game's arcade feel, and the cabinet art
was shrunken so much that most of the smaller details are
either gone or too fuzzy to see... Capcom should have let you
view larger scans in a museum of some sort instead of trying
to smash them into the games themselves. The second
option stretches out the screen, making the characters larger
and keeping the score and lives where they belong, but then
you have to put up with slightly distorted artwork, which can
get really aggravating if you're playing the superdetailed
MERCS. Finally, the truly discriminating arcade nut can
turn his television on its side, play the games with their
intended resolution and aspect ratio for five minutes, then
shriek in horror as his TV shorts out, catches the curtains on
fire, and burns down his house. I can't blame Capcom for
adding this feature- after all, most other console emulators
have it, too- but anyone anal enough to actually consider
using it probably already own the arcade games (don't laugh...
I can think of at least two GRB staffers that do have their
own arcade machines. I'll make it three if I ever find
one at an auction).
The only people who would really
want this collection are the few but proud gamers who would
give the shirt off their backs to Capcom, and replace it with
a Resident Evil 2 jacket just to make them happy. There
isn't enough here to keep the average Jess- I mean Joe!- from
playing Commando, MERCS, and Gun.Smoke on their computers
without paying a cent for the opportunity. However, if
you remember playing these games regularly at your local
arcade and feel that you deserve some kind of reward for your
best scores, Capcom Generations Volume 4 is as close to a
badge of honor as you're going to get. |
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Capcom Generation Volume
4
Capcom
Classic Collection
 
For an extra helping of classic
Capcom goodness, try the Capcom Classic Collection series on
the Playstation 2 and Xbox!
Very little Japanese comes between
you and the games in the collection. Commando and its
sequel are renamed Senjo no Okami (Okami, you say...?), but
that's about it.
Each of the games take a few
seconds to load, but after that it's smooth
sailin'!
A single dot separates Gun.smoke
from a Viacom lawsuit. Oh, Capcom, you and your sneaky
punctuation!
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