Commando: Steel Disaster

Developer: Mana Comp Software
Publisher: XS Games
Release Date: Sept. 2, 2008
System: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: E10+
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Not a disaster, but hard as steel.

0:00 Yet another game I had never heard of until it showed up in my mailbox. The back of the box makes it look like a Metal Slug knockoff, which gets my hopes up a bit.

0:01 Synth-heavy metal-techno plays over a sprawling, two-screen image of a Commando with a huge gun slung over his shoulder. Normal and Hard are the selectable difficulties. I hate choosing the lowest available level, but I'm not quite ready to dive in to "Hard."

0:03 "Emergency! Emergency!" says Jessica. "Hey, what's wrong," asks Storm, the guy from the title screen. "Snow Lab is being attacked by X-1." Not Snow Lab! Apparently X-1 is OUR newest weapon, but it went berserk and attacked. The dialogue boxes don't have a space after the periods ... VERY annoying.

0:04 Just like that, I'm racing in on a snowmobile. I can jump over land mines and lean back to fire at rocket pack-equipped enemies in the air. This is fun!

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer