Clones & Ports of Commando

This article is concerned with computer-game clones and ports of Capcom's Commando coinop of 1985. Commando-likes are defined by me as shoot 'em ups that feature 4-way or 8-way single-unit movement, aiming and firing on scrolling playfields.

This article is only concerned with Commando clones and ports that appeared on Western computer game machines. The clones and ports are presented chronologically.

Scrolling Commando games are not the same Berzerk-likes (maze) or Robotron-likes (open-slather). However, all three come under Run and Gun games.

Commando-likes include the likes of Commando, Contra, Rambo and RoboCop.

Commando Commodore 64 1985

Capcom's Commando coinop of 1985 was ported to Commodore 64 in 1985 by Chris Butler of Japan Capsule Computers for Elite UK.

Commando IBM PC 1986

David Steffen of Quicksilver Software Inc. ported Capcom's Commando coinop of 1985 to IBM PC Booter in 1986. Commando displays in CGA 320x200 (224x128 playfield).

Gauntlet Commodore 64 1986

Atari Games' Gauntlet coinop of 1985 was ported to C64 by Bob Armour of Gremlin Graphics for US Gold in 1986. Gauntlet is an 8-way run n gun and hack n slash game that features smooth scrolling and a max of 50 on-screen sprites with no slowdown.

Gauntlet 2 was ported to the C64 by Stuart Gregg in 1987; the isometric Gauntlet 3 was ported to C64 by Martin Howarth in 1991.

Rambo Commodore 64 1986

Platinum Productions' Rambo: First Blood Part II on the Commodore 64 was impressive in 1986. A run and gun game, Rambo featured 8-way scrolling, movement and firing as well as six weapons, good music and 2-stage destructibility of trees and buildings. You can basically just flatten everything. And that's fun.

Ikari Warriors Commodore 64 1986

SNK's Ikari Warriors was ported to the C64 by John Twiddy of Elite Systems Ltd. Ikari Warriors features good presentation and is much harder than the PC-Booter version; it often displays a dozen on-screen soldiers and several bullets simultaneously, clogging the playfield with action.

Ikari Warriors IBM PC 1986

SNK's Ikari Warriors run and gun coinop of 1986 was converted to IBM PC Booter by Quicksilver Software. Ikari Warriors runs in 320x200 EGA graphics mode, but its vertically-scrolling playing field is only 208x132px, and its audio consists of naught but bleeps and blurps.

That said, this is a great port of the Ikari Warriors coinop in that it employs screen-draw tricks and compression techniques in order to maintain a colorful scrolling viewport, 8-way firing and two firing modes (gun / grenade) on a mere i808x with 256 kbytes of RAM.

The port features keyboard control or 2-button joystick input.

Exolon Commodore 64 1987

Nick Jones ported Exolon to the C64 in 1987 from Raffaele Cecco's original ZX Spectrum version of the same year. Flip-screen run and gun.

Into the Eagle's Nest 1987 ZX Spectrum

Kevin Parker's 1987 ZX Spectrum version is shown because it has the best viewport of the 8 bit versions.

Alien Syndrome Commodore 64 1988

Tim Rogers ported Sega's Alien Syndrome coinop of 1987 to the C64 in 1988.

Rambo 3 Commodore 64 1988

Ocean ported Taito's Rambo 3 coinop to most 8 and 16 bit micros, but I prefer the C64 version. Rambo 3 is a three-stage top-down flip-screen run and gun game that features a separate inventory screen and one dozen items and four different weapons. Movement and firing is 8-way. There is also a sprite-scaling, OpWolf-style level.

Robocop Commodore 64 1988

Data East's RoboCop coinop of 1988 was ported to C64 by John Meegan in 1988. The RoboCop movie came out in 1987.

Robocop ZX Spectrum 1988

The ZX Spectrum port of RoboCop was handled by Mike Lamb. RoboCop sold like hotcakes.

Zamzara Commodore 64 1988

Released in 1988, Jukka Tapanimaki's Zamzara is one of the best run and gun games on the Commodore 64. Zamzara features precise controls, silky-smooth parallax scrolling and H.R Giger-like sprites and backdrops. In addition, the soundscape is solid.

C64 original.

Contra IBM PC 1988

John Siegesmund of Banana Development ported Konami's Contra coinop of 1986 to IBM PC in 1988. Contra is displayed in 4-color CGA or 16-color CGA+ 320x200. Choppy scrolling. The in-game setup menu is displayed in 640x400.

Commando Amiga 1989

Capcom's Commando coinop of 1985 was ported to 8 and 16 bit micros from 1985 to 1989 by Elite. This is the 1989 Amiga version whose graphics are bland, washed-out and lack the basic details of the original coinop. The Amiga is capable of so much more than this:

Rambo 3 IBM PC 1989

John Siegesmund of Banana Development ported Taito's Rambo 3 coinop of 1989 to IBM PC in 1989. Rambo 3 is a three-stage top-down flip-screen run and gun game that features a separate inventory screen and one dozen items and four different weapons. Movement and firing is 8-way. There is also a sprite-scaling, OpWolf-style level.

Rambo 3 runs in 16-color VGA 320x200 (not 256-color), 16-color 320x200 EGA, 16-color 320x200 TGA or monochrome Hercules 720x350. It supports IBM, Adlib, CMS and Tandy 3-channel audio.

Robocop IBM PC 1989

Data East's RoboCop coinop of 1988 was ported to IBM PC by FACS Entertainment Software Inc. in 1989. The RoboCop movie came out in 1987.

Alien Syndrome IBM PC 1989

HSP of SEGA Enterprises Ltd. ported Sega's Alien Syndrome coinop of 1987 to IBM PC MS-DOS in 1989. The port is coded well and displayed in EGA graphics mode. Audio-visuals by Tahir Rashid.

Robocop Atari ST 1989

Peter Johnson's 1989 Atari ST and Amiga ports of Data East's Robocop coinop of 1988 constitute an early run and gun blockbuster.

Midnight Resistance Commodore 64 1990

Robbie Tinman of Special FX / Ocean Software ported Data East's Midnight Resistance coinop of 1989 to C64 in 1990. This is another solid port with good gameplay, audio-visuals and presentation. Midnight Resistance is a run and gun game that scrolls both horizontally and vertically. It features 8-way movement and 8-way firing as well as climbing, crawling and jumping. You collect keys to unlock different weapons and specials.

Graphics by Ivan Davies. Sound & music by Keith Tinman.

Navy SEALS Commodore 64 1990

Navy SEALS was coded for the C64 by John Meegan of Ocean Software in 1990.

Turrican & Turrican 2 Commodore 64 1990-91

Manfred Trenz of Rainbow Arts coded Turrican for the C64 in 1990. Turrican 2 of 1991 was also coded by Trenz (of Factor 5). Graphics by Andreas Escher.

Turrican is a C64 original game. Turrican 2 is an Amiga original.

Turrican Games Amiga 1990-93

In terms of taking advantage of the Amiga's custom chipset, Factor 5's Turrican run and gun games are first-class. The Turrican games were designed by Manfred Trenz, coded by Holger Schmidt and composed by Chris Hülsbeck.

Turrican and Turrican 2 also came out on the Atari ST. And while weaker than the Amiga versions in terms of audio-visuals, they were still great.

Turrican (1990, Manfred Trenz, Holger Schmidt): Ported from the C64 original by Factor 5.
Turrican 2 (1991, Holger Schmidt, Factor 5): An Amiga-first & an Amiga-best.
Turrican 3 (1993, Peter Thierolf, Factor 5): Ported from the Sega Genesis original by Kaiko.

Trenz also coded Katakis / Enforcer for the C64 and ported the R-Type arcade to the C64. Search article for strings: R-Type, Katakis, Enforcer.

Playing Turrican 2 in 1990 on an Amiga was like playing an arcade game: fast and smooth multi-directional parallax hardware scrolling at 50 FPS; big 360° rotating gun; epic arsenal; horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up segments; better music than most coinops.

Turrican 3 was good when it came out three years later, but it did not have anywhere near the impact on Amigans that Turrican and its sequel had. In fact, I can safely say that Tarzan-Turrican was a downgrade.

Super Contra IBM PC 1990

Eric Freytag of Distinctive Software Inc. ported Konami's Super Contra coinop of 1988 to IBM PC in 1990. Super Contra is displayed in 16-color EGA 320x200. Choppy scrolling. Graphics by DSI Art Team.

Midnight Resistance Amiga 1990

Special FX Ltd. ported Data East's Midnight Resistance run and gun coinop of 1989 to ST/Amiga in 1990. Midnight Resistance turned out to be one of the few decent ports of shooter coinops to 16 bit micros. However, the ST version was much brighter and clearer than the dimmed Amiga version. But the ST version employed awful "catch-up" scrolling and lacked in-game music. Here is the Amiga version with the WHDLoad brightness fix:

While the (fixed) Amiga version is a solid port of the original, Midnight Resistance on the Amiga could have been much, much better. And the WHDLoad fix basically saves the port's legacy because no one is going to play a 34 year-old dimly-lit computer game in 2024.

RoboCop 2 Commodore 64 1991

Ocean Software developed RoboCop 2 for the C64 in 1991.

War Zone Amiga 1991

Better than Commando and Mercs, War Zone is a fairly good ST/Amiga run and gun game developed by Core Design in 1991.

Alien Breed Amiga 1991

Mercs Amiga 1991

Then, in 1990-91, Tiertex ported Capcom's sequel to Commando, Mercs, to 8 and 16 bit micros. Again, here is the 1991 Amiga version which lacks the smooth scrolling and responsive controls of the original coinop, as well as many of its details:

Both Commando and Mercs are top-down run and gun games that failed to impress me back in the day, let alone in 2024.

Duke Nukem IBM PC 1991

Duke Nukem 2 IBM PC 1993

RoboCop 3 Commodore 64 1993

Neil Coxhead of Probe Software ported Digital Image Design's 1991 Amiga version of RoboCop 3 to the C64 in 1993.

Cannon Fodder Amiga 1993

Sensible Software's Cannon Fodder is a mouse-driven point-and-click run and gun game originally coded for the Amiga. Cannon Fodder employs a modified engine of Sensible Software's English Football Computer Games.

As one the highlights of the Amiga-games catalogue Cannon Fodder features smooth scrolling, precise controls, great graphics and excellent music and sound effects.

Cannon Fodder was designed by Jonathan "Jops" Hare and coded by Jools Jameson. Its graphics were drawn by Stoo Cambridge and its audio was assembled by Richard Joseph and Allister Brimble.

Cannon Fodder was ported to ST, MS-DOS and Archimedes. Offering more of the same, Cannon Fodder 2 was released in 1994 on Amiga and MS-DOS only.

Chaos Engine Amiga 1993: NODE ACTIVATED

Developed by the Bitmap Brothers in 1993 for ST/Amiga, The Chaos Engine is a top-down run and gun game that features 2-player coop and 8-way scrolling and firing. In one-player mode the AI controls the other soldier.

And while its audio-visuals are top-tier its scrolling is not silky-smooth and its collision detection is off, just like Xenon 2. And I considered TCE overrated, even back in the day. Just like Xenon 2.

I believe that such assets and "character builds" would have been better employed in a tactical turn-based game.

TCE coded by Steve Cargill. Graphician was Dan Malone. Audio by Richard Joseph.

Chaos Engine IBM PC 1994

Scott Walsh of Wave Software converted the 16-bit Chaos Engine of 1993 to IBM PC MS-DOS in 1994. The 256-color VGA 320x200 is superior to the Amiga version in terms of framerate.

Abuse IBM PC 1996

Abuse is a stylish run and gun game developed by Crack Dot Com in 1996 for MS-DOS 5.0. Running in VGA 320x200 256-color graphics mode, Abuse features multi-directional scrolling and firing, seven different weapons, jumping, climbing, teleporters, and destructibility of walls, floors and ceilings.

Targeting is conducted via on-screen mouse-controlled crosshairs. The controlled character can fire in one direction while moving in another (strafing). The character battles mutants, robots, turrets, fliers, mines and forcefields.

Abuse requires an i80486/DX2-50 MHz CPU, 8 megs of RAM, 400 kbytes conventional memory, 1 megs vRAM and 13 megs of storage space. Abuse also supports networking. And it can run under Windows 95 to Windows XP, not just MS-DOS.

It would have been awesome if Abuse was coded in and drawn for square-pixel SVGA 640x480.

Abuse Weapons System: Laser, Incendiary Grenade Launcher, Heat-seeking Rocket Launcher, Napalm, Energy Rifle, Novaspheres, Death Sabre.

Abuse coded by Jonathan Clark.

IBM PC original.

cf.

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Commando Clones and Ports (Commando-likes)