History VideoGame / Commandos

* BlatantItemPlacement: Averted in most of the games. In ''Behind Enemy Lines'', ''Beyond the Call of Duty'' and ''Destination Berlin'', the commandos find new ammunition and explosives in crates paradropped by the Allies or held by the Germans. In ''Men of Courage'', they also find items in containers like wardrobes, [[SafeCracking safes]] or desks, and their contents are usually logical (for example, foods, medikits, wine or sleeping pills in civilian houses; weapons, ammunition, and uniforms in barracks; explosives and ammunition in warehouses).

* BlatantItemPlacement:
** Averted in most of the games. In ''Behind Enemy Lines'', ''Beyond the Call of Duty'' and ''Destination Berlin'', the commandos find new ammunition and explosives in crates paradropped by the Allies or held by the Germans. In ''Men of Courage'', they also find items in containers like wardrobes, [[SafeCracking safes]] or desks, and their contents are usually logical (for example, foods, medikits, wine or sleeping pills in civilian houses; weapons, ammunition, and uniforms in barracks; explosives and ammunition in warehouses).
** Played straight in ''Destination Paris'', in which a lot items can be found in place where they don't make sense, usually lying on the floor (inside, outside, or underwater). Like an unloaded Bazooka on the floor near one exit of a Japanese bunker, a German sub-machine gun in the middle of a river in the Thailand jungle, winter clothes and a fully functional rifle in the sea under the pack ice, a British flamethrower on the pack ice just behind a German destroyer, sleeping pills and wine under the sea in the Pacific Ocean, etc.

* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: Averted by the Spy and the Thief in the original games (''Commandos: Strike Force'' Spy is an American agent, not a French one), and by the French Resistance in the series as a whole.

* IronicNickname: Most of the characters have fairly descriptive nicknames: the explosive specialist is Inferno, the uncanny master of disguises is Spooky, the guy who swam across the English channel is Fins... and then, there's Tiny, who is [[TheBigGuy simply huge]]. Averted in ''Destination Berlin'' where his nickname is [[KnifeNut Butcher]][[note]]Interesting case of {{Woolseyism}}: in the French and English editions of the games, he is nicknamed "Butcher" in the whole series[[/note]].

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: A FightingIrish BloodKnight with a propensity for GoodOldFisticuffs and [[KnifeNut knife play]] who was convicted of striking an officer, an aristocratic ColdSniper, an [[TheAlcoholic alcoholic]] who swam the English channel ''on a bet'', a MadBomber, an American criminal who joined the British army to escape the US authorities, a former member of French embassy personal in Germany and MasterOfDisguise, a thief and [[SensualSlavs Russian seductress]].

* ArmyOfOne: In the original game the Green Beret is the most capable commando by a great margin, the best -- and sometimes only -- weapon of choice except for aquatic actions and detonations that don't involve fuel barrels. Subsequent games balance things out giving more polyvalency to the other commandos (for instance expanding the vital ability to knock guards and carry their bodies).

* NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly: The series is somewhere between RealTimeStrategy and StealthBasedGame. It becomes its own genre (the other most well-known games of this genre being the ''VideoGame/{{Desperados}}'' series).

* ClownCarBase: In ''Behind Enemy Lines'' and ''Beyond the Call of Duty'', some garrisons housing a few dozens of submachine gun-equipped soldier are ''really'' small. Mercifully, destroying these before setting off the alarm (or, more likely, in the process of it) will prevent reinforcements from exiting these buildings.

* AngryGuardDog: Mercifully, they appear rarely enough, but when they do, being spotted by one, especially as part of a patrol, spells trouble for the commandos, as they're fast, can take more damage than soldiers, and can whittle down your health fairly quickly.

** The Shinano aircraft carrier has not been sunk by an air raid but by a submarine.
** ''Beyond the Call of Duty'' has a mission where the Commandos must kidnap the head of security of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf%27s_Lair Wolf's Lair]], in order to facilitate an imminent plot against Hitler. The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_July_plot historical plot against Hitler which happened at the Wolf's Lair]] was completely planned by the German resistance with no implication of the Western Allies. Furthermore, despite having planned (but never executed) assassination attempts against Hitler, British services eventually decided to not execute such an operation.[[note]]This had two reasons. First for ethical reasons: murdering the opposing leader was considered as fighting too dirty. Second, because they considered Hitler's strategic blunders were favoring the Allies in the long term, then a successful assassination attempt would have result in hitler being replaced either by a competent strategist or by someone who listened to his military advisors (either way, it would make the German army more efficient, and the war longer).[[/note]]

''Commandos'' is a RealTimeStrategy StealthBasedGame franchise set in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, by Spanish game developer Pyro Studios. In each game of the series, the player commands an elite squad of Allied soldiers/spies and tries to accomplish various kinds of missions behind enemy lines - ideally without getting caught and/or killed by Axis troops.

* ClickHello: In ''Behind Enemy Lines'' and ''Beyond The Call Of Duty'', ordinary soldiers (ie. not patrols or machine gunners) don't always open fire immediately upon spotting a commando, instead holding him up at gunpoint unless provoked by seeing a dead body, hearing a gunshot or the commando does anything other than standing still (and there is even a game setting for whether the commandos should obey or ignore an enemy yelling "''Halt!''" at them at gunpoint). Although this can be exploited to distract lone guards with one commando as bait while the Green Beret sneaks up from behind for a silent kill, any other soldier who sees the hold-up and isn't prevented by their scripting from ditching their post will immediately run over to join the hold-up. which is both a good thing and a bad thing: while it can potentially allow the Green Beret to knife all of them in the back in one go if no one else is looking their way, some soldiers are scripted to shoot on sight. On rare occasions where the map has a jail, any patrol seeing the hold-up will immediately run over and hauls the commando off to lock him up - but if the map doesn't have a jail, they just open fire on sight, which ticks off everyone else into opening fire as well.

** The first Normandy mission of ''Destination Berlin'' is related to the ammunition warehouse of the German base. Destroying it without stealing all the explosives in the crates will make the mission unwinnable (see Unwinnable By Insanity in the YMMV page), as the Sapper doesn't begin the mission with enough explosives to destroy all the targets in his backpack.

* UnintentionallyUnwinnable:
** The first "Normandy" mission of ''Destination Berlin''. It requires to destroy a lot of German stuff, but the Sapper doesn't begin with enough explosive for the mission. There is more bombs in an ammunition warehouse, which is one of the objectives to be destroyed. Blowing it will makes it inside unreachable, so blowing it first without emptying it makes the mission unwinnable.
** "Dying Light" from ''Beyond The Call Of Duty'' involves destroying a lighthouse, a barracks, and some AA guns on a small island. This is all well and good, except that the island is surrounded by mines that can only be cleared by shooting at them with the Sniper. Too bad you probably used up your ammo clearing a path just to get onto the island and now can't possibly escape. Oh, and this is ''[[EarlyGameHell the first level]]''.
* UniqueEnemy: There are a few generals / officers with a unique outfit and face, and with a name inside the briefings, but who have standard stats. They are Major Gorlitz (explicit target of an assassination mission), [[ShoutOut Major]] [[ColdSniper Koenig]], and [[spoiler:Commissar Salenkov]].

** "Dying Light" from ''Beyond The Call Of Duty'' involves destroying a lighthouse, a barracks, and some AA guns on a small island. This is all well and good, except that the island is surrounded by mines that can only be cleared by shooting at them with the Sniper. Too bad you probably used up your ammo clearing a path just to get onto the island and now can't possibly escape. Did I mention this is the ''first level''?

* PortingDisaster: The PS2 version, while lacking some minor censorship in the PC version, has several missing weapons.

* DummiedOut: Das Boot, Silent Killers has the briefing advise you to sneak everyone in via the disguised spy driving the car, this is impossible in the final game, as the other commandos be detected in the car, so this method only gets the Spy in, who can easily just walk in anyway.

* TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything: A minor example in ''Destination Berlin'', when defending General O'Donnel,If the player allows German Soldiers to enter the building he's in [[spoiler: They won't harm O'Donnel (Who makes no attempt to flee and merely moves a short distance away from the Russian General) but kill the Russian General, since O'Donnel is a spy, it makes sense they wouldn't harm him and that he wouldn't seriously try to escape.]]

* TheDevTeamThinksofEverything: A minor example in ''Destination Berlin'', when defending General O'Donnel,If the player allows German Soldiers to enter the building he's in [[spoiler: They won't harm O'Donnel (Who makes no attempt to flee and merely moves a short distance away from the Russian General) but kill the Russian General, since O'Donnel is a spy, it makes sense they wouldn't harm him and that he wouldn't seriously try to escape.]]

* HarderThanHard: The unlockable Commando difficulty.

** The paratroopers are able to unmask the Spy in ''Destination Berlin'', in addition, they carry Assault Rifles, which are capable of shredding Commandos in a few shots and fire rapidly.

** The paratroopers are able to unmask the Spy in ''Destination Berlin''.

** The Stalingrad campaign of ''Destination Berlin'' (the first, excluding the Tutorial) is arguably the hardest of the game with heavy combat, forcing the player to quickly adapt to the heavily nerfed combat abilities of their commandos and the final mission having an instant-fail alarm for almost the entire level, it's also the only campaign where the player has to deal with Paratroopers, who wield the deadly Assault Rifle, which aren't encountered at all in the Normandy campaign.

** The Stalingrad campaign of ''Destination Berlin'' (the first, excluding the Tutorial) is arguably the hardest of the game with heavy combat, forcing the player to quickly adapt to the heavily nerfed combat abilities of their commandos and the final mission having an instant-fail alarm for almost the entire level, it's also the only campaign where the player has to deal with Paratroopers, who wield the deadly Assault Rifle, which is exclusively found in boxes and never actually used by enemy troops in the other campaigns.

* UnderusedGameMechanic: The Green Beret isn't played in many missions (and only a single one actually allows him to engage in stealth.) this also means the Kar98K rifle can't be used often as the Spy/Sniper can't use it.
** The M1 Garand, it only appears in one mission, is missing entirely in at least the PS2 Version, it's also the only weapon in the game capable of launching Rifle Grenades, in addition a few other weapons like the shotgun are only available in a single mission, the STG44 in particular is never actually used by German soldiers and can only be found hidden away in a single Green Beret mission.
** Despite the focus on switching between members of the team (and the map screen having room for all 3 Commandos photographs), there's not a single level using all 3 members of the team.