Marco? When did you get a new haircut?
Commando: Steel Disaster is a Run-and-Gun action game made by China's Mana Computer Software for the Nintendo DS.
A rather blatant Metal Slug knockoff, players get to go One-Man Army (literally, unlike Metal Slug this game's for single-player only) on another terrorist army in yet another Excuse Plot-driven mission.
When a terrorist organization called Rattlesnake starts attacking cities all around the world with their gigantic war machines, a commando named Storm is sent by his superiors to investigate. Uncovering the Rattlesnake's bases in the Arctic, desert and underground, Storm must infiltrate and dismantle Rattlesnake's operations from within, fighting enemy mooks left and right and destroying all of Rattlesnake's giant mechas before a final confrontation against the dreaded villain.
Commando: Steel Disaster contain examples of:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The South Port stage, where Storm takes out a massive battalion of enemies in the sewers to prevent an ambush.
- Airborne Mooks: Enemy soldiers on hoverpacks, helicopters, and floating robots.
- Animal Mecha: The bosses are gigantic robots built to resemble animals. The first one's a cross between a crab and a spider dropping down from a shaft to strike at Storm via Power Pincers, while the desert stage have a robot sand scorpion.
- Attack Drone: Hovering mechanical probes are a recurring enemy used by Rattlesnake's forces, which Storm regularly shoots out of the sky. The first direct confrontation against Rattlesnake have the villain sending a mecha whose attacks alternates between energy balls and launching black drones that spams electric projectiles.
- Attack Its Weak Point: All the bosses have a specific weak spot that Storm must target, notably the head of each.
- Auto-Scrolling Level: The game begins immediately with a frantic chase in some snowy region, where Storm is on a weaponized snowmobile taking on enemy jetpack soldiers.
- Big Bad: The terrorist leader known as Rattlesnake is leading the insurgents, and it's up to Storm to take him down before he conquer everything.
- Boss Warning Siren: One occurs before each boss fight, in the form of a blood-red "WARNING!" sign plastered across the screen.
- Close-Range Combatant: Blade-wielding insurgents who Dual Wield curved knives are another enemy, whose attacks have him moving across the screen at quick speed and slashing Storm from up close.
- Deadpan Snarker: Storm have quite the tendency to snark in cutscenes.Jessica: Storm, good news!
Storm: My application to increase my salary the year before last has finally been approved?
Jessica: Huh?... no, we've got the location of Rattlesnake's base!
Storm: Oh right. Well, I guess that can also be considered good news... - Elevator Action Sequence: The very first boss fight, where Storm boards a platform leading down a shaft, before he's attacked by a giant robotic crab. Said boss can even extend a claw to tilt the elevator and make Storm fall to his death, and players must keep running and jumping either left or right (depending on tilt direction) while shooting to avoid losing a life.
- Elite Mooks: The sergeant enemies are clad entirely in black, and wields far better weapons than the regular mooks as well as having better accuracy. Some of them even have flamethrowers which can incinerate Storm with ease - keep a distance!
- Expy: Storm is rather loosely based on Marco from the Metal Slug series (since they're ripping off the games, might as well "borrow" the protagonist along the way), being a blonde, bandana-wearing One-Man Army badass. Meanwhile Rattlesnake looks like M. Bison with purple in place of red.
- Gas Mask Mooks: All the terrorists wear face-concealing gasmasks regardless which environment they're fought, for reasons unknown.
- Giant Mook: Mutant brutes will start showing up from the third stage. They're gigantic, musclebound, bare-chested humans larger than the regular enemies, have a Power Fist as their main attack, and takes more punishment than common mooks.
- Grenade Launcher: The game have two varieties of these Storm can use, one that shoots normal, bouncing rounds and another that shoots a fiery fireball that covers a larger area. The latter holds far less ammo than the former though.
- Mecha-Mooks: Robot soldiers starts showing up halfway into the game, and are a lot more durable than the regular flesh-and-blood mooks. They exclusively wield laser guns instead of firearms.
- Mission Control: Storm's Liaison, Jessica, who regularly contacts him during and after each level to provide information and details for his mission.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: When confronting Rattlesnake the Final Boss, Storm gets to trade quips with the villain before Rattlesnake brings out a huge mecha.Storm: So, you must be Rattlesnake.
Rattlesnake: I did not expect anyone to get here, least of all you.
Storm: You're just a born loser. Why don't you just hurry up and surrender yourself?
Rattlesnake: Don't laught yet. You think you've won the game? You will fail this last hurdle, ha ha ha!
Storm: Alright, it's time for us to settle up! [cue boss fight] - Sequential Boss: Rattlesnake, the Final Boss, is fought twice. He starts off as Stationary Boss that repeatedly deploys smaller drones to attack while dropping projectiles on Storm. Once he's defeated, the boss suddenly unveils rocket boosters and take flight - cue Storm hijacking a fighter jet and giving chase in a mid-air battle.
- Transforming Mecha: The giant robot scorpion boss from the desert stage, who can swap between a snake-like tunneling mode (which is how it's introduced, suddenly coming out of the sand to ambush Storm) but later folds it's tail to transform into a giant wasp-like form, at which point it flies all over the place to attack Storm from above.
- Waterfront Boss Battle: The boss of the South Port stage is a giant robot jellyfish, which Storm must battle while commandeering a weaponized jet ski. The boss will regularly release projectiles from underwater and attempt to ram it's head from the surface to attack, but luckily Storm's ride can drop Sea Mines.
