At the end of the third level, you fight the same giant tank, except now it has a few more weapons.

At the end of the first level, you fight a giant tank, where the camera angle changes to an overhead view and the claustrophobic shot patterns seem vaguely like a bullet hell shooter. ThereвЂ™s an endless supply of enemies вЂ“ you can destroy the enemy generators, but more always pop out вЂ“ and a few vehicles segments, where you hop into jeeps or tanks. Familiar weapons include the machine gun вЂ“ which still fires out two streams of bullets at once, three if you grab a POW icon вЂ“ but there are also three-way guns, missile launchers, and flame throwers. The game also features familiar looking power-ups вЂ“ the POW and Mega Crash pickups are now spinning renditions of their 2D sprites вЂ“ which also channels the old games. The screen clearing mega crashes are still here вЂ“ and still accompanied by what appears to be the character doing a rocking guitar strum on thin air вЂ“ and there are now a limited number of grenades, which can be aimed and tossed by the R Trigger. This echoes the feel of Mercs, where your heroes seemed to be almost running in place by barely moving (the treadmill effect) but itвЂ™s frustrating when youвЂ™re trying to dodge enemy bullets. In practice, this is a bad idea, because Wolf and Coyote move too slowly вЂ“ all of them should have been able to run as quickly as Fox. Fox, a not-so-subtle allusion to Foxy Brown and other blaxploitation heroines, has low health and canвЂ™t carry many grenades either, but can move fast.

Coyote, the sunglasses-wearing Norris tribute, can take more hits but lacks grenades. There are three characters вЂ“ including Wolf, who greatly resembles the hero from Mercs, even though he has a different name вЂ“ each with their own skillsets. Commando 3В already falls due to to its dull visual design, because outside of the cartoony characters, the environments are exceedingly plain. There are so many dual-stick shooters around вЂ“ especially on the Xbox 360 вЂ“ that one really needs to stand out to separate itself from the pack. However, itвЂ™s also easy to argue that it doesnвЂ™t change nearly enough.

The music is cheesy and catchy, but distinctly un-Japanese like, distancing itself from its predecessor. The final level takes place in a city that is Totally Not Communist Russia, where you fight an evil dictator who is piloting a gigantic mechanical statue. When they get hit, they burst out in Q*Bert style expletives. In game, the male characters are impossibly top heavy, with tiny little legs that carry their muscle figures, wielding huge weapons of destruction. The characters, as shown in the intro and in a few cutscenes, are drawn in comic book style. On the other hand, Commando 3В seems to channel something closer to a goofier version of G.I. While the original was based off World War II and Vietnam-era war flicks, and Mercs was вЂ™80s Schwarzenegger / Stallone / Norris schlock, the kind that took itself way too seriously but were tremendously fun anyway. Commando 3В tries to modernize itself injecting a bit of cartoony flavor into the proceedings. Its most major modernization is that it uses the dual analog sticks to move and shoot independently from one another, removing one of the major obstacles from so many old overhead arcade shoot-em-ups.ДЄnd this is unfortunately where the problems begin. Up to three players can play cooperatively at once, including online. Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3, in a pseudo-clever melding of the Japanese and English titles, is about shooting lots of bad guys.

Both were developed by Backbone Entertainment, in an increasing trend for Japanese companies to farm retro properties to Western developers. It was released around the same time as a resurrection of CapcomвЂ™s 19XXВ franchise. It took them nearly twenty years, but in 2008, Capcom dug up the CommandoВ license and published a new entry in the series, as a downloadable title for the Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network.

Wolf of the battlefield commando