Background:
Purchased as part of a bundle from Bundle Stars. I played the first two games in the series to death back when they came out.

Impressions:
The game stands up today much as it did when it came out. It's a damn fine strategy game that's a blast to play and highly rewarding. However unlike it's predecessor this game is more of an expansion pack, with only 8 missions they instead ramped the difficulty to near frustrating levels.

While still fun and rewarding for the most part I really started to detest the 'mansion kidnap', 'rail yard' and final mission for the sheer bloody minded difficulty of sections those missions where trail and error started to get irritating.

There are some missteps for sure with elements that are seemingly only solvable in a single method and theres one right in the first mission that can leave you stranded just as you thought you were done and you have to go back a few saves or even start again.


Fixes:
As with Behind enemy lines there are a number of serious issues with the game on a modern PC that make it almost unplayable.

See the page on the 'Commandos Wikia' for 'Commandos: Beyond the call of Duty Fixes' for a collection of bug fixes to stabilise the game and make it playable.

http://commandos.wikia.com/wiki/Fixing_Commandos

The Good:
*A classic formula that stands up today for it's simplicity and functions.
*Missions can be tackled many ways.
*The settings have a historical context and introduced as such.
*Missions are huge and diverse.
*Fast save/load system makes experimentation less frustrating than you'd think.
*Huge sense of triumph from executing a plan that takes out even a single awkward guard.
*Looks pretty good considering it's age.
*New mechanics, some of which are interesting and alter your tactics.

The Bad:
*Installs ok on Steam but multi-core affinity issues requires some manual tweaking.
*Many missions have sections where there is only one practical solution.
*The difficulty level is a massive leap up upward over the original game.
*A new character only appears in a single mission.
*Cigarette packs effectively give everyone a Decoy box, messing with the balance.
*Shorter tougher campaign.

Recommended for: War, Action and isometric strategy fans and fans of the original.

Conclusion.
7/10. Once the stability issue is fixed it's a reasonable follow up to the original.

I should have reserved my nostalgia for a game I liked. Very hard, unforgiving, and with only one way to win unrewarding of different solutions.