Time Commando

aka: Time Commando: Fight your way through time. Or you're history.
Moby ID: 342
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

In the near future, the military has created an advance computerized combat simulation, which allowed participants to be trained in various forms of combat throughout human history. However, a programmer working for a corporation that seeks the downfall of the simulation developers infects the system with a virus. This virus creates a dimensional vortex that threatens to swallow the entire world. Stanley Opar, a member of S.A.V.E (Special Action for Virus Elimination) enters the vortex with one goal: destroy the virus before the universe ceases to exist.

Time Commando is an action game with light puzzle-solving elements. The player character travels to eight different time periods: Prehistoric, Roman Empire, Feudal Japan, Medieval, Conquistador, Wild West, Modern Wars, and Future. Each era has its own characteristic enemies and sets of weapons: for example, Stanley fights with rocks and bone knives in the Prehistoric era, switching to shurikens and katanas in Japan, revolvers and shotguns in the Wild West, laser pistols in the future, etc.

Most of the time in the game is spent fighting enemies. Character navigation and combat resemble those of Alone in the Dark. The navigation is character- rather than camera-based, similarly to survival horror games. During combat, Stanley has three attack moves at his disposal, as well as a blocking move. Part of the challenge relies on choosing the right weapons against particular enemies.

Stanley starts with a small life bar that can be increased by picking up life power-ups, as well as multiple lives. Time limit is imposed on each level. To lower the countdown, the player has to deposit computer chips collected throughout the levels in special orb pools. The game utilizes animated pre-rendered sequences to represent locations, and polygonal models for the characters.

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Credits (DOS version)

59 People (52 developers, 7 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 29 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 68 ratings with 4 reviews)

Action? Adventure? Get the very worst of both genres with none of their goodness right here!!!

The Good
Well, there really isn't a lot I can write here save for some nice features like:

-Weapons, and lots of them! Nothing says "I'm gonna kick your ass" like the right weapon, and on each level you'll find plenty of weapons to add to your arsenal (which you never get to really keep for later on). Everything from Katanas to rifles to spells to that weird yo-yo thing from the future is available for the time honored tradition of moping the floors with your enemies.

-Great graphics. Time Commando puts togheter pre-rendered backgrounds, polygonal models and even fmv to display a really amazing scenery. It all looks extremelly cool.

Well, that's it, tough to be fair I had some fun on levels like the WWI one.

The Bad
Time Commando has millions of design flaws, but they can be traced to one source alone, an that is the fact that while the game may label itself as a revolutionary adventure, with this and that and whatever, it really is nothing but a scrolling beat 'em up with delusions of grandeur.

The developers tought that if adventure games are fun and action games are fun, a game that combines them both would be double as fun! It makes sense, doesn't it? Unfortunately they decided to go the lazy route and working with pre-existing control schemes & engines cooked up a lame version of a classic 2D beat 'em up in the grand tradition of such classics as Final Fight, Double Dragon, etc... (you know, insert generic storyline here, insert super-steroid ladden hero, insert millions of baddies, etc.) and on top of that they added a lot of graphic fanfare, an adventure game control scheme, and a whooole lot of pretentious design choices. Result: Time Commando! A beat 'em up that thinks its a trascendental & groundbreaking adventure game that was really really serious shit...Aha, yup, riiiiight. In short, you have a game that instead of going for either mindless action or involving adventure takes the middle road and screws itself up.

As an "adventure" Time Commando is stupidly simple and straightforward, has pretty much nothing to interact with (unless you count hitting someone in the face as "interacting"), and has a completely stupid storyline that gives you more glitter and whiz-bang imagery than real content.

On the other hand as a beat 'em up, the action is slow and un-exciting, the characters have a remarkable lack of charisma (you lack any quirky one-liners, and the big baddie is....... a cyber-fish....), you can't trash anything in the background, the control scheme gets in your way since it tries to be 3D but has to exist in a 2D world, there isn't a sequence in a bar/strip club, and there is absolutely NO multiplayer!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, Double Dragon was DOUBLE for a reason!!! What the hell is the point of playing these games by yourself other than killing time????

Anyway, if you ask me they should have ditched all the fake pretenses and just go all out with a dumb, but FUN beat 'em up. As it is now it's just has enough of everything to amount to Nothing.

The Bottom Line
As stated in the box cover, Time Commando tries to capture the "adrenaline of a fighting game & the total immersion of an adventure game" however Adeline shot themselves in the feet and ended up with a game that has "the brain-dead simplicity of a beat 'em up & the boring pace of an adventure game" Nice going guys... Next time try sticking with one genre, and if you really feel like mixing it up then start from the ground up with a brand new design. If you just drop things in a blender expecting them to magically spurt out a great game you end up with undefined crap like this.

Windows · by Zovni (10504) · 2002

Entertaining and challenging.

The Good
For a 7 year old game, it was better than I expected.I found myself getting caught up in the historic theme. Good, not great graphics. Entertaining and more challenging than I thought it might be. Secrets are there to be found. You have to be resourceful with what weapons you use. And get the controls down before you advance too much.

The Bad
Some monotony with game play. Some viewpoints are hidden. You cannot go back to important areas/items if you go past them. Limited saves.

The Bottom Line
It can be gotten at a cheap price, and worth your time.

Windows · by John Uveges (2) · 2004

Disappointing.

The Good
Well, this game was very overhyped, at least in Israel. It's fun to play at first and has nice graphics (but nothing more).

The Bad
The sound effects are very distrubing and the gameplay gets simply tiresome after a while. The game is also short and simply not very interesting.

The Bottom Line
You might want to play this "just in case", but I simply don't like it much.

DOS · by Tomer Gabel (4539) · 1999

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Cut content

Rumor has it that Adeline had planned to include a special bonus stage: their own office as a video backdrop. However, the idea was shelved due to time and space constraints.

Radio

When you wait and do nothing for about half a minute or less, your character will turn on the radio he's equipped with and use his headphones to catch a tune of few. Of course, with all that, it comes the funny dance and hands clapping.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

PlayStation added by Corn Popper. Macintosh added by Sciere. SEGA Saturn added by DarkFalzX.

Additional contributors: -Chris, Alaka.

Game added November 1, 1999. Last modified February 24, 2024.