Each commando that the player gets to control has a different set of abilities and equipment that they can use to deal with enemies and help them complete their missions - the Green Beret is able to move barrels, climb rough surfaces, use a lure to distract enemies, and can kill soldiers with a knife; the Marine can dive underwater, use a harpoon gun, can kill enemies with a knife, and is the only one who can pilot ships and boats; the Driver is the only one who can drive vehicles and operate tanks and mounted guns, and is one of two commandos who can treat the injuries of his comrades; the Sapper is the only one capable of using grenades and handling explosives, but can also cut through wire fences and set up traps; the Sniper is the only one who can use a sniper rifle to take out targets, and the second commando who can treat his comrades injuries with a first aid kit; the Spy can wear enemy uniforms, distract soldiers when disguised as an officer, and can kill enemies with a lethal injection. In addition to their abilities, all commandos carry a handgun that they can use as a last resort to defend themselves. The game's emphasis is towards stealth and carefully planned tactics rather than gun battles, as the commandos will not survive for long if shot at.
The game's enemies are divided into ranks - soldiers, who are armed with rifles or MP40 sub-machine guns; sergeants, armed with service pistols, with some manning fixed machine-gun nests and thus do not leave their posts as a result; and officers, who are also armed with pistols. In addition to foot soldiers, some missions also include enemy tanks and armored cars operating in the area. As a rule, all enemies are on alert, and thus man guard posts or conduct patrols in the area, either by themselves or a group of three or four men, searching for anything suspicious. However, the player can monitor the line of sight of the enemy during a mission and thus use it to plan their moves, although they can only keep tabs on a single enemy's field of vision at any one time. An enemy's field of vision is represented by a cone in front of them, colored green, that extends out from an enemy to a certain distance, and is divided into two sections - close range, represented by light green, in which commandos will be spotted if they step into this area; and long range, represented by dark green, in which commandos will only be spotted if they are standing up when they step into this area. If any commando is spotted, enemies will usually order them to halt in order to capture them, and will only fire on them if they fail to comply or witness any hostile action. If an enemy detects something suspicious, such as seeing footprints or dead bodies, or hearing gunshots and other unusual noises, they will immediately investigate what the cause is. In most missions, an alarm will be raised if the enemy discovers they are under attack, such as an explosion happening in their vicinity. When this happens, the enemy will be more active and will more likely shoot the commandos if they see them, and more soldiers will deploy from garrisons, marked by flags, to patrol the area. If the alarm is raised, the completion of a mission is made much more difficult; in some missions, the sounding of an alarm will cause instant mission failure.
Reception
Sales
Commandos was a significant and unexpected commercial success. Designer Gonzalo Suarez attributed its sales to word of mouth, as the game received "hardly any promotion and we were aiming to sell around 15,000 copies at most". In the German market, it spent 16 weeks at #1 on the computer game sales charts, taking the position from Anno 1602 and holding it through Media Control's rankings for the second halves of June, July and August 1998. Commandos' sales in German-speaking countries totaled 158,000 units by the end of September, which made it the region's second-best-selling computer game during the first nine months of 1998, behind Anno. It was ultimately the German market's fourth-best-selling computer game of 1998 as a whole. The title was also a hit in the United Kingdom, where it spent 15 weeks at #1 on the computer game sales lists.
Commandos achieved global sales of 600,000 units by November 1998. At the 1999 Milia festival in Cannes, it took home a "Gold" prize for revenues above €16 million in the European Union during 1998. The Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland presented Commandos with a "Gold" award in January 1999, indicating sales of at least 100,000 units across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It rose to "Platinum" status, for 200,000 copies sold, by the end of May 1999. Combined with its expansion pack, Commandos' global sales totaled 1.3 million units by July 1999. It sold over 1.5 million copies by May 2000. In 2002, GameSpot Spain declared Commandos the biggest hit in the history of Spanish games.
Critical reviews
Next Generation reviewed the PC version of the game, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that "Commandos is a genuinely original game – truly challenging, graphically gorgeous, tough as shoe leather, and one heck of a lot of fun."
Behind Enemy Lines received "favourable" reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings.
