Eye of the Commando is what happens if you make Doom turn-based and throw a touch of Broforce into the mix. It plays like an 80s action movie in an unexpected genre, dungeon crawling. The last place I’d expect to see a shooter would be a turn-based dungeon crawler and yet, this was a fun surprise.
Quick Disclaimer: This is a review of a Steam Early Access game and since it isn’t complete yet, we’re not attaching a score to this review. As the game develops, it will likely change in quality and we may come back to it at a later time.
Eye of the Commando is far from being a fast-paced FPS where you’re running and gunning through the action. Instead, it becomes a slow tactical dance as you weave in between bullets to stay alive. But that doesn’t stop it from following a simple plot similar to many old action movies. The story kicks off with the threat of international terrorists and a volcano lair lurking in the background.
Who better than one shirtless muscular man to deal with them? It may as well be Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger. The developer leans into the absurdity of a shirtless commando saving the day. Which is where the occasional humor slips in despite being light on dialogue and an overall story.
But that’s okay as I work through the stages encountering a variety of enemies and some creatures too. Enemies vary from slow fire rates to more aggressive kits via miniguns or even grenadiers forcing you to move. This throws some chaos into your dance as it creates an immediate threat to evade. Which can lead to dangerous and entertaining situations when enemies surround you.
As you venture deeper encountering new enemies you’ll also build out your character too. Before starting a run, you can pick a class for minor benefits like extra currency or damage. But the real advantages kick in as you find powerful items. For example, the flamethrower deals massive damage and vaporizes nearby projectiles. Or passive items that increase your damage and make you attack while strafing.
This is one area where the developer attempts to make each run unique via random item drops. However, I don’t feel there are enough yet to craft creative builds. It’s interesting since Eye of the Commando has handcrafted levels over procedural generation despite the randomized items feeling more like a roguelike feature. It’s a bit at odds with itself but it works since you have well-designed stages.
Everything from perfectly placed explosive barrels to creative ambushes that unfortunately only work once or twice. These deliver a strong experience that short runs can take away from. However, the developer has stated plans for more areas, enemies, and bosses in their roadmap. They’ve also mentioned the potential for procedural content or a level editor if the demand is there.
All of this would be a welcome addition since a complete run can take anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours. I wouldn’t mind more bosses or tougher stages to deal with. Most of the time I only felt the difficulty when projectile paths were tough to read. While everything is laid out over a grid, projectiles can come at you from any angle. Which can make it almost impossible to understand if a tile is safe to move to. Fortunately, I rarely had this issue but it did lead to disappointing hits.
On the opposite side, hitting enemies is annoying sometimes too. It took me a while to realize that certain enemy hitboxes were off. Such as an enemy’s arms not counting for when trying to shoot them. This makes it easy to unintentionally miss enemies and essentially skip a turn. Which brings me to an annoying feature that can’t be disabled but I’m sure the developer will catch up to it later.
There’s aim assist where your mouse cursor tracks an enemy as they move after shooting them. Sometimes I appreciate it and other times, it’s disorientating to lose track of my mouse cursor. I’ve never been a fan of when games take control of it. So I hope they make it possible to disable this feature.
Before ending this review it’s obligatory to mention that our shirtless protagonist is caked up. With all the games that have boob physics, it’s comical to see a developer focus on a man’s butt for once. Between the overall shimmy your character does and the butt jiggle from shooting, it had me cracking up from the start.
Eye of the Commando Early Access | Closing Thoughts
Eye of the Commando is a brilliant twist on dungeon crawlers and it has a great soundtrack too. While the current early access state is short and has some issues, the meat is there and it’s a fun time already. Hopefully the developer can stick to their roadmap and continue improving on it.
Eye of the Commando was provided by the developer via a Steam code. This review was written after completing the game twice alongside other runs too.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.