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The Green Beret can also carry multiple rifles and dual wield pistols. The sniper, for example, can brave even freezing water, whereas the spy will freeze to death in quick order.
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Each guy has proficiency with different types of weapons and tactical choices. The newest entry in the series pares things down to the sniper, Green Beret, and spy. And Strike Force still offers some intense challenges.
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But the reduced difficulty tends to make the game more accessible than anything else. But as you might imagine, that doesn't necessarily make for a better experience. Where previously it required painstaking timing, patience and accuracy, Strike Force is much more forgiving.
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So what is a PC-centric, strategy-focused action game supposed to do to stay current and profitable, besides merely getting released on multiple platforms? Well, instead of calling it quits, Pyro Studios has taken a pretty big risk by moving to first-person action and largely doing away with the often mind-bending difficulty of previous entries in the Commandos series. This also creates a chokepoint where only a certain threshold of money will push you through and keep the gamer's attention. I recently asked a lead programmer at Blizzard why games keep requiring larger and larger development teams, larger budgets, and longer creation time, and he said it was because the industry was obsessed with topping itself.
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