Commando

The player takes control of a soldier named Super Joe, who starts by being dropped off in a jungle by a helicopter, and has to fight his way out singlehandedly, fending off a massive assault of enemy soldiers.

Super Joe is armed with an assault rifle (which has unlimited ammunition) as well as a limited supply of hand grenades. While Joe can fire his gun in any of the eight directions that he faces, his grenades can only be thrown vertically towards the top of the screen, irrespective of the direction Joe is facing. Unlike his assault rifle bullets, grenades can be thrown to clear obstacles, and explosions from well-placed grenades can kill several enemies at once.

The game was developed by Capcom, where it was designed by Tokuro Fujiwara. He was concurrently leading the development of both Commando and Ghosts 'n Goblins at the same time. Both games sold well for Capcom upon release.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Senjō no Ōkami as the most popular arcade game of May 1985. In the United States, it had topped the American RePlay chart for upright arcade cabinets by November 1985. In the United Kingdom, it became one of the top-grossing arcade games in London West End test locations, leading to orders for thousands of units in the UK alone, where it became a major hit. Commando similarly became a major hit across Europe.

It had become the world's top arcade game at the time. Commando sold more than 15,000 arcade PCB units by June 1985.

Commando was a highly influential game, popularizing the run-and-gun shooter genre along with military shooter themes. It led to run-and-gun games becoming the dominant style of shoot 'em up during the late 1980s to early 1990s, when Your Sinclair called Commando "the great grand-daddy of the modern shoot 'em up" genre. It has also been credited as the "product that shot" Capcom to "8-bit silicon stardom" in 1985, "closely followed by" Ghosts 'n Goblins.

Commando spawned numerous clones following its release. Home computer clones and imitators released later the same year include Who Dares Wins and Rambo. The most successful Commando imitator was SNK's arcade hit Ikari Warriors (1986), which spawned two sequels. The run-and-gun shooter format of Commando was also adapted into a side-scrolling format by Konami's Green Beret (Rush'n Attack) later the same year.