Tapping directly into a little boy's id, Commando was an early shoot'em up game played entirely from an aerial perspective, or vertical scrolling if you want to use gaming lingo.  Through the pixelated field of enemy territory, the commando cut a path of maximum damage, er, heroic deeds.

Stealth wasn't really an objective in Commando, where the little avatar--named Super Joe--parachuted into jungle terrain and had to fight his way out with no hope of reinforcements. Super Joe was armed with a machine gun firing unlimited ammo and a limited number of grenades. The player could shoot his gun in eight directions but he could only chuck his (not holy) hand grenades toward the top of the screen. After killing multitudes, the soldier would advance to the next level by taking on more enemies streaming out of the gates of a stronghold. Other than poor infantry soldiers, Joe also took on trucks, tanks and assorted assault vehicles. Every now and again, the enemy would transport prisoners of war across the screen and Joe's task would be to liberate his fellow fighters while killing as many of the bad guys as possible.

Commando was immensely popular and was released for various home gaming systems--Nintendo, Atari and Amiga to name a few--as well as lording it over the other not-so-macho games at the arcade.