On your side is some useful and sharp buddy AI. Your men always alert you to any incoming danger, which appears as a red blob on the appropriate point on your compass, allowing you to focus your attentions on that precise spot. Better still, they're pretty good at taking the aggressors down too, meaning you don't have to do it all on your own. The game also features an ingenious direction indicator on the compass for incoming enemies via a small cone of sound, red for bullets, grey for footsteps. So even when you can't actually see your foe, you can get a good idea of where they are camped out, allowing you to maybe seek cover, lob a grenade or take an alternative route.

IO did the smart thing and made the control scheme for followers simple but effective. With a tap of a button you can order your squadmates to attack a specific target, stay by your side, or defend a certain area. Once you can command six or eight followers, the game reveals a completely new and thrilling dimension. The latter levels where I led a whole troop of soldiers through wave after wave of entrenched Soviets invaders were, in a word, awesome.

One notable improvement for H&D2 is the addition of vehicles for you to control. H&D2 will still focus on infantry tactics to accomplish your goals, but the vehicles will no doubt add quite a bit to the mix. The game's team claims that the physics for the different jeeps and tanks will be dead-on thanks to the implementation of the Mafia engine (another Illusion Softworks game).

GG: Chrome has been described as a tactical shooter – what are some of the features in Chrome that make it different from other first-person shooters currently on the market?

KM: First of all, our AI is very demanding and it behaves in unpredictable ways. Running between four opponents equals death in 99% of the cases. The player should choose proper tactics depending on the terrain type, number of opponents, and available equipment and implants. It’s worth mentioning that the AI might act differently even in very similar circumstances. Because of this the player is unable to exactly predict AI’s actions. We wanted Chrome to be a tactical game and a realistic one at the same time – of course without any harm to the game’s playability.

The community has spoken and we've listened.

In keeping with our dedication to create excellent products, the mission pack for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword, will now be releasing in Q1 2004. The later release will allow us to deliver the quality product we know our fans expect.

One of the big changes is in the animations, which are by far the best I’ve seen to date. The use of rag doll physics really stands out, particularly when you hit an enemy, they slump in chairs, slide down walls and snap backwards with limbs flailing, finished off with a bit of twitching (there’s a moderate level of gore). It occasionally goes a bit haywire with legs sticking up at odd angles. Watching a group of enemies in the distance creeping towards you is spookily realistic, the same goes for your teammates who run, walk crawl & climb etc in fluid movements, you’ll have a hard job finding anything better.