My fists are lethal weapons..
Note steam from the overhead vent.

This could be bad..

I can't stress how excellent the sounds are. Everything from terrorists shouting in their mother language to combat sounds to even the finest footsteps in the snow are music to the ears. Land Warrior does an excellent job of immersing the player in the game.

Aiming to out-Wolfenstein Gray Matter's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Medal of Honor boasts 24 WWII themed missions that will allow gamers to "make strategic assaults (both by yourself or as part of a crack military team), infiltrate enemy headquarters disguised as a Nazi, rescue POWs, drive tanks and other military vehicles, destroy enemy installations, and demolish historicaly accurate landmarks." Naturally, a Saving Private Ryan style assault on Omaha Beach mission will be included.

You can, however, hack in and disable the cameras for 2 minutes at a time. You can pick locks, place explosives, silence alarms, and ride zip lines. Each of these takes time however, and you could be detected and killed. I'm glad Innerloop gave us these skills. It's better than just finding keys and switches. So far, I haven't seen many keys or switches that were crucial to my progress. Oh, and there haven't been any jumping puzzles either.

GameSpy: Every developer knows it's tough to make a game stand out with so many others being developed and released. What do you believe will make IGI grab a gamer's attention?

Ole: Yes, it's fantastic that so many good games are being released. The competition is getting harder and harder. IGI is easy to come into and is fun to play. The testers at Eidos still play it.

I’m Going In nicely straddles the line between Quake and Rainbow Six, putting you in the combat boots of a commando stalking a renegade Russian colonel who’s selling nuclear warheads. It’s not insanely realistic, but you have to be smart about how and when you attack—sniping and one-on-one engagements are the keys to success.

The AI (artificial intelligence) in Project IGI is near perfect. Smart and stupid, they vary on the difficulty settings. I DON'T recommend playing IGI on EASY. When the settings are on easy, the AI is extremely stupid. When shot at, the AI refuses to chase after you. This is typical of a easy mode setting in any game. Project IGI must be played on any level of difficulty besides EASY. You will enjoy the game 100% more with a little challenge. The AI responds to everything perfectly, once fired at, they either fire back (depending on the gun the AI character is holding) or they sound the alarm, which brings the whole base on your ass, or they notify their friends, who will chase after you.

What should or could have been a cool, sneaky shooter devolves into a series of tedious levels, severely aliased graphics and some of the stupidest, ugliest enemies we've seen this side of Delta Force: Land Warrior. While this game shares many of the same qualities of DF: Land Warrior, which we declared a Hit, IGI falls flat and failed to impress.

Made some modifications to in-game sounds, including the commander screen sounds.

Tournament code added for future online events.

We have added some upgrades to the NovaWorld2 multiplayer connection system that should further increase stability when joining games that are almost full.

Not mentioned in a previous update, knife kills are now reflected correctly within NovaWorld player statistics.

User created missions should now save correctly.

"The AI is good," agrees Marek, modestly. "It allows all units to perform almost independently on the battlefield. I don't want to go into too much detail now, but the player can be subordinated to an AI leader or command his own AI soldiers. This requires a very solid AI background because the player actually sees all his units performing his orders alongside him. Either that or he's listening to the orders of his commander and having to make sense of the changing situations. In the multiplayer game, we had difficulties recognising who is AI and who is human."

Novalogic has done it again with the much-anticipated release of the third game in the Delta Force series, Delta Force: Land Warrior. Having already made my way through Delta Force 2 and Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear, I popped in the CD expecting a Delta Force 2-type movie, which portrayed a few guys moving around in the dark. Real thrilling. With that in mind, I was amazed at the graphic detail and fluidic motion of the movie that, while short, didn’t shy away from giving up some of the game’s best features.

DR: What other RTS combat-strategy games do you compare yourselves to that are already on the market?

MS: On the one hand, there are squad action games like Delta Force or Rogue Spear. But, on the other hand, there are 3D RTS games like Ground Control. In Operation Flashpoint, you'll find the same action-packed gameplay as in other squad combat games, but it's adding strong commanding elements -- with up to 12 units in your squad -- you'll see a completely new experience. It's war and you're in it!

Sound wise, Land Warrior packs a whopping punch. Whether it’s the loud boom of the .50-caliber sniper rifle or the popping sound of the M4, the sometimes surreal sound of intense gun battles enriches the atmosphere of Land Warrior and draws the player into the game. Jungles and swamps seem to be swarming with various creatures and insects making their own distinctive sounds. When all you can hear is the sound of crickets, you know it’s time to start watching your back for some sneaky terrorists hiding among the foliage.

I am a big fan of games that include a mission editor, and I understand yours is very detailed and powerful. Talk about the process of making a new mission with it.

Yes, the editor is very detailed and the best thing is that you can create good simple missions within a few minutes. First, you can enter units involved in the mission just by clicking on the map. You can organize units into squads and assign waypoints to them. You can create relationships between chains of waypoints of different squads (basically to tell one squad to wait for some other squad). You can insert some triggers as well to test condition for mission end or to do many other things. And the mission has only few kilobytes so you can store or exchange missions with your friends pretty easily.

Counter-Strike fans looking for a good singleplayer experience will definitely want to give the Project IGI demo a good look. People who enjoyed Deus Ex's stealthy gunplay and computer hacking should also thoroughly enjoy this title. Hell, just about anyone into first person shooters will have a lot of fun.

Your player character is also affected quite heavily by the environment. Rounds from something like the AK47 will knock you back a few steps, and exploding fuel tankers will generally kill you, as will falling from a great height, so no jumping off buildings. Damage is calculated depending on the height you fall, so while jumping off say a one story building won`t kill you (unless you`re almost dead already), falling out of a watch tower (say through injudicious use of binoculars) will almost certainly mean you`re restarting the mission. Interaction with your environment varies depending on the situation you are in as well. Generally you play in First person mode, however when dealing with specific items such as ladders, rope slides (or crawls), unlocking doors or hacking computers the view switches to third person. Simple objects like buttons and fixed-emplacement machine guns still work in first person mode though.

The Motion Capturing makes itself clear in each phase. Whether the soldiers lie down, change weapons or mount vehicles. It is cleanly and liquid animated everything. We could be pointed, as extensive the steps for implementation to the play are and it are a great performance. Even the 1st person perspective is rich animated. One has really the feeling to move a heading. One can look at its body " at any time " and regard the internal messages. Nice is also the animation, if one is with several soldiers together-sat - or. Everything moves and nothing obtains the feeling, as if one would be " a computer figure ".

The game, regardless of the limitations "realism" impose on you, is still fun. Sneaking around has always been my style of gaming (probably because I'm a huge coward) and this game has it in spades. Unlike Thief, however, you don't really try and avoid combat. Rather, you try and kill quietly and only isolated individuals. Running in guns blazing, in this game more than any other, will get you nowhere. The guns are all quite powerful and accurately model their real-life counterparts.

If stealing a vehicle makes it easy for you to complete your task, then feel free to do so. Maybe if you prefer, go for a swim to sneak up on the enemy or hide in some shrubbery so that the soldiers won't see you coming -- then you can take them out by surprise. Keep in mind, however, that while the missions provide great flexibility, the enemy AI is amazing. You will find out rather quickly that your foes will not respond the same way twice in a mission. They will ambush, perform organize attacks, and even investigate disturbances. This reminds me of Thief on steroids. The opposition will even perform patrol duty, to keep an eye out for your arrival.

The sniper rifle. That's all I have to say. For me, this is by far one of the most enjoyable weapons that a game can implement. I had a blast during the training mission trying to pick off my fellow soldiers while flying in on the helicopter. I thoroughly enjoyed picking off just about every piece of above-ground resistance from the top of an Egyptian pyramid. On top of that, the other weapons all seem to be dealt with in a realistic manner.

This is not to say that IGI is an easy game. Realistic damage means that even the lowliest of opponents can kill you with a couple of well-placed shots. With no save points within missions this creates buzzing tension and really draws you into the game. While you can use the excellent targeting binoculars and live spy satellite feed to track guard movement, note camera positions and find direct routes to marked objectives, wider exploration of buildings will often turn up medical syringe boosters to restore precious health and alternative weapons and ammunition.

The AI in the game will focus on individual units and their reactions. Operation Flashpoint will feature soldiers and other units that, unlike those in some other games, actually want to survive. And they'll do whatever they think is best, based on what's happening around them, to make sure they stay alive. In one mission, the player will have to destroy a rolling convoy. We found the convoy easily enough, and all the vehicles were in a nice, neat line--sitting ducks just waiting to die. When we opened fire, however, the convoy scattered wildly, with some trucks taking off down the road in a straight line as fast as possible, and others driving erratically trying to avoid incoming fire.

Finally, lets talk about the gameplay. As I keep saying team based play will feature heavily, with the usual attack/defend, CTF, and annihilation type gameplay. DICE will also be including things such as an all in Deathmatch mode, and a unique “ticket” system that will allow for re-enactment of large-scale battles, basically each team has a number of tickets (re-spawns) and they are used up as the players die. Of course in battles such as D-Day, the attacking allies would have many more tickets then the defending Germans, the Germans of course having the advantage of high ground and machine gun emplacements.

GSUK: Being able to drop and pick up primary weapons is great but why didn't you extend this to secondary arms and side arms?

WE: The Delta Force series has been evolving with every new game. Delta Force: Land Warrior gives players the ability to pick up dropped weapons from friendlies or enemies, which is a step forward. We decided to stick with the primary weapons for DFLW, because they generally tend to have the biggest firepower and longer ranges, which have more impact for the soldier in the game.

With enough ladders, rope-slides and tricks, IGI really excels in bringing to life the feeling of being alone in the enemy base. Take the cameras for instance, you reach a computer terminal and hit action, the whole thing is real time, so you have to keep [the] action [key] down, [the] 3rd person camera engages and shows you the time it takes to complete the task. You can again rotate the camera and look all around, useful for keeping an eye on things. Task completed, [and] you are informed the cameras are offline for 2 minutes or so.

SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle changed the face of the first-person tactical genre, and the Elite Edition polishes it to a near mirror shine. Sierra Studios is to be commended for making this add-on available free of charge to owners of the original game, something that many publishers may not have done. The thrill of multiplayer engagements coupled with plenty of other new material makes this a compelling package for both veteran and rookie SWAT team leaders. If you own SWAT 3, download the Elite Edition. If you missed it the first time around, pick up the Elite Edition standalone, and get down to some serving and protecting.

What Elite Edition delivers is one of the better multiplayer experiences around, comparable to the likes of Rogue Spear and Counter-Strike for sheer tension. SWAT 3: EE achieves this intensity through placing you in believable environments with stunning graphics, matched with realistic weapon models. The result is a chilling perspective on what life would be like as a member of an L.A.P.D. SWAT team.

Land Warrior, the newest in the Delta Force line, has great potential, but to falls a bit short in the end. Delta Force: Land Warrior is a solid shooter. It’s fun to play and has decent graphics, but it is in no way going to bump the power house shooters from their pedestals. Delta Force fans everywhere will rejoice however, because it is a HUGE improvement over earlier DF games.

3D Palette: What would you compare Project IGI to in terms of recent games? For example: Deus Ex, Thief, Soldier of Fortune? What aspects of these games are you utilizing?

IGI: Probably a bit of everything, as it is quite different than what you have seen before, because of the huge landscapes. But, in comparison, we would say it's mostly similar to Golden Eye, but with a bit of Delta Force and Hidden & Dangerous.

Some of the complaints about the recently released SWAT 3: Elite Edition upgrade have revolved around, among other things, the cap of five players per multiplayer game. It looks like this is about to be solved (along with some other issues) in two upcoming patches for Elite Edition. Rod Fung, SWAT 3 lead producer, had this to say in an email on Monday:

"10-players addition as well as other new features will be coming soon. It will be called patch version 2.0. It's currently in QA and will be available after Christmas.

In the meantime, a new patch will be coming in about a week called version 1.7. This version fixes the multiplayer enter and exits (keeping player in the same room after a game). Also allows all versions of the game (localized and North America) to play with each other.

Final news is the demo for the game should be out in a week as well."

Possibly the best news in ages is the ability to save games at any point. Because the new maps are large, much time would be required to clear the area. Should you get killed at the end and not receive credit and progress, you'll have to start all over again and tedium quickly sets in. Thankfully, this feature is now in and works well when you're not sure if you're planning on a frontal assault or a sneaky back-door approach.

The game is semi-realistic, a cross between Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six meaning you don’t die by one shoot, but it does hurt! So you have to move carefully and plan your moves. If not, you probably die faster than you think! When it comes to planning you’re equipped with a portable radar-tracker. From here you can zoom in and out, and watch the guards patrol routes and where the security cams are placed.

In the demo I was surprised to see that when climbing up/down ladders that the view switched to 3rd person. What's the thinking behind this madness?

As you perform actions such as climb a ladder, climb a fence, hack a computer etc, the camera switches to third person. This has several purposes. The most important one is that we can allow you to look around in all directions to scout for enemies. Second, it allows us to clearly illustrate what the player is doing - when you hack a computer for instance, Jones will tap the keys. Last, but not least, it allows us to give the main character of the game a face and a personality.

What makes this game worthwhile is this: it is simply a lot of fun to play. Multiplayer is smooth, frantic, and fun, and you can always find a game on Novaworld. Voice Over Net also ups the ante, and along with the sheer size of the levels, beats the competition hands down. If you enjoyed either Delta Force I or II, you'll like this game as well. It is more of the same, with some gameplay, graphic, and multiplayer improvements.