Team Sabre splits its dozen missions into two stories: the overthrow of a drug cartel in Columbia (a la Clear and Present Danger) and the extermination of a rebel group in Iran attempting to disrupt oil production. With the dozen missions split more or less evenly, the story is over almost as soon as it’s begun, and you’re probably looking at ten hours or so of playtime max. The Iran missions are pretty easy, a few haywire scripted events aside, as long as you advance methodically and don’t rush blithely into vast enemy forces. The drug cartel story takes place in, naturally enough, jungle, loaded to the treetops with snipers who are all dead shots, and is very, very frustrating.

Tell us about the process of recording the weaponry in the game.

Brower: Virtually every weapon sound you hear in the game is based on the real thing. The sound team has fired every weapon in the game, so we know what they sound like, know what they feel like - that was really important to us. We're literally taking several recordings of the same weapon from several vantage points.

With Joint Operations you're consciously moving away from Delta Force - how does that fit in, in terms of your long-term plans? We've been told it's the first part of possibly three or four games in total - do you see it on a par with Delta Force or taking over from that brand?

Milligan: More on a par with. We think Joint Operations is the beginning of a new franchise or a new world that we can continue to build up. We're going to start with some 30 vehicles and terrains that are centred around Indonesia but over time we'll add in different parts of the world, different vehicles and probably different player-characters to build it out. So this is step one of what we expect to be a long-term project.

Objectives may change at any time, so listening to the dialogue between squad members is one of the key elements ensuring your survival during massive assault missions. We also know that 2015 is working hard on pushing teammate AI routines to their limit. You can be sure your comrades will be of great help when intense firefights commence. You can expect them to provide suppressing fire, but also take the time to find cover and patch up their own wounds before heading back into the fray. Hostiles, on the other hand, will respond in their own manner. In addition to quick and forceful melee attacks, foes also have the ability to hurl grenades back at you, challenging players every step of the way.

Vietcong: Fist Alpha isn't exactly the biggest or best expansion pack ever to grace store shelves. That said, it does add on some new features and more action that fans of the original game will be sure to eat up. The new additions include five new weapons like the M14 and Scorpion, new multiplayer options including the new Turn Table mode, and a brand new campaign which has some great moments and some mind blowingly frustrating moments that follow a different main character across several new missions. Even with some gameplay problems and relative brevity of the campaign, Fist Alpha is still an acceptable expansion to one of the more interesting shooters of last year, especially at the lower $20 price tag.

Kuma Reality Games builds re-creations of real-world events using advanced gaming tools. Kuma\War, the first Kuma Reality Game, is a first and third-person tactical squad-based game that provides multiple updates monthly to the consumer's computer to reflect unfolding events in the real world. Each month Kuma\War subscribers will receive playable missions, video news shows, extensive intelligence gathered from news sources around the world, and insight from a decorated team of military veterans.

And the environments are far more diverse than in previous Novalogic titles, aren't they?

Durand: We have river villages made out of thatch and wood and corrugated tin; we also have rooms made out of stone. We've got four or five different building just for the Indonesians. It's such a new experience having so many vehicles on top of this and having to balance the story on both sides.

"Download the test environment with the link above and unzip it (Winzip needed). Just start it and you see two windows: one with a vector landscape display and one with the camera settings. You can control the vehicle with cursor keys. In case you topple over the vehicle or fall down the landscape simply press W to reset the vehicle. Some simple objects are standing around which you can collide with and which behave physically. In this test environment we are testing the physics engine. The code is identical to Söldner (i.e. the DLL which contains the engine), only the display is done with a vector display as we need to show debug lines and variables."

But while similar in principle this is no mere Battlefield clone; and with BF: Vietnam waiting in the wings, it clearly can't afford to be. "Our on-foot combat and ballistics system are leaps and bounds ahead of that found in Battlefield," explains Joint Ops producer Joel Taubel.

"We definitely want vehicles in but we don't want to take away one of the best things we do: on-foot combat." And taking another swipe at his main rival, while underlining his team's drive towards realism: "With our ballistics system you can expect the guns to react and handle as they would in real life."

Action Vault: Are there other important aspects, features et al related to this topic that you wish to note for our readers, anything you'd like to tell them, or something you want to ask?

Kris Jackson: I'd like to mention our Battle Chatter system; each of our squad mates and our enemies have hundreds of lines that are kicked off based upon their AI states. They have additional story lines that are scripted, of course, but hearing these guys in battle is something special. They really run the gauntlet of emotions. Our programmers have done an incredible job bringing these guys to life, and the voice-over talent has been amazing.

The weaponry within the game is a step up from the original with a few more upgrades and new toys to play with like the G36E and the PsG1, which is a sniper rifle with a crazy 12x zoom attached. There are also some added vehicles such as an infiltration chopper and a ridged hull inflatable boat along with a new recon vehicle.

Warcry: There are a lot of FPS' on the game shelves these days. What about Soldner sets it apart from the others?

Teut: Soldner differs from "sports shooters" like Quake and Unreal or "tactical shooters" like Rainbow Six or Operation Flashpoint. In our opinion, even the Battlefield titles could be considered as a "team tactical shooter". Söldner is placed somewhere between Battlefield and Operation Flashpoint.

The player team AI is impressive as well with team members covering, crouching, and shooting as a team without any aid of any commands. However you can control if you want via simple keyboard commands to halt, regroup, fire and more. While we didn’t get a chance to check out this aspect of the game, Alpha Black Zero will have a full multiplayer co-op mode for the entire 17 missions of the full game.

SCi, one of Europe’s leading publishers of computer games, today announces that it has granted exclusive North American publishing rights for Conflict: Vietnam, the next game in the highly successful Conflict series, to Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (“Take-Two”).

Take-Two has committed to a marketing programme and will provide SCi with a guaranteed advance against royalty payments based on sales. Conflict: Vietnam will be published in Europe in September and North America in Autumn 2004. It will be available on Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox and PC.

Worldwide shipment of Conflict: Desert Storm and Conflict: Desert Storm 2 now exceeds 2.5 million units. Conflict: Desert Storm was originally released in September 2002 and Conflict: Desert Storm 2 was released in September 2003. Both games achieved the number one chart position in the U.K. charts.

It's hard to quantify exactly how freaking large these maps are, but if you boldly attempted to walk from one end to the other like a complete idiot (though I don't believe an end actually exists) you'll find yourself dying prematurely in real-life. Once starvation sets in and its decided that leaving the computer to eat is best, go ahead and rest a biblically sized book atop the "W" key to force your character to walk endlessly forward in your stead.

Last week we had a chance to visit the United Kingdom.

Our first meeting was in the town Windsor in one of the Gathering offices. We discussed various of things – for example Vietcong in the USA, the gMAX licensing, new free multiplayer missions for Vietcong and what is more important – a new PTERODON project.

The only thing we can say now is, that the project will take place in the world of Vietcong. If you have any suggestions for the singleplayer and multiplayer modes in this new Vietcong project, you can discuss it in our forum in the "New Vietcong" section.

Graphically Battlefield Vietnam is going to be vastly different to Battlefield in the original there was open land, deserts and some trees. Vietnam is filled with dense, harsh nasty jungles, small rivers, lush bushes and swamp with a great deal of greenery described by the EA development team as "overgrowth and undergrowth". The jungles will also have various temples, huts, military bases and bridges. The Vietnam jungle was harsh and unforgiving and that is shown within the game, the jungle, grass and other flora are certainly dense and intrusive enough to give the proper perspective. The environment is presented in such way there is going to be a lot of sniping, stalking, ambushes and guerrilla warfare.

Battlecraft is the name of the game's map editor and, judging from the demo we saw today, will allow amateur map designers to not only create the geography of a given conflict, but also place objects and spawn points for soldiers and vehicles.

Crytek Raided for Piracy Software - Aramo

German police forces performed a raid on the Coburg, Germany offices of Crytek according to Holger Will, an employee of a radio station located in the same building, who contacted GameSpy.

Will's report and those of German news sites indicate a former employee of Crytek, developers of the upcoming first-person shooter FarCry to be published by Ubisoft, hinted that the development house was using piracy software to create its games.

Computer experts who took part in the raid report the damage caused by the raid, in which some 150 policemen reportedly participated, goes into the six-digits range.

Neither Crytek nor Ubisoft has commented on raid and how it will affect the development process of FarCry.

Despite the annoyances though, Team Sabre is still just as fun as BHD was. If you love a bit of action then Team Sabre will provide it - exploding cars every which way, high speed boat and car pursuits with mounted machine guns galore, high paced close quarter combat; it's all here. As mentioned earlier, this is not really a Raven Shield alternative. Although some aspects like no life bar and injures are pretty realistic, the basic motto of the game is certainly fun over reality, and hey, I guess for most people that's what gaming is all about.

Your character has a few neat tricks up his sleeve, while slipping through enemy formations (after all, you are a slick and skillful military operative). Almost any environment can be used to your advantage. Since foes often attack in groups, players have the opportunity to hide behind walls, crates, pillars, etc. Such tactics are likely to be useful on many occasions. One of the most impressive feats we've seen was the character's ability to duck behind obstacles and fire at enemies without looking. Our hero simply stretches his arms above the obstacle and fires a rain of bullets into his adversaries.

What about controlling these vehicles? Will the controls be detailed (simulation style), or just the normal move-and-shoot controls?

We’re somewhere in the middle. Our flying physics are close to be realistic, but the interface helps to make it a little easier. Still you need to train to fully master a helicopter for example. Even firing an Abrams tank on the move isn't as easy as it sounds, some skill is involved. Our physics engine makes sure the feedback is real, our control system makes sure you can fully control each unit with mouse and standard keyboard keys.

A lot better already is the Assault gametype, because the gameplay is much more suitable for this. One team tries to complete an objective (placing explosives, flicking switches, the usual stuff) while the defending team does its best to prevent this. The use of stationary cannons and vehicles gives it the edge over deathmatch. I didn’t get to see the gametype’s full potential yet, but I imagine that if two good teams get a shot at it, it could be very exciting.

Still, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down - Team Saber turned into a highly additive gameplay experience for me, even with its flaws. If you are a fan of the original game, grabbing Team Saber is a no-brainer; Ritual Entertainment has delivered on the Novalogic formula well with their work on this expansion pack. If you haven’t played any of the previous Delta Force games before, picking up both Black Hawk Down and Team Saber should prove to be entertaining, in both single and multiplayer modes.

What enhancements to the graphics are being incorporated?

You can adjust the resolution and play at 1600x1200 and higher depending on your video card and monitor - which offers excellent accuracy and better graphics. We've also used uncompressed textures to further improve the visuals. The PC version is based on DirectX 9 - which offers optimal use of available graphics hardware acceleration and input devices such as rumble pads.