The realism factor is definitely there in this game, taking a page from Tom Clancy’s book on one hit kills. A shot between the upper torso and the head is usually fatal, for both player and the enemy. Through the realistic damage, a certain survival element is thrown into the game, which really captures what it could have been like in the Vietnam War. Enemy AI proves to be quite an adversary in this game as the enemies patrol high traffic areas, take cover under fire, and actually reload their weapons. This may seem like a trivial comment, but it would surprise most people that more often than not, enemies in first person shooters have unlimited ammunition and do not stop to reload. If an enemy soldier happens to exhaust his ammunition (around 5 clips), which rarely happens, he will pull his knife and attack you; a clever little addition to the game.

The game's 3D graphics engine capably renders both characters and environments. Trees and other foliage can be seen moving in the breeze, though this scenery does become pixelated up close. We also noticed some issues with the way characters interact with the environment, such as fallen soldiers seeming to float a bit above the ground. The game's frame rate also seemed a bit slow when we ran the game at 1024x768 on a 2.4GHz machine with a GeForce 4 video card.

Will Men of Valor: Vietnam include more interaction with AI, vehicles, and general surroundings than we saw in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault?

The world overall is a bit more dynamic and the AI is definitely more interactive and less reliant on scripts than MOHAA. Enemies can respond rapidly to player actons, making them extremely dangerous in the jungle environments, and friendly AIs can be commanded in real time to allow the player to craft tactics.

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) today announced that its Gathering division has shipped Vietcong for the PC. Published by Gathering and developed by Illusion Softworks in association with development team Pterodon, Vietcong is an intense first-person shooter which is now available in North America and will be available in Europe on April 11th.

"Vietcong transports players to the Southeast Asia battleground through stunning graphics, intense sound effects and complex missions," said Kelly Sumner, President of Gathering. "This action-packed title will have players riveted as they navigate the varied terrain and constant threat of the jungle war zone."

Set in Somalia in 1993, Delta Force - Black Hawk Down is based upon and around the Operation Restore Hope and Task Force Ranger campaigns immortalized in the book and movie of the same name. The game follows members of the elite Delta Force, US Army Rangers and 10th Mountain Division as they participate in a number of daring raids against the oppressive Somali warlords in and around Mogadishu.

Delta Force - Black Hawk Down recreates the intense atmosphere of a war-torn country. From tours of duty in the vast Somali countryside, where snipers could lurk on top of any hill - to the maze like streets of Mogadishu, where militia and civilians blend seamlessly the task of discerning enemy from refugee is vital, as a wrong decision could cost you your mission…. or your life.

Delta Force - Black Hawk Down features include:
* Insertion by MH-6 helicopter transports, Black Hawks and ground based vehicles.
* An AI system that drives friendly teams and enemies to carry out strategic, lethal combat maneuvers.
* An arsenal of authentic weapons as used by US Special Forces during Operation Restore Hope and Task Force Ranger.
* Huge and varied landscapes that transport the player into the middle of a chaotic war zone.

LOS Vietnam really shines in the graphics department. The images are crisp and real and give an eerie scene of the danger around you. The maps have beautiful floral backgrounds that are very interactive. You can hide behind logs, trees, bushes, weeds, water and more. Every inch of the map shines with a vibrant realistic color scheme that sets this game in a league of its own. The colors picked for all the items, right down to a slight variation in the shade of moss on a tree, are incredibly detailed.

As in Pacific Theater, nFusion's proprietary graphics engine does a great job of creating a believable jungle environment. The levels are huge and filled with plenty of rocks, trees, and plants to provide cover. You get a real sense of both being hidden and engaging hidden enemies. Spotting camouflaged opponents is ultimately the game's primary challenge. Because of this, even though the game lets you use up to 12 different weapons, the sniper rifle is the one you'll end up using in virtually every situation.

Even though each mission is a completely separate entity from the last, NovaLogic has done a great job in delivering a real sense of accomplishment with having completed the objectives any given mission entails. Some bleed together after a bit, but infiltrating a Russian made complex in search of Somalis fleeing capture and storming a beach that leads to a radio transmitting post that must be taken out are diverse enough tasks to hold interest. The killing of course, is the glue.

The AI in this title NEVER MISSES and can hit you from a mile away. LOS Vietnam, in single player mode is not a fast pace shooter, instead it is a stealth based shooter that places you in an impossible situation. I will say that if realism is your goal this may be the game for you. This title stands out in multiplayer mode. With the option of death-match and cooperative play the fun begins to shine. The game play becomes fast paced the ability of controlling more units is sweet.

The update includes new parental controls, a bigger and better Weapons Cache Special Edition map, and multiple additions, 'tweaks,' and fixes to existing gameplay. Updated Game Engine. The updated version of the game engine provides improved networking and audio performance and enhanced server and client stability.

The trees and bushes that engulf each map look pretty real. Some look pixilated up close, but they are very commendable nonetheless. The textures on the ground are somewhat weird, but it does give the effect of some jungle terrain.

After you've chosen your team, you get to equip your operatives individually. Real-world weapon buffs will love this part of Raven Shield, as the game's extensive arsenal includes assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, and more. Experimenting with all the different weapon capabilities, ammo types, and optional attachments is almost like a minigame in itself. Along with the firearms, you can equip your troops with breaching charges, flash-bang grenades, tear-gas grenades, and other special weapons and tools.

On one hand the gameplay was simplified this way to avoid the abandon of the single-player campaign by many players. On the other hand I noticed that AI controlled enemies are very active during a fight. They will crouch so they'll be harder to aim at, they will use different elements of the map as cover, they will sound the alarm or alarm others around them but in any case they won't come directly towards you. You can also do all these things like covering or crouching but you can also use your binoculars or the thermal mode to see interesting parts of the level. What seemed awkward to me was that you cannot carry more than one primary weapon (the same with secondary but you really use the gun in very rare cases) so you'll have to use the sniper from a very big distance, abandon it so you can pick up your weapon or why not an AK-47 from a dead enemy.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA. March 18, 2003 - Ubi Soft Entertainment, one of the world's largest video game publishers, announced today that the third installment of its best-selling Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six(tm) Series, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six(tm) 3: Raven Shield(tm) is available this week at retail outlets across the U.S. The game was developed by Ubi Soft's Montreal studio, most recently renowned for creating Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell.

"With massive pre-release excitement and the incredible success of the Clancy franchise, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 promises to be another huge hit and is expected to fly off store shelves," said Tony Kee, vice president of marketing for Ubi Soft Entertainment. "Rainbow Six fans demand sophisticated, intense gameplay with the white-knuckle realism of Tom Clancy - they won't be disappointed."

The Rainbow Six games have sold more than 7 million copies worldwide, making them among the most popular PC games ever. With new Team RAINBOW missions, improved graphics and stunning special effects, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield should blow away die-hard Rainbow fans and earn the series a whole new generation of devotees.

Raven Shield uses the Unreal engine to create some stunningly realistic locations, drawn with rich textures, complex level geometry, and lush lighting. The character models and animation are top-notch, with new first-person perspective weapon graphics bringing all the different guns to life.

Despite the fact that Vietnam's overall presentation, its price ($19.99 USD), and especially the marketing campaign (or the lack of thereof) surrounding the game may've indicated that this is just another value title by Infogrames, the quality of the gameplay, and Vietnam's intense in-game atmosphere painted a different picture. Line of Sight: Vietnam is a very solid military shooter, and I personally can't think of many reasons why fans of the genre shouldn't own it. The single-player campaign won't last too long, but then, there's always the option of playing over LAN or the Internet. The multiplayer facet doesn't bring anything drastically new to the table, but it's still fun enough to keep this game on your HDD for a while longer.

In most ways IGI 2 is a solid game, with no major downsides. It has decent graphics, decent sounds, good gameplay, and a well-shaped multiplayer mode. However, it is not very innovative. Perhaps in a few years we’ll see a third game with top-notch graphics, more gameplay innovations and maybe even some more multiplayer modes. Until then you can have a lot of fun playing IGI 2, both if you like challenging single player missions, or duking it out over the Internet.

Once you make your way in, the game's control scheme is just about the same as any other shooter on the market. However, Conflict has major issues regarding its controls that most other first-person shooters (FPSs) have all but perfected. These range from the minor to the extreme and plague the game throughout its entirety and are almost too numerous to count. The movement controls were adapted straight from a console controller, and as such the game doesn't make full use of the numerous keyboard and mouse functions available to PC users.

Splinter Cell contains 9 missions across 22 levels through 4 countries : Myanmar, USA, Georgia, Russia. Your goals vary from mission to mission. They usually range from infiltration to extraction, from keeping still (and avoiding alarms) to occasionally open combat. Yeah, this game uses a lot of stealth. You even have a little meter at the bottom that tells you how visible or hidden you are at any time. Fortunately, you'll have plenty of ways to remain hidden. For example, you can turn off or shoot out lights and then rely on your night vision goggles to stay hidden while still keeping an eye on the bad guys. You climb, slide down wires, crouch, interrogate people, hide bodies, and of course kill people. You have many acrobatic moves (diving summersault, ledge hang, pipe climb, peek around corners and shoot, drop attack, drag and hide bodies, close-quarters stealth attack, gunpoint cooperation, human shield), and the game makes you use them all..

In LINE OF SIGHT: VIETNAM your job is to locate elusive enemy soldiers and pick them off one-by-one. Whether patiently waiting for the enemy to show himself or delivering a pre-emptive strike, the method is the same - be quick, be quiet, and be careful. That's what will get you home alive. The demo contains a tutorial, a single player mission, 3 multiplayer maps and 4 multiplayer modes.

Important Note: The demo preview is now available to all FilePlanet Members. When you install the file, you will be given a KEY in a web browser window. You must use this KEY to unlock the demo preview. Also DirectX 9.0 is required!

If you do find yourself under attack, the firefights can be action-packed and exciting but are just as likely to be frustrating. The enemies usually act foolishly, but, as mentioned above, they have superb aim to compensate. Imagine the infamously difficult Sniper Town level from 2015's excellent shooter Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, but everywhere, all the time. As such, you'll need to sneak from cover to cover as you pick off enemies and use grenades to take out large groups before they can fire on you en masse. Unfortunately, the AI troops' unerring ability to hit you with a submachine gun from hundreds of yards away may make you feel like the game is cheating.

The demo contains a tutorial, a single player mission, 3 multiplayer maps and 4 multiplayer modes.

Perhaps the best innovation to planning takes place in-game. Now you can adjust and give situational orders to your team on the fly – put your reticule on a door and hit a button, and you will order one of your men to the front to open it. Hit a button while aiming at a point in the distance, and your team will move there. It is now, for the first time in Rainbow history, possible to effectively use a fire team without predefining their every movement.

Your previous product was Deadly Dozen 2, Will we see anything from DD2 carried over in the LOS: Vietnam? Anything you learned from previous title that you decided to fix/do better?

LOS is similar to DD2 in many areas, it is still squad-based, the controls are basically the same, and it still is mission-based. But the actual game play feels quite different. Sneaking is a lot more important, as is finding a good sniping spot and taking out the enemy without them seeing you. The squad is smaller too, you generally are either alone or have one man with you, so the game ends up being more action-oriented rather than squad strategy.

The Road to Rome is not a very daring expansion, with battles still limited to two factions and maps that are, in many ways, a step backwards in strategy. At its price, however, it certainly delivers. Anyone who bought Battlefield 1942 for primarily single player action should definitely upgrade as soon as possible, as they will enjoy the sizeable performance boost and scenarios that make the most of the experience with the AI.

Nowadays games include mostly indoor locations. If there are any outdoor locations present, they are usually limited to small clearings between high mountains with a little bit of the sky above them. The Chrome Engine enables the player to run around a very deep forest looking at very detailed textures of the leaves and the bark. The very next moment the player might be jumping into a shuttle and rising high above the ground to see everything turn smaller and smaller, until it becomes an extensive view of the whole terrain covered with thousands of little trees.

All this is possible thanks to innovative algorithms used to produce extensive terrains with numerous objects. The environment is presented as a map indicating terrain elevation. That system has certain limitations, but these can always be avoided by simply placing 3D objects on the terrain. The combination of polygon algorithms needed for terrain visualization at a given view with innovative methods of sending these to video cards enabled very quick rendering of such terrain, regardless of the viewing point – whether you’re crawling on the ground or watching the ground from the bird’s eye view.

Efficient methods of storing and rendering objects constituting the plant life in the game are also very important. In Chrome you can come across levels with the plant life count going into millions of separate pieces. Smooth running of the game could have been reached only with a proper selection system deciding which plants currently in view should be displayed. The basic problem was to choose such object selection methods, that would make the player unaware of the fact that certain objects are not displayed. The player’s impression is the most important issue in that matter.

Chrome uses a very interesting system of storing information about millions of plants. This information concerns the density of certain plant types in certain locations. The appropriate real time algorithm can generate the list of plants, which are supposed to be displayed in a given view. This method allows a very efficient use of the RAM, because information about millions of objects would take a lot of memory.

We are still working hard to improve the system, so that it can produce even more realistic graphics. Soon you will be able to see the final results.

There's more to do in IGI2 as well, and more to see. You'll travel through the jungles of remote mountain regions, infiltrate a city and steal secret documents, climb catwalks and shimmy over prison walls, and jump headfirst into a ravine. Oh, and by the way, you will also shoot out lights and disable security cameras.

The magnificence of the jungle design actually makes you feel like you are there; when you prone down the wild flowers are so close to your face you can virtually smell them; when you leopard-crawl your way to the rear of that bothersome sniper, you actually feel submerged in thick greenery that is in serious need of mowing.

All these, combined with realistic floating-in-water physics, well-rendered polygonal figures and unbelievably beautiful skylines (especially at night), make this a visual feast like no other war game so far. Oh yes, and no WW2 war buff should miss out on the black and white footage used in the game.

The gadgets in SC are some of the coolest ever, and on top of that list has to be the sticky cam. Shoot this little guy anywhere you want, and watch from a safe area. Picking locks is always fun, especially when you realize that a guard could come walking by any second.

The requisite scenarios are all reproduced here. From the start you'll need to defuse bombs planted around an oil rig before moving on to equally familiar sites such as large mansions, shipyards, airports and the like. But even though we've been to all these types of locations before, it doesn't mean that the game is clichéd -- well, at least no more clichéd than actual terrorists are. What do they want with all those refineries and mansions anyway?

The other side of the planning phase involves outfitting your squad with their equipment. While by default each operative has everything they’ll need to successfully complete their objectives, the player may want to use a different loadout. Raven Shield boasts a very large array of submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, pistols, and light machine guns, as well as secondary weapons such as frag grenades, flashbangs, claymore mines, smoke grenades, and heartbeat sensors. Even still, the weapons themselves can be modified slightly; you can choose the ammo type to be used and an attachment such as a silencer, mini-scope, or an extended clip. Thus, picking the right tools for the job can be just as important as having an effective plan.