"'Kuma\War' enables consumers to experience actual missions of real soldiers in the war on terror," said Keith Halper, CEO of Kuma Reality Games. "Players have to devise the tactics and make the hard choices in some of the most important events of our time. For our subscribers, we make the headlines real."

Downloaded via a broadband connection, in addition to new missions, subscribers will receive automatic updates and intelligence information on a weekly basis to assist them in battle. "Kuma\War" will launch with five missions, and then add additional assignments in the weeks to follow, such as part two of the Samarra Bank Heist and the Korean Spy Sub Incident: ROK The Enemy Within.

Prior to embarking on each mission, players are given intelligence gathered from around the world, in the form of a video news show, technical specifications for the weapons used, a chronology of the battle, and even a satellite photo of the battlefield. Expert military analysis is also provided to the player, to give a strategic and tactical perspective of the historical event. Sources for the intelligence include the Associated Press, declassified Department of Defense documents and a decorated team of military advisors.

* Drivable vehicles……lots of them. Use land, sea & air vehicles to your advantage. Pilot helicopters, command boats and drive fast attack vehicles with your team on board, firing on the move. Use LCACs (Landing Craft Air Cushioned) or Chinook helicopters to transport teammates and vehicles from island to island or across expansive terrain.

* Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight! Choose your weapons wisely! Pick from a vast armory of modern weapons and equipment to outsmart your enemy. [...]

HomeLAN - Will the game contain any multiplayer modes?

Jim Omer - Scenario Missions can be played by a single player or up to four players cooperatively. To create an interesting training environment, players will be able to hone their skills and familiarize themselves with the weaponry in Combat Training. The Combat Training Mode can also be used as a multiplayer mode that lets players compete for points against one another in a variety of settings. Tactical Combat is available for individual or team-based multiplayer matches set in a variety of environments that can be played over the Internet or local area network (LAN) settings.

You've heard the rumours, now here's the fact - Ghost Recon 2 is coming, and it's not far away! We have already heard second hand information that Ghost Recon 2 will be aired at E3 in May, but that's not all. GhostRecon.net has also heard directly from the horses mouth that Ghost Recon 2 production is well underway and the Ubi Soft marketing machine is about to swing into full force!

Soldner's most unique feature also promises to be its most fun; the game features a fully destructible environment. Virtually everything in the game can be destroyed. Tanks can demolish buildings or blast craters in the ground big enough that infantry can huddle in them for cover. Explosions can knock down trees in the middle of battle, and the threat of falling lumber is very real. Trees can also be knocked down to create impromptu roadblocks, especially against wheeled vehicles.

For Red Mercury, we took it one step further in our push for a cinematic experience. We've also had great support from Peter Zinda and Soundelux (from Black Hawk Down, Saving Pvt. Ryan, etc.) in terms of asset creation and mixing. He made almost all the gunshot sounds and a fair number of incidental sounds as well. I was very exciting to sit with him as he developed massive gun shot sounds from live recordings they had made, sweetened with metallic clunks he recorded on the spot and synthesizer sounds or any variety of sounds. I love the stereo and in some cases quadraphonic realization of the first person weapons. It’s certainly the most important set of sounds in the game and I'm really thrilled at how they turned out.

Naturally, the levels in kill.switch offer all sorts of cover, from abandoned cars sitting in the middle of the street to collapsed walls, not to mention countless corners to peek around. Many of the early levels resemble areas from the Middle East, and with the heavy firefights, they feel reminiscent of many of the urban combat scenes from the movie Black Hawk Down. You can also use the enemies' mounted weapons against them; for example, if you knock out the gunner on a technical (a small, four-wheeled car with a machine gun mounted in the bed), you can then use it against a wave of incoming enemies.

The real kicker is that the enemies in the game, thanks to some pretty aggressive AI, will also use the environment to their advantage, meaning that they won’t just be running around aimlessly, waiting for you to take them down at your own leisure. Enemies will station themselves behind things like boxes and other objects, and will even use cover fire to suppress your movement while some of the squad mates may be moving in to flank you from another side.

We traveled to Moscow, Rabat Morocco, Europe, Hawaii and Croatia to grab texture maps and record binaural audio. We visited aircraft carriers, container ships, Russian subs. While we used Soundeluxe for many of our audio needs, we also spent time with a very large selection of weapons, recording audio for dry fire, reload, weapon select, reload as well as animations for each of these actions. It really helps your animators create dramatic player view anims when they have fired the weapons themselves.

Two big changes and a handful of tweaks set Vietnam apart from its predecessor. The most obvious change is in the graphics engine: ground clutter covers the hillsides with thick vegetation and heavy forests sway in the wind. This favors some new gameplay, as it's much easier than before to go prone amidst a clump of underbrush unseen by the enemy. Occasionally machinegun fire will rip out of the jungle from unexpected angles, cutting you down before you can even get a look at your assailant: Welcome to 'Nam! Being able to hide in the jungle makes it a little easier for one solider or a small group of soldiers to defend a location, but fortunately this isn't so effective as to slow down the brisk pace of the game. Expect to be frustrated by snipers and hidden enemies, however.

Weapons include AK-47, AKU and M249 as well as heavier weaponry such as grenades which can be thrown or fired. Each weapon comes into its own depending on the situation, and the ability to pull up a sniper scope came in handy on more than one occasion. Nothing as satisfying as a good head shot on someone poking their ugly mug round a corner ;) While you dash through the scenarios, you can also take up stationary gun positions making it easier to mow down the enemy, of course they have the same idea making your progression a tougher.

Not only are all the levels in Athena Sword quite large, especially by Raven Shield standards, but they're chock-full of personality and color. There's almost a sun-drenched atmosphere in the daytime missions that brings out the vibrancy of the textures. Ubisoft Milan has definitely upped the cultural quotient of the franchise by packing in tons of classical architecture, artwork, and statuary that really conveys the feeling that you're battling it out in the middle of Old Europe.

Players of BF: 1942 will feel right at home in Battlefield: Vietnam as they will still get to pick from a number of player classes; the typical grunt assault class, the sniper class, the engineer class (helpful for fixing up vehicles) and anti-vehicle (helpful for destroying vehicles). Weapons for these classes range from the rifles (M-16s and AK-47) to sniper rifles and anti-tank weapons that look and act mostly like their real life counterparts.

Of course, you can’t have a Battlefield game without drivable vehicles and BF: Vietnam has them in spades. Yes you pilot tanks and jeeps like in BF: 1942 but in the new game you pilot attack and transport helicopters as well along with river boats straight out of Apocalypse Now and the big new vehicles, the 1960’s style jets like the American F4 Phantom and the Russian MiG-21 that was used by the North Vietnamese forces.