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Since this is an Army game, you'll get to play as real forces. The first of approximately 20 missions lets you join up with the 172nd Brigade (Go, Snow Hawks!) as they're called in to stop an ecological disaster along the Alaskan pipeline. You'll also go in with the 82nd Airborne as they drop in to seize an airfield in the swamps near the Joint Readiness Training Center. The 75th Ranger Regiment will be sent to disrupt illegal arms transfers, and keep the terrorists from obtaining anti-air missiles. Intelligence officers and operations personnel have helped to build the various levels as accurately as possible.

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Enemy artificial intelligence is much better than the original game's. Characters no longer fail to react when the guy standing right next to them has his brains blown out. Though they don't exhibit much squad coordination, they use cover extremely well. Enemies will often find a spot and stick to it, poking their heads out to take potshots at you. They're also deadly with grenades, which keeps you from staying in one location for long and encourages accuracy on your part, as headshots will immediately drop an enemy. Along with explosive grenades, the computer opponents have some ability to use flashbangs, though they're a bit less successful with these. Sometimes it appears as if they're actually coordinating an attack by throwing a flashbang at you and then advancing through the cover of smoke.

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Gameplay is very straight forward. You get briefed on a mission that you must accomplish. These missions vary from rescuing a hostage to assassinating a leader to planting a bomb somewhere and ending in taking out a whole terrorist organization. You are then assigned a team of three people which you are free to equip with various machineguns, handguns, grenades and devices (if they are available for the particular mission). You then get inserted into an extraction point where you must follow a path on your map/radar shown at the bottom of your HUD.

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What is your goal with this new Clancy title? Aren’t there enough Clancy games with Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon franchises?

Mathieu Ferland (Producer Ubi Soft): “Splinter Cell represents an expansion of our Tom Clancy range. Unlike Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell is a Third Person stealth action game, where you have to complete your missions as a solo field operative. [...]

Our goal for the game is to push the stealth/action experience further (which is not an easy task). We are creating a console game from the ground up, that will plunge the players in a very interactive environment. We focused our efforts in linking amazing technology to the game-play. For instance, the real time lighting and shadows are awesome effects, but they are also crucial to the game-play (stealth) – and there are a lot of other examples of that kind.”

As your character is at the cutting edge of technology there's all sorts of gadgets at your disposal. We moved into one area where we needed to see what was going on in a room so instead of opening the door we snuck a camera which was attached to a long probe under the door to take a look. The screen then changed to the camera view giving us a black and white image of what was going on behind the door.

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What is your favorite feature of the game and why?

I really like the new peek & crouch controls which are quite innovative. It doesn’t disturb the way I’m used to play Rogue Spear, but if I need more precision, the full control is useful and will help me to discover hidden places to shoot the enemy.

At the start of the demo we were shown our team huddled behind a wall in a group and the amount of detail on the character models is just stunning. You can see absolutely everything right down to the weapons and grenades they are carrying strapped to their belts. When you see detail like this you can really appreciate the power of the game engine.

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The game is primarily comprised of cooperative multiplayer play, but has a significant single player element designed to guide the character through progressive training and career advancement. Basic training, for example, should introduce the player to the game, while rigorous sniper training must be completed before gamers can take on a sniper role in-game. Training elements currently include marksmanship training, airborne school, sniper school and Ranger school missions.

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Sporting an attention to detail and realism that rivals last year's highly acclaimed Operation Flashpoint, America's Army is supposed to simulate the experience of real-life small arms combat. Weapons can jam. Reloading takes time. Support is vital. Stealth is important. It's certainly complex, but judging by our first impression, much like in Operation Flashpoint, the realism doesn't really get in the way of the game being fun. On the contrary, the realism means that America's Army has a different feel to it than more action-oriented multiplayer shooters like Counter-Strike.

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Peek a boo!

To clarify: Despite the game's title, it is not a licensed property and isn't directly related to either the novel by Mark Bowden or the recent film directed by Ridley Scott. When we asked about this, it was pointed out that "Black Hawk Down" is a commonly used military term, and of course, this game does depict some of the same events as the book and movie of the same name. DF: BHD takes place during the 12 months of Operation Restore Hope, where American troops were sent into Somalia. The game will feature much more than either the book or the movie, as those only showcased a small portion of the entire campaign. We were told that this was a major reason why the company didn't pursue an official license--having one would have restricted it to the same events as the previous versions.

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The game itself is actually a prequel to the events of Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and its first expansion pack, Red Hammer. You play the role of an ex-Soviet soldier who's piecing together a group of resistance fighters in an attempt to repel an impending Soviet invasion of his home island. You start out the game with nothing other than your own personal rifle, and you'll be forced to acquire your equipment, weapons, and ammunition from the enemy through any means necessary.

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Budding mission makers aren't being ignored either. Although my own lofty plans in this particular area didn't exactly bear much fruit, Bohemia is promising to include some "powerful new scripts" according to Smith which should make life a little easier for all of us. Both publisher and developer have been overwhelmed by the way the editing community grew up around Flashpoint and although nothing concrete is planned at the time of writing, Smith does hint at continued support for the creatives out there, sitting at home inventing wars in their underwear (so to speak). At least there's the new island, weapons and civilian vehicles to mess about with while the pros decide what to do for you next.

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In terms of in-game graphics Chrome's main building block would definitely have to be the highly detailed environment. It's something similar to what we've seen in Serious Sam - huge levels and lots of vegetation. Moreover, varying planet atmospheres indicate different weather conditions, so that each level is going to feature different environmental conditions that go in accordance with the planet's climate (you can mostly expect to see heavy rain, strong snowstorms, and so on). The game is also powered by a pretty solid physics engine, which allowed the developers to add various interesting gameplay enhancements. For example, in-game models will fall down differently almost every time they are hit, and the way they'll collapse largely depends on the structure of the terrain and nearby obstacles. Nice and realistic, you might say.

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Tell us about the different game modes available. Will the singleplayer storyline also be available in multiplayer mode? Are there any new concepts lurking to be revealed for FPS fans?

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost will provide all the multiplayer modes popular today, such as Deathmatch, CTF, Team Match. There also will be Cooperative play, where gamers can join in to kill monsters together. We also plan several new modes for the game. One of them is named Hunt. In this mode players select a map, purchase weapons and start fighting. Gamers obtain money at the game start and for each kill of an enemy. When killed, player purchases weapons again (with the combat-gained money) and starts fighting.

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"We're making a game about the Chernobyl exclusion zone, and naturally will try to most fully render the atmosphere and looks of the inner ten kilometer zone", Sergiy told us. "This means that along with creating prototypes of real constructions, vegetation and landscape, we will also use 'real' textures brought from there. The game will feature Red Forest, Prypjat city, Chernobyl city, the Chernobyl atomic facility and more. Chernobyl plant is the centre of the zone, and the game objective is not only to reach it, but also to get inside."

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Overall the graphics do look better, it is a clearer game with the added elements, but the improvements feel like a slick coating over a game which is still a few years old in style and gameplay. It is unfortunately still a game which lacks the freshness of more recent strategy games.

This is not to say that I didn't find it enjoyable. The challenge is still there, levels are hard, and it takes a considerable amount of persistence to be successful. Hidden and Dangerous Deluxe is worth trying out, especially if you lean towards tactical squad-based strategy games.