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Hidden &Dangerous 2

Hey, it's a World War II game in which you lead a squad of men through pitched battles! You rarely see that these days.

To be fair, Illusion's first Hidden & Dangerous pre-dated the Medal of Honor trends, as Take Two's press kit somewhat indignantly points out, calling it a "forerunner". Good point. These guys were doing huge 'your squad vs. a swarm of Nazis' battles back while Stephen Ambrose was still looking for war stories to plagiarize. And, of course, Illusion earned a lot of respect with Mafia. So Hidden & Dangerous 2 merits attention despite the glut of World War II shooters that threaten to drown it.

Hidden & Dangerous 2 is actually more about infiltration than huge battles. The missions range from attacking a bunker in Burma, stealthing through occupied cities, sneaking into a secret German lab in the Arctic, or creeping carefully across North African deserts. Illusion is using an improved version of the engine they created for Mafia, so of course you'll be able to use vehicles for transportation or combat.

Mein leben!

Check out the sky

Whoah nice shadows

Before each mission, you select a team of special forces soldiers, who improve and gain experience as you play. You equip your soldiers, which in some missions means giving them uniforms to be used as disguises. Once you're in the game, you control one soldier at a time, but can freely jump into different members of your squad. You can command the other members using a menu to give orders to everyone or singling out individual soldiers. Far more flexible is the command mode, which lets you pause the game and assume a bird's eye view of the level, where you can give everyone waypoints and queue up orders. You can even run the game from this mode, playing it as a third-person tactical squad game.

The campaign can be played through in multiplayer co-op mode. You can also play missions solo, without squad members, or as a combat skirmish with the only objective being to kill everyone. With a variety of ways to play, and considering some of the spectacular set pieces from the first Hidden & Dangerous, this sequel should hold its own. At the very least, it should be a nice combination of Rainbow Six's squad-based tactical control with a World War II theme.