Hidden and Dangerous Interview by Dan Dimetrescu of WWW.PCGAMING.RO
	"Hidden & Dangerous" is one of the most interesting tactical games / realistic 3D shooters yet to be released this year. Set during World War 2, the game puts the player in control of up to 4 British soldiers, carrying out dangerous missions (inspired from actual WW2 missions) in occupied Europe. The game puts great emphasis on real tactics more than action, and unlike Rainbow Six you can define plans in mid mission. Illusion Softworks, the developers, are a Czech based games company, but they have already proven their potential and they certainly don't play with "me too" products. All their projects in development go beyond the current standards and "H&D" is no exception. From the megalomaniac Czech company I give you Petr Vochozka, the producer of "Hidden & Dangerous." Q: How is "Hidden & Dangerous" going ? I know it should be in full beta soon, but when can we expect the game to be in the shops ? A: The full Beta is just finished, now the game is in the hands of the Take 2 testing departament and we repair last errors and polish the playability. The game will be in shops by the end of May. Q: What are the aims of this project ? A: To be better than the competing projects. Our aim is to create the game the players will love and will say wow to playability and graphics. Let's speak about the graphics engine used in the game ... How would you rate it compared to other games ? The screenshots look really spectacular but can you tell us what hardware will we need to run the game ? Is it optimized for the AMD 3DNow! and Intel SIMD instruction sets ? The engine was developed here at Illusion Softworks and runs under Direct3D. Comparing it to other engines is very difficult, because each has its own pros and cons. Ours was mainly designed to screen outdoor sceneries, which are the biggest ever seen in any computer game. HW needed to run Hidden and Dangerous on begins somewhere at P200MMX, but for the best performance you need a PII and a very good 3D card, of course. Q: What size are the maps in the game, and how long should a mission last from start to finish ? Can you describe a typical H&D mission ? A: The size varies mission from mission, but the average we will say is a few square miles. This allows us to take care of each detail - the graphics is not set up from squares or predefined parts as in some other games, each level is unique and made from the blank screen. How long it lasts? There is NO save within the game (only between missions), so when you don't cover well, you replay one mission a few times. The first mission lasts for an average player about 10-15 minutes, the last missions I would guess a few hours. And the typical mission - the missions are really very various, the mission objectives are various - so this question is again very hard to answer. Click to continue		Q: Let me get this clear : One mission can last a few hours ?! Is this in one go or have you included multiple restarts by the player (due to being killed and failing the mission) ? A: You have to restart each mission if you do not succeed or are not satisfied with the result. For example, three good men were shot down, anyway with the last one you finish the mission, now it depends on you whether you continue (and thus lose lot of power) or restart. Q: I know the missions are varied and different, but can you describe one that will show how your game works ? Just tell us the steps the player needs to make from start to finish to complete the mission. A: I can describe the first mission, the easiest one. Italy, the Bridge. Your four man squad start at one bank of the river and their mission is just to cross the bridge and get to a car on the other side. Now it really depends on you, what tactics you will choose. It is storm and the visibility is very bad. The easiest, for me, is to choose a man with the sniper gun, then shoot the guard on the bridge. Now from the building run out two soldiers. I can hide behind the big stone and throw grenade to them. Both are dead. Now on the bridge there are some 5-6 other guards, so the best way is to crawl very slowly and use your sniper gun to kill them. Do not forget that when you miss, it is sure they will start firing at you and you are a dead man. On the other bank there are two other soldiers behind the building, you can snipe them, or the funny way - steal the dead Germans some hand-grenades and throw at them. This is how I finished the mission. Sounds easy but I always lose a man or two. Brave people will just take a machine gun and try to kill what moves, they can use the path under the bridge (for pedestrians) and try to kill the guards from below. Really tens of possible actions, like in a real war. This was just a very easy first mission. In the second mission, refinery, we ourselves find each time we play it new ways how to succeed. Go to Page Two
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