by Maurice Fitzgerald

Environmentals

Environmental effects like rain and night lighting are done very well also. Nighttime ops are D-A-R-K, just like it was for the soldiers in WWII. They weren’t spoiled by the use of technology as we are today through the use of nigh vision goggles.

Playing night missions in this game will truly give you a sense of what the soldiers went through in WWII, the sense of danger, fear, apprehension and disorientation are captured in the day missions and even more magnified in the night.

But the glorious eye candy does have its faults. Things such as seeing one of your soldiers stuck halfway in the ground and not able to move; the broken fog that keeps enemies hidden at times yet allows them to see you. Not to mention the absolute crawl your machine can come to when in busy outdoor environments. With a PII 550, 256 Megs of RAM and TNT2 this should absolutely not happen. Ignoring these plagues to the stunning visuals I moved on to test the gameplay.

Mission Structure

The missions are some of the most well thought out, well designed and challenging I have yet played in a shooter. Couple that with the excellent strategic mode command interface and you have one solid foundation for a great tactical shooter.

In Rainbow Six you planned your movements and plotted team member waypoints prior to commencing the mission, in H&D you have full tactical control throughout the entire mission. Between the tactical and first person angles of the game, H&D is like having two games in one, similar to Rainbow Six but more dynamic since the planning happens during gameplay not before.

During gameplay, orders are issued through the strategic mode. Entering into the strategic mode is as simple as hitting the space bar. From there you will be brought to an overhead map that cleverly resembles a ‘sand table’ which units use for pre-battle walkthroughs and tactical classes.

It’s a nice little atmospheric touch and the functionality of the map is very strong, complete with numerous commands that can be issued to each soldier individually. You can have each soldier doing something different in support of one another and the AI soldiers carry out the orders fairly well. You will see the R6 syndrome of AI soldiers getting caught on environmental objects at times. When this occurs you’ll have to take control and manually move them out of trouble. Pathfinding is still an issue with H&D.

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Every Rose Has Its Thorn.. Or Two

Unfortunately the stuck on walls syndrome is not the only trouble the AI has in store for you. The AI really could do with some more work, as it is just not all that intelligent at times.

This is painfully obvious when after you have given a ‘hold fire’ command one of your artificially challenged AI soldiers start leaning on the trigger, wasting ammo and the element of surprise. The AI really needs to be tweaked; hopefully future patches will address this issue. Another problem is when one of your men tries to fire through one of his team mates or even worse, you!

Not only is the friendly AI lacking but the enemy AI as well. Sometimes you’ll see flashes of brilliant AI coding as enemy soldiers try to run you down after you’ve opened fire on them. Other times you’ll be beside yourself in disbelief as the AI just walks on by one of their own downed comrades without even the slightest bit of notice. You also have to deal with the built in AI cheat that allows them excellent shooting skills.

Man and Mouse

Although the above points are admitted downsides, they do not necessarily kill the gameplay for me. But there are some bugs that have caused me to turn this game off in utter frustration and disgust. One  sticking point for me has been the mouse control, or I should say a seeming lack thereof.

I’ve tried adjusting the mouse movement to no avail. Even with the Part Three