October 15, 1999 Web posted at: 3:40 p.m. EDT (1940 GMT) by Peter Olafson

From...

(IDG) -- Hidden & Dangerous is a wonderful 3D strategy game that, unfortunately, just doesn't work very well out of the box.

Essentially, it's Looking Glass' classic sci-fi squad game Terra Nova removed to World War II. You command four Allied commandos (drawn from a pool of 40) on 23 missions spread across six campaigns behind German lines. (The first finds you on the trail of captured bomber pilots -- the second, sabotaging a key lock on the Danube.)

You control team members from the default third-person or first-person view either directly or by plotting their moves in a zoomable top-down map mode. (You can have your current commando issue spoken orders to make the others follow him, cease fire and so forth.)

MORE COMPUTING INTELLIGENCE
	IDG.net home page
Games.net home page
Download free PC software fast
Cheat codes! Never die! Gain secret powers!
More games reviews at Games.net
Reviews & in-depth info at IDG.net
		IDG.net's desktop PC page
		IDG.net's portable PC page
IDG.net's Windows software page
IDG.net's personal news page
Year 2000 World
Questions about computers? Let IDG.net's editors help you
Subscribe to IDG.net's free daily newsletter for computer geniuses (& newbies too)
Search IDG.net in 12 languages
News Radio
	Fusion audio primers
	Computerworld Minute

Frankly, there isn't much I didn't like about Hidden & Dangerous. The scenery is vivid. The train that periodically chugs across the bridge in the opening mission is the most realistic I've ever seen in a computer game. When the Italian Resistance sabotages a bridge and a German troop train crashes and scatters its cargo, I could almost count the rings on the end of the logs.

The hazy street lamps and forlorn streetcar in the buttoned-up Yugoslav town made me feel positively solemn. And the commandos themselves -- each with a set of stats -- are rendered right down to the backpacks and neck tendons. (On the other hand, the game doesn't look quite as sharp in first-person, which I used only for the sniper mode.)

The sound is even better. The audio in Hidden & Dangerous is some of the most atmospheric I've heard in ages. In the driving rainstorm of the opening level, I felt properly soaked to the skin. In another, the groaning of steel on steel made me hurry out from under a ruined bridge.

And creeping through the dark alleyways of that occupied Yugoslav town, I even heard a woman singing. At the same time, the somber music isn't used as a soundtrack, but as information -- for instance, alerting you that you've crossed an invisible line and set off the appearance of new enemies.

The commandos will figure it out even if you don't. The enemies are from the stand-and-deliver school, but the Allied AI is pretty good. They usually go where they're ordered to go and know how to look after themselves once they get there, finding targets I couldn't even see and dropping prone to avoid incoming fire.

0n the other hand, they don't move out of each other's way and, in one close-quarters segment, when one commando found his path blocked by another, he took off on an unauthorized, and much more dangerous, path.

Beyond that, H&D offers a lot of appealing small touches. I like the one saved-game position per mission. It encourages caution over the try-this-and-then-restore approach. If you're not the micro-management type (I'm not), you can automatically select and equip your men in the pre-mission screens. You can use captured German weapons and equipment. You can stand, kneel and crawl.

And the game always feels centered. It has a persuasive, persistent style and each of the missions has a distinct focus. I've played eight so far, and not one felt routine or incomplete. This adds up to fun, and Hidden & Dangerous is beautifully, sonically, tensely fun... for as long as it works.

Unpatched, H&D was buggy on my Voodoo 3-based PII/450. In the first mission, the game locked up twice. Each time, when I rebooted, the game no longer recognized the H&D CD and I eventually had to reinstall. (The game still locked up occasionally even after I applied the current 1.2 patch.)

Then I discovered a catwalk beneath the railroad bridge and used it to sneak one of my men across the river -- only to discover that he'd sunk waist-deep into the platform. (Later on, a commando crawling through an outwardly-solid park would drop through the scenery and fall out of the game entirely.)

And that's to say nothing of the irritating objective in one mission that forced me to kill all the soldiers in the level -- turning it into a vast, annoying game of hide-and-seek in order to find a lone survivor.

If you lose a commando, you can replace him from within a pool assigned to the campaign -- regardless of how many hoops your little band had to jump through to reach its current position. And I wish the map mode allowed you to select commandos by number keys (as you can do in the game proper).

But, that said, I've played much further into Hidden & Dangerous than I needed to play to write this review, and while lots of tempting titles have arrived since then, I'm too far in to move on to something else. This is a fight to the finish.

Get the game. But also get the patch.

Tips

• The sniper firing from behind cover on the rise on the far side of the bridge in the first mission is a crack shot -- perfectly capable of gunning down your men before they can get across the span. The solution is to run behind and to the left of the slow freight trains that periodically cross the bridge.

  Once the train clears the bridge, angle across the tracks to the right-hand bridge abutment and use it for cover to engage the guards on lower ground. Once they're down, you can bring up your other men and have them trade shots with the sniper while you circle around the building and put a knife in him.

• You'll want to clear the above-ground section around the top of the first ladder in the second mission, as you'll need a safe base of operations when you go after the undamaged fuel tanks. But, otherwise, stay underground.

  The above-ground approaches to the refinery building are defended by guard towers equipped with machine guns, and while the access tunnels are patrolled, the narrow confines make it easy to set up ambushes for the guards. Once you reach the refinery building, toss in a grenade (a rather tricky business) and watch the fireworks.

• In the final mission of the first campaign, do not follow the road. It leads to trouble. Instead, go the long way around, through the hills, and enter the abandoned farm through the back door. You'll be in for a tough firefight, but this approach will allow you to use the broken-down buildings as cover from the murderously accurate fire from the armored railroad cars.

  When you clear the farm (and the snipers on the hills), approach the train from the bridge end and crawl along the railbed to lay charges beside the armored railcars.