Hidden & Dangerous

Description

Saving the world from Nazi tyranny on the Dreamcast has never been this interesting or complicated. However, it's not the World War II goose steppers of Hidden and Dangerous that are the worst of your troubles. Rather, it's the high learning curve and general lack of intelligence of the men under your command. As a leader of up to four of the finest fictional soldiers in Great Britain's Royal SAS, you must outfit and lead your men deep into enemy territory, fulfilling mission goals that rely more on stealth and speed than a quick trigger finger. By the way, your men can be picked off with one bullet, so watch where and how you step. Since you are leading four individual troops, you might guess controlling them would be problematic. You'd be right. Every button on the Dreamcast controller is used multiple ways, and it will take a while to get used to controlling your troops. Thankfully, most controls can be accessed via a Dreamcast keyboard, which lessens the control problems. If you survive learning the interface, you'll find that Hidden and Dangerous's movielike musical score and atmosphere (thanks to nice graphics) make it quite absorbing, especially compared to the similar Rainbow Six. Oddly, your men have a tendency to become trapped in corners, get run over by trains, and react very slowly when getting shot at. Occasionally, they'll float on nothing at all. These are all bugs that were in the PC version and should've been squashed before being released on the Dreamcast. Such sloppiness really does hurt the overall fun in Hidden and Dangerous. Instead of bringing home the Congressional Medal of Honor, the game scores a Purple Heart. --Mark Brooks Pros: Interesting plot and nice graphics Soundtrack sounds like an old Hollywood WWII film Once you get used to the interface, Hidden and Dangerous can become quite absorbing Cons: Ludicrously steep learning curve--unless you have a Sega keyboard Subordinate troops lack adequate artificial intelligence No improvements over the PC version