Tell us a little more detail about the new missions that will be added, and could you outline an exciting brand-new mission for us?

Randy Pitchford: New missions take place all over the world in a variety of fictional environments from the streets of European cities to a South American jungle and a Middle Eastern desert town. One of the new missions that we're now playing often in testing takes place in the snow along a giant oil pipeline. In the single player game, your team must move quickly to prevent the pipes from getting sabotaged.

The addition of artificial intelligence 'bots' will be a new addition to the familiar Counterstrike game. Tell us a little about how realistic their behavior will be, and how they fit in with both single and games.

Randy Pitchford: Bot AI is used to control not only the friendly squad members, but the enemy units as well. The AI is very convincing. We've done some blind tests with experienced Counter-Strike players and have fooled them every time. In addition to this advanced AI controlling the human-like behaviors of characters in the single player game, the AI bots can be populated into multiplayer games for practice or to round out uneven teams.

What new weapons will be present to knock the opposition around with?

Randy Pitchford: There will be eight to ten new weapons and items available in the finished game. One of the most popular new weapons is the LAW rocket. It's important to note that the LAW rocket is a one-shot launch tube. It can be purchased like a grenade and when fired it flies in a fairly straight path and explodes on impact. This gives it an interesting tactical counter-balance to how grenades currently work in the game. Another interesting new piece of equipment is the Ballistic Shield, which can actually be used to deflect small arms fire.