In order to make the game more packed while keeping a sense of realism Novalogic have been very clever on a number of aspects. Obviously the weapons on offer are all modeled on the real thing. You have a good selection of machine guns, sniper rifles and pistols to suit any play style. Rather than go for the common expanding reticule, whereby holding down the trigger impairs your accuracy, your aim stays sharp at all times. This lets you move and fire without being unduly hampered. The emplaced weapons, such as the mini-guns on the helicopters, have unlimited ammo making for a very arcade experience. Your energy is limited, but short of getting hit with a rocket you can withstand a few shots and while having limited saves each mission has enough for it not to be too big a problem. There are also a couple of energy and ammo packs hidden within the levels which means you can get away with being a little gung ho at times.

I was impressed by the way the AI was implemented. Not because it was particularly sophisticated, but because it has been used in a good consistent manner throughout the levels. You always know where you stand with the enemy and as a result if you die you don't feel the game has been unfair in some way. The accuracy of the enemy is fairly poor as is their reaction speed. This gives you the upper hand despite being out numbered. The enemy will also cower if you fire in their direction which means you can actually suppress the enemy while you move in. You have flashbangs in your arsenal to blind them for clearing out rooms. If you accidentally get caught in the flash you will also be temporarily blinded but your sight recovers quite quickly, quick enough for you to assault a room before the enemy recovers. With many of the levels occurring within built up urban environments Novalogic definitely made it into my good books by not succumbing to placing any god-awful sniper sections like so many other games.

The AI of your comrades is also pretty strong. In most missions you will be part of a small squad that will follow you around and help out. They are not the most competent bunch and sometimes a bit slow in catching up with you, but they are also pretty tough and can withstand quite a few shots before dying. Unlike many games your squad should stay alive throughout a mission without too much trouble. There are also civilians that will run away or hide adding a little atmosphere to the proceedings. If you get too close they will actually throw stones at you and yell at you to go away. You can shoot civilians but if you kill too many you will fail the mission. This provides enough of an incentive to check your fire whilst allowing you a margin of error. You'll also come across other allies that you interact with, like a food convoy, and thanks to some truly excellent scripting it is a seamless affair.

The mission scripting is perhaps the strongest element throughout the game, constantly pushing you forward and keeping the pace up. Your path through the missions is generally quite linear utilising waypoints indicated on a map. Obviously when you are riding on a humvee or a helicopter you have no control as to where you move. When running around the cities there is some scope to veer from the path, ducking between buildings or choosing how to negotiate the remains of a structure. The linearity may be a slight drawback but it provides opportunities for scripted sequences and they have made the most of this. At certain points enemies will be triggered to drive across your path, or a black hawk helicopter will fly over to provide cover. From an audio perspective, in addition to some good sound effects, there has been a tremendous amount of effort put into the voice acting that will augment the action throughout the game. For every event that happens you will hear someone barking an order or commenting on it and this makes you feel like part of a team rather than a lone gunman. The only time the illusion is broken is if you are ordered to clear out an area only to miss one enemy. This results in a quiet period while you have to double back to re-check every room. It is not a very common occurrence though and most missions are a very polished affair.