H&D 2 is an excellent game and it never quite received the recognition it deserved. An expansion pack has just been released, Sabre Squadron. The U.S. retail price is $10 (!) and it adds new missions as well as a cooperative game mode.

The game is basically a tactical shooter, where you control 4 British soldiers behind enemy lines in World War 2. You can control any of them directly and give commands to the other 3. It really isn't anything like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor.

The expansion includes missions in Sicily and Libya.

[Edit: Idiot]

it's one of the games on my want list... if you are broke or have a slow computer Hidden & Dangerous 1 is FREE

I really liked H&D1. It was an extremely well-made game, though it was on an earlier generation engine. If I had the money and the time I would seriously consider getting the sequel.

I played the demo...it was horrible. :\

I gave H&D1 a try when it became free... I didnt really like it at all. The controls were too awkward. Personally, my favorite Squad based fps is Freedom Fighters.

Well made is prehaps the wrong term. Buggy as all hell is better. Good game mind you.

I loved the approach that this game had more than the scripted linear cinematic gauntlet-runs that CoD and MoH have. It's a LOT longer than CoD too.

You're given your objective. You're given some ideas on how to go about accomplishing it. Then you pick from a pool of specialized men and arm & equip them as you see fit (hmmm, to take a doughboy helmet, protecting against headshots, or to take a stylish red beret instead ?) from the extensive arsenal, taking into account that the ammo is usually going to have to last for the next few missions too and you're going to have to carry all of it around unless you plan on salvaging Axis weapons.

From then on, you're most of the time free to go about your own business, just as long as you get the job done. You can run & gun, or stealth your way through (mmm... Delisle silenced .45 carbine) picking up bodies and leaving them in dark holes and corners. Usually a mix of the two works, as you're always outnumbered. If you can get someone to surrender you're in for some fun, grab their uniform (they have to be alive, so that there isn't any noticeable blood and a dozen holes in it, unlike Hitman) and weapons, remember to leave your British weapons, helmets, and backpacks temporarily behind. Then you can go about aquiring more uniforms for the rest of your team or just slitting bypassing sentries' throats.

There are a lot of cool ballistic touches, like how bullets penetrate and ricochet. You can fire through cabin walls with heavy weapons like a Bren or BAR, bolt-action rifles can hit two people with a single shot if you get them lined up right. If you're firing along a concrete corridor, inside an underground bunker for instance, then you'll often notice that if bullets strike the wall at an oblique angle, they'll ricochet and continue travelling along the wall. Every weapon has a velocity too. You need to lead more with the fat subsonic .45 rounds than with the high powered rifle cartridges. The reloading still isn't realistic though. When you for instance take out a half-expended magazine and put in a fresh one, without emptying your weapon, you should still have one round in the barrel.

Then you've got variety. Your campaigns stretch across Norway, the Arctic, Northern Africa, Burma, The Alps, Norway again, Normandy, climaxing in the Czech Republic. You'll encounter the Wehrmacht, the SS (who simply never surrender), The Italians (who seem to surrender quite easily), The Japanese (who don't surrender either), and eventually, as in H&D1, the Red Army. You've got tanks, jeeps, trucks, midget-sub & scuba, and even a requisite "man the turrets and fend of the fighters" missions.

Now, sometimes the AI does dumb things, the japanese might throw a (contact) grenade indoors and hit the ceiling above them. The AI isn't very aggressive either, when they're looking for you, they'll come around a corner veeeeery slowly, weapon-first, tiptoeing almost comically (I always think that they're saying something like "Bee veewwy vewwy quiet, I'm hunting SAS squaddies") making it easy to shoot the gun out of their hands (leading to a surrender). Just don't play on the Easier difficulty levels. It took a couple of patches for your squaddies to grow some tactical smarts too. Now they actually seek shelter when you tell them to. They are a bit annoying in tighter corridors where they might stand in the way, or take another side-route. At least they don't get stuck on corners and the numpad command menu works wonderfully. There is a good context sensitive action command though, point your cursor at a door for instance and you can give them the command to open+grenade+clear. I wouldn't say it's dumber than in CoD, but it's just that your men aren't expendable enough that you can tolerate to lose a specialist from your small four-man fireteam.

The graphics aren't anything that special either. Somewhat high-poly models with slightly blurry textures (compared to high-res UT2004 ones), though they are pefectly competently made. You can for instance see just by looking at a squaddie's bandolier what he's carrying, if he's got bandages or a sidearm. No funky shaders or anything, standard surface/vertex lighting. Same engine as the (also brilliant) Mafia.Not much of a plot to speak of, though sometimes each location-based campaign does have a running theme, in North Africa for instance you're looking for an elusive officer. The sounds/music/voice-acting is good enough though. Cracking gunfire. The "high-adventure" Guns of Navarone technicolor warfilm style music that kicks in when there's action, there's even a tune that sounds like a homage to Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War as one of the sombre ambient sneaking tunes.

The controls aren't nearly as fiddly as in the first one either. You've got your standard WASD, QE for leaning, mousewheel for Splinter Cell-esque determining of running speed. Nice and responsive. Iron-sights for almost everything too.

Arr... Didn't mean to write this long of a response but:

+ level-design
+ variety
+ atmosphere
+ authenticity
+ open-endedness to approach at your own style/pace
+ length
+ Production values are fine
+ very cool slip-case (think Max Payne 2)
+ compulsory rag-doll physics put to good effect
+ post-patched it becomes very stable and bug-free
+ extensive manual
+ learning curve

- occasional micro-management required to execute ambushes and getting your men to use the right weapon for the right circumstance.
- Enemy AI isn't aggressive enough or careful enough to seem human.
- Not very good tutorial
- No tight running plot or narrative beyond chronological SAS operations during WWII in a variety of theaters
- Own AI isn't smart enough to be as non-expendable as they are (lose a man and you'll often be reaching for the Load button).
- Graphics look a bit 2002 as in that they don't seem to have any flashy superficial shader-effects for water metal or lighting.

Thanks Daeron. Very in-depth.

Interestingly, I never got into the first H&D either. It's a bit to difficult for my taste (one shot - one kill in a lot of situations on the lowest difficulty) and there's something sluggish about the camera in 3rd-person as well as when looking around in general. I still love the sequel though.



I know the demo has a mission in Normady, and I assume it's one at night in a German fortress with a light house. IMO, the 2nd worst mission in the entire game.