Hidden & Dangerous Preview

Real-time squad-based strategy lovers looking for something besides Rainbow Six for their Dreamcasts will find hope in Take 2's Hidden & Dangerous. Taking place between 1941 and 1945, Hidden & Dangerous thrusts you into the role of an Allied squad leader. Choosing from 40 possible characters, you'll assemble a four-person infiltration squad. The emphasis is on stealth and espionage as opposed to Quake-style bloodshed, and patience is a virtue. Across 23 unique missions, you'll have to gather intelligence, capture secrets, assassinate heads of state, rescue prisoners of war, and sabotage a variety of enemy encampments.

Hidden & Dangerous' features read like a laundry list of combat glee. Players can choose from 40 possible characters, ranging from battle-hardened British Army vets to rookie French enlistees. Each character will have a plethora of statistics that affect his performance in battle, such as aim, stamina, reaction time, stealth, stress, and malice. For sniping missions, you'll need soldiers with steady aim and low stress levels, while jumpy psychotics with stamina to burn are best for front-line situations. When it comes to weapons, initially there are only a few Allied armaments available, such as the 9mm Sten, the 1911 Colt .45, the Johnson M41, the M1A1 Bazooka, and the popular .30-caliber Browning machine gun. You need not restrict yourself on the battlefield though, as enemy armaments are fair game to acquire as you progress through the game's 23 missions. Vehicular combat and transportation also play major roles in the game. Motorcycles, limousines, Panzer tanks, and Volkswagen military carriers are just a few of the many vehicle options you'll encounter over the course of the game's missions.

When it comes to gameplay, Hidden & Dangerous is reminiscent of Rainbow Six. You can micromanage each team member, the equipment they carry, and the points they travel between. You'll have to sneak around stairwells, crawl under vehicles, and inch your way past guards to achieve your goals. To aid your mission, you can also toggle between first- and third-person viewpoints. This lets you focus in on the action in times of stress yet still pull back when a holistic perspective is required. If the DC version turns out to be as difficult as the PC release, you can look forward to many hours of rewarding trial and error. Unlike in Rainbow Six, the enemy troops in Hidden & Dangerous are specially trained marksman who won't hesitate to put a bullet through your brain. Should one of your men come under fire, you can back them up or write them off, replacing them with a new soldier. If you and your VMU need additional help, feel free to invite three friends along for the ride. Take 2 has taken a proactive stance on multiplayer Dreamcast games, and Hidden & Dangerous seems to be a shining example of this.

Formerly a PC title, Hidden & Dangerous is slated to arrive for the Dreamcast this July. The game was initially developed with the Dreamcast in mind, so the developer won't be trying to retrofit unoptimized code and graphics onto the console. Unlike some games that have been passed to other developers after the initial PC release, Hidden & Dangerous is being developed by the people who created it, Illusion Softworks. While keeping development a family affair is no guarantee of success, it's at least reassuring to know that the company porting the game is the company that knows the game best. If the difficulty level is rebalanced a little, and multiplayer support is not left on the cutting room floor in favor of a deadline, Hidden & Dangerous could be the best squad-based shooter for the Dreamcast yet.