The best by far, though, is the sound of a hand grenade going off with a thunderous BOOOOOM!!! followed by the sound of men screaming in pain. If there are enemy soldiers close by, your squad mates will whisper "Enemy seen," or they issue a boisterous "NO CAN DO SIR!" if they can't or won't do what you've ordered. I found the sound of a flame-thrower to be quite soothing to the ears. The machine guns really roar and the bazooka makes a big whoosh sound. The weapon sounds are what make it so fun. Once inside the game, if you have the weather option turned on, you will hear the rain cascading down, really cool thunder and lightning, and rockin’ windstorms. At the beginning of each mission, Captain Spencer gives you a little pep talk and shows you what the mission objectives are on the game map. God, I love the sound of death in the morning. Men are screaming, the machine gun is roaring, shells are exploding all around. This attention to detail makes the killing fun and the pillaging even better. All the soldiers' movements are very fluid: when they crawl, you see their elbows and knees bend, when they throw grenades, you see their arms cock back. You can actually see that your medic has a Red Cross band on his arm. I found the individual soldiers to be the best part of the graphics in the entire game.
The graphics are a little hard to figure out at first, but once you learn how to change layers and levels, you will really get into the game. You have lush trees, beautiful brick farm houses, rolling sand dunes, snowy covered peaks, rushing streams, and killer sand bag emplacements. Layering is also used when steep mountains are part of the terrain, so you can have as much of the graphics on the screen as you want. Each map has seven layers to it, peeling off a layer will reveal what is under a building for instance. The terrain in the game is amazing because SSI has used what is called a "layering" effect for the game map. You can have him crawl, run, walk, kneel, throw grenades, kick in doors, fire a bazooka, climb into tanks, and whoop some butt in hand-to-hand combat or knife fighting. Each soldier in the game has over forty awesome actions. I felt myself cringe when a grenade exploded too close and my hands shook after a fierce battle. When a major gun battle was going, I found myself getting tense and sweaty waiting to see if any of my guys were gonna take a bullet. The graphics really grabbed me and I found myself sitting very quietly when my soldiers were crawling to their objective. The longer I stuck with it, though, the more fun the game got. I found this to be very confusing and downright frustrating the first couple of weeks I played this game. When trying to climb stairs in buildings or shoot at an enemy at a higher elevation, I was always using the A or Z key to adjust the elevation view. I was constantly using the numbers on my keyboard to expose or take away levels of terrain. It took me almost two weeks to really start to understand the views and layering of the terrain. It also allows you to quit and save games from this section. The space bar is used to bring up a menu that lets you look at each soldier's statistics, his health, fatigue, what equipment he is carrying. You use the numeric keypad to change which way your soldier is facing during gameplay. The keyboard is simple to memorize you use the number keys at the top of the keyboard for all terrain views (1-7), and you use A and Z keys to raise the level of the terrain.
You also use the 3D box to target your weapons, throw grenades, or spot incoming artillery. While in the game, you use a 3D box to follow the contours of the terrain, clicking with your mouse will move your soldier to that area. However, when picking soldiers and their equipment or game options, you strictly use the mouse. You use a combination of the keyboard and mouse for all controls in the game.
It's all here for those of us who loved the movie The Dirty Dozen. Create the bloodiest battles you can think of with a custom mission editor in the game. Fight it out with real opponents using four-player multiplay via network or the Internet. Try your hand at D-day, Anzio, or take out a V-2 rocket site.
Lead your squad of eight men through eighteen linked scenarios that will test your commando skills to the fullest. This is a turn-based squad-level WWII combat game. If you succeed, you and your team will be heroes fail, and you and your team are fertilizer. I want you and your seven worthless men to get ready for a most perilous, hang-your-butt-out-to-dry suicide mission. TENSHUN!!!! All right, listen up you pencil-necked, no-load, rock-for-brains army puke.