Get the sniper to climb up and take out the machine-gunners in the turrets. Send the Green Beret up the wall and get him to drop the raised ladder down. Disembark the men, send the marine back and collect the others. Use your sniper to kill the guard on the wall, then get the marine to deploy his dinghy and row the sniper and the Green Beret across and to the north so that you are mainly hidden by the compound wall. Kill the patrols near the beginning and hide the corpses behind one of the walls. Mission 2: A Quiet Blow-Upīe wary of the patrol boat on the river: time its sweeps up and down so that you don't get caught in the open. Get the Green Beret to carry an explosive barrel to the transmitter, drop it, back him away and shoot the barrel to destroy the transmitter and complete the mission.

Gun them down then carefully kill the remaining guards. Now group all of your men, select the pistol and wait for the three-man patrol to investigate. It's a good idea to hide your men at the west corner of the westernmost building, send one guy to kill the machine-gunner then run him back around the corner. Either row or swim to the south where the driver and Green Beret are waiting, deploy the dinghy and row to the northernmost island. Work your way south, taking out the guards until you can safely grab the dinghy. Follow the coast west and kill the guard furthest north. Swap to the marine, send him into the water and use the scuba gear. Move the Green Beret and the driver north to the small landing. Now, if only you could issue commands in pause mode. However, every small success is made infinitely more satisfying because of it and, while you may question your sanity after a couple of hours play, you won't question the desire to play it further. The difficulty level is by now almost legendary, and you'll experience a fair share of frustration as you play each mission 87 times, saving every time you take a step and stay alive. You would think that to belong to such a select group of experts you should be able to drive and use a machine gun and know how to swim.

The fact that each of your men has specific skills (sniper, driver, diver.) adds a lot to the tactical element, if not to the realism. The control system and interface could have been a lot more user friendly and less fiddly, saving thousands of lives (or the same ones over and over) in the process. Playing this sleeper hit from 1998 now, you realise how true the statement that Hidden & Dangerous is a 3D version of Commandos really is.

Commandos: behind enemy lines