Whenever we get a hankering for tactical level wargame action (which is surprisingly often) we find ourselves turning again and again to Battlefront's superlative trilogy of World War 2 games: Beyond Overlord, Barbarossa to Berlin and Afrika Korps. Soon the fine folks at Battlefront will be taking the same formula into a hypothetical 21st century conflict between the United States and fundamentalist terrorists who have taken over the government of Syria. Though the game still has a long way to go before it's finished, we managed to convince the developers to let us have a crack at an early build so we could get a feel for the game.

Since this new title carries the Combat Mission brand, it's no surprise that the basic interface and format of the game haven't changed much. It still features highly realistic tactical action with players leading squads and individual vehicles. Unlike before, the squads of soldiers are modeled as distinct individuals on the game map. While the previous games used cohesive squads that abstracted the performance of each member, this time around each squad members gets his own morale, fire, line of sight and position in the world.