First point: for a preview CD the game is remarkably complete. In fact, with the exception of the fact that all of the dialog and movies are in Russian (with the subtitles in a hodgepodge combination of Russian and poorly translated English), I can’t really specifically point to anything in the game that isn’t complete at all. Oh, the mission journal is a mess and gives me notes all out of order, and perhaps there’s a little weapon balancing and level design fine points to polish smooth, but it’s not like the interface is full of buttons that don’t work. I am severely hoping that they improve what translated English exists in the game, because phrases like “I hope he doesn’t thrust himself up” are common and mean nothing to me.

These kinds of statistics were used even back into pencil and paper Dungeons & Dragons games (depending on which combat system you used), and I can vividly recall whipping out a ruler and calculator and arguing with the DM that some monster couldn’t see me because a mound of dirt was in the way, or I was kneeling in a trench deep enough to hide myself. On the plus side, the computerization of these games has done away with all of the paperwork and arguing, while on the minus side the computerization has done away with all the paperwork and arguing. I mean, you can play with the camera – slide the 3rd person isometric view around any which way you please – but you just can’t tell if that hole is deep enough, or if you’re going to be in the pool of light cast by that lightpost until you try, and if a sentry sees you, you have little choice but to reload and try again. That can lead to some frustration as you try and thread your way through a group of sentries without being spotted.

A tutorial (presently mostly in Russian, but some day probably in English) teaches you the fundamentals of getting around the world, but even going back to X-Com, almost everything was familiar to me on at least some level. Each character has a certain number of action points that are allocated to doing stuff. Looking around, reloading a weapon, crouching down, climbing a ladder – it all takes action points. You have as long to allocate these actions as you like as if the world is frozen while you make your moves. All directions can be given using the mouse by clicking around on the 3rd person isometric view of the world or activating buttons along the bottom of the screen, or many of the commands are mapped to keystrokes, whichever you find easier. Once you’ve done all the moves you want to do (or are capable of doing given your action point allocation) you end your turn and then the enemy goes. Unused action points are for the most part lost, the exception being if and enemy crosses your field of fire during his turn, you can interrupt his turn to spend your remaining points to, say, take a shot at him, or duck. I would call the strategy level of this game fairly high, and while there are exciting moments as you try and sneak up and make a silent kill while avoiding detection, it’s a very different sort of thrill than from an FPS.

So the game purrs along fairly smoothly in a sort of third-person adventure mode, and while the game is keeping track of your action points, for the most part they don’t mean anything until an enemy shows up. Then the game kicks seamlessly into turn-based mode, where everything you do costs you action points and you’re turn ends when you run out, or when you click the ‘End Turn’ button. Then your allies (if any) go, their progress indicated by a filling bar across the top of the screen, and you can pan around the battlefield so you can see what they’re doing. Finally, your enemies go. Your enemies also have a progress bar, but unless they are in your line of sight (or that of your allies) you don’t get to see what they’re doing, though sometimes you hear their actions like shooting or opening doors. Here is where Hammer and Sickle bogs down a little, because if there are a lot of allies and enemies on the field their turns can take several minutes apiece, and you’re just sort of hanging out waiting for your turn. Depending on how long you take to make your moves, you could easily spend half your time just waiting.