At the time of its birth, there was little concept of a squad-based combat game set during World War II, and Hidden & Dangerous was also the first to concentrate on the heroic efforts of the SAS during that conflict. Unfortunately, while it was hugely admired, it also contained an infuriating amount of bugs in the code that seriously detracted from the gameplay. Now, four years on, Illusion Softworks has given H&D a complete overhaul and come up with a revamped Mark Two that it's convinced will blow away the opposition.

Brave ambitions when you're up against tactical shooters of the likes of Medal of Honor and Operation Flashpoint, etc., and the market is awash with WWII wargames. Yet the long-awaited sequel is a vastly different breed of animal from its parent. Although the focus is once more on the SAS during the War, the scope of the conflicts, the gameplay, the graphics and the interface have all been given a substantial makeover.

In the single-player game, you have three mode options. There's the usual campaign mode that will take you from Norway to North Africa, Burma, Czechoslovakia and beyond, progressing through more than 20 missions in linear fashion. Fortunately, you can save your game in mission but you can't progress to the next until you've completed the current one.

If you feel you're really hard and don't need the four man team that you would frequently use in campaign mode, then change to "lone wolf" and you get to do the same missions solo. Finally, if you're an especially bloodthirsty type, you can indulge your lust for violence in carnage mode, where you not only have your maximum four troops to complete the tasks but you have to kill all the enemies you encounter. Hmmm, like that one.

As in the original game, you choose your men for each mission according to their physical attributes (health, strength, endurance) and special skills (shooting, stealth, first aid, lock picking). The new RPG element that has been thrown into the mix is that these skills can be improved as soon as you use them to achieve your objective. If this is too much micromanagement for you, you can leave the selection of men, as well as their kit, to the computer. While this might be a good idea at first, you soon realise that the most important piece of kit in your bag is the first aid, so it's vital to stock up generously on them before you set off.

Another improvement is in the deliberate simplicity of the interface which is designed to keep the screen as uncluttered as possible and to issue commands with the minimum amount of keystrokes. All four soldier "boxes" are displayed at the bottom of the screen and clicking on any will give you instant control of them. You can also switch between first- and third-person views and commands are issued by means of quickly accessible drop-down menus.

It's this command structure that is the real revelation. There are nine command groups in all, each devised to help a specific aspect of your advance. The movement section is dependent upon your men being within hearing range but not necessarily in direct line of sight (follow, advance, hold position, take cover, etc.). The attack commands (covering everything from fire at will to cover fire and throw grenade) are best issued to individuals according to which weapon they carry; and the same applies to the action commands as they could range from healing an injured comrade to switching uniforms with a body to clearing out a room full of enemies.

If you don't want to alert your foes of your presence, then it's wiser to switch to silent versions of move, attack and action that involve hand signals only via direct line of sight. Having this variety provides a whole new dimension to each game as it means much of a mission can be played out in near stealth mode. Formation commands will allow you to act more like conventional RTS set-ups, either tightening or extending the closeness of the group and encouraging them to regroup if they become scattered.

 The true masterstroke is the tactical mode, which pauses the game while you assign a number of waypoints to the soldiers under your command. The beauty of it is that a different order can be assigned to each waypoint so that, for instance, you can assign one man to move to an area and attack at will and then move to the next point and hold fire or offer covering fire. While this is happening, you can move freely across the map to see what the potential hazards are and then plan your strategy. When all is in readiness, you re-start the game and watch the drama unfolding - the battlefield bursts in to life with troops, running, crawling, adopting aggressive and defensive postures and taking on enemy confrontations before reforming and advancing towards their goal.

The graphics engine has been completely reconstructed to such a fine-tuned degree that uniforms, buildings, vehicles and weapons are pin sharp and with the same commitment to authenticity as the original game. When vehicles are commandeered (from motorcycles and trucks to APCs and tanks) they respond to the restrictions of space, weight distribution and vulnerability to attack that you'd expect.

The multiplayer facet of H&D was very limited but this has been strenuously corrected - deathmatch is now in, as is occupation (a variation on capture the flag) and objectives, where you enter the battlefield as either an Axis or Allied soldier. About the only downside we can come up with is that we did encounter a few minor bugs, such as not being able to fire a sten gun in one mission.

All of those who scoffed at the four-year wait for this sequel will now be stampeding to the shops for their copy. No longer hidden and seriously dangerous, Illusion has produced a tactical combat title that continues to prove you can never have too many first-class WWII games.