New weapons! New units! Cool!
Indeed. You've got tanks, air support and mobile assault turrets to charge around in. As in the first game, you can switch vehicles mid-battle if you like, or, if you get blown up, you can peg it across the landscape and jump into another vehicle. Which is nice.

Anything else?
Alien wildlife has been introduced. If you're running around the place, you've got to watch out for the animals because they're not very keen on human types and will hunt you down.

Nasty.
The preview version of the game we've seen had some very unpleasant beasties, including huge ice rhinos. Pandemic have also managed to include water as a landscape feature so there are underwater environments to explore. Which, again, is very nice.

You're looking forward to it then?
Certainly am. Even if it's just a slightly improved version of Battlezone it'll be good, but from what we've seen it's more than just slightly improved. We reckon this is going to please a lot of people. You're going to need some hardware acceleration to play it though.

Tell me a secret.
Okay. You didn't hear this from us, but one of the special weapons in the game is the Scion's Cromatohull. This makes the hull of Scion vehicles appear like the terrain that surrounds it (think Predator). This makes it impossible for image-locking projectiles to lock on to vehicles with Cromatohull activated.

What's left to say?
"Protecting the flock!"

* 3D terrain adds a tactical edge
* New units, new weapons, better AI
* Savage wildlife to be wary of
* He still says, "Protecting the flock!"
* More of the same might not be quite enough