There are times when Soldiers: Heroes of World War II plays like an A-List game, sucking you into its world and causing the kind of sleep deprivation that only a really good game can. Unfortunately, those times are few and far between, which is a shame: Soldiers could have been a fantastic game, but in the end is brought down by technical issues, bugs, and a level of difficulty only a sadist would enjoy.

Soldiers is a squad-level real-time strategy game reminiscent of the Commandos series. You control a group of soldiers and work your way through several missions, accomplishing a wide variety of tasks along the way. There are four campaigns in the game (lasting a total of 30 missions in all) and at different points of the war, you can play as the Americans, British, Russians, or Germans.

One of the game's best aspects is that everything in the environment can be used in one way or another. If your troops stumble across an abandoned jeep, AA gun, or tank they can use it (of fix it). You can tell your boys to hide behind anything that could possibly provide cover, go into a house, or go prone and slither across the field on your belly. However, everything can also be torn apart, so if you are hiding inside an abandoned farmhouse and a German Tiger tank decides to blast the house to smithereens -- you're going along for the ride.

Charging an AA gun from the front¿not a good idea.

This level of interactivity makes for some truly memorable and exciting moments, but the designers decided to make the game so frustratingly difficult that you'll be lucky to get through all of the missions with all of your hair intact. Most of the difficulty stems from the way in which the missions are designed. For example, early on in the American campaign, your mission is to capture an entire town that is infested with German snipers and infantry and even a couple of 88's (big, mean guns that the Germans used for a variety of purposes). You need to kill every German in the town ... and you have five guys with which to do it. You can imagine the soldiers' faces when they hear their orders. "Yes, you five guys are taking this town! You're Americans! You can do it! Never mind the German snipers or the regiment of infantry. You can handle it." And that's the second mission of the American campaign. (They don't get a lot easier, either.)