Full Spectrum Warrior

Full Spectrum Warrior is a 2004 real-time tactics game from Pandemic Studios. It started as a training simulation commissioned by the US Army, and was turned into a commercial game by Pandemic and THQ. You command two fireteams of four soldiers, Alpha and Bravo, in a city in a fictional Middle Eastern country.

You never fire a gun yourself. You tell each team where to move and which direction to cover, order suppressing fire, and move the other team around the enemy's flank. The camera stays close to the selected team, and you see only what they see.

It teaches real infantry tactics, cover, suppression and flanking, in a way no other game does, and it makes them feel natural. Its control scheme is clever: few commands, each meaningful.

Its missions are linear and its enemies predictable once the pattern is learned. A sequel, Ten Hammers, followed in 2006.

Full Spectrum Warrior shares Commandos' small team in real time and nothing else. It is here because it shows real-time squad control at its most deliberate: two teams, one leapfrogging the other, every move covered.