With a tank, for instance, you'll need two-man crews, with a total of three tanks available at once, each able to spawn five times. But perhaps you need tanks for this particular battle - so you need to send tank units from another captured territory across on your RTS map, which once arrived will open up spawn slots for those too. For instance, a fight may have 75 spawn tickets for soldiers, totalling the number of times an infantryman can enter the battle, with lower numbers limiting how many can play at any one time. Do you want to be a rifleman, fighter pilot, infantry, tank driver? Or do you want to be a General? Or both? As a General, you'll first have to purchase an assault team, then you'll be assigning the rest of the players into the battles, with limited numbers of slots available. At that point you can then choose to specialise. The first time you play, you play the shooter, until a battle is over. It's fairly familiar territory for multiplayer shooters, but writ enormous.ДЄ new player will begin the game in battle. Along the way they've got the vast stretches of Europe to cover, as each side attempts to dominate and advance the battle lines.

One teams starts in London, the other in Berlin, and then in a history-ignoring fashion they race to reach the other's capital and take it over.

The Generals will be far fewer in number, sitting in tents high above the battle, issuing orders via an RTS map, with other humans as their units. Played via a plugin through your browser, most the people playing it will be taking part in an epic first-person shooter that will last for weeks or months, over dozens and dozens of cities. Allies, and it's going to take months to win. But having seen how Heroes & Generals plays, it's one that just might work. First-person shooter meets strategy is a confusing concept.

Game heroes and generals