BF1942 expansion demo on Friday

Secrets are very difficult to keep to yourself, even if you're a multi-squillion pound global games publisher like Electronic Arts. That's one of the reasons that this Friday we'll all be getting our hands on a multiplayer demo version of Secret Weapons of World War II, the second BF1942 expansion pack after The Road To Rome. Well, obviously that's not the reason, but it's very hot and we're trying our best.

As you might expect, EA doesn't want to, er, roll the DICE too early [groan -Ed], so we're getting our hands on just one of eight new playgrounds - the Hellendoorn mission - in which the Allies must stop zie Germans launching a V2 rocket to take out the bridge at Remangen and slow their advance across the Rhine.

Also on the menu are 10 of the game's 16 "Secret Weapons". In the skies, players will be able to control an experimental German rocket pack, a compact dynamo fighter plane, the Axis Natter rocket plane and the Allied F-85 Goblin. On the ground there will be motorcycles with gun-mounted sidecars, amphibious assault vehicles (the German Schwimmwagen and American LVT-2 Water Buffalo), the Axis Flakpanzer (a T-38 with an AA gun on top), and an Allied Sherman tank with T-34 Calliope rocket launcher. Rounding things off will be new handheld SMGs, assault rifles and throwing knives.

Although The Road To Rome didn't exactly bowl us over in the value for money stakes, it seems like Secret Weapons of World War II is on the right track, and we'll be letting you know that for sure later this week when we get properly stuck into our shiny new preview copy.