Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 for Xbox Reviews by Gamers

Ghost Recon began as a PC franchise and was brought over to Xbox two years back. Though a number of people loved the original on Xbox, I found it to be ugly, cumbersome, frustrating, and, frankly, not much fun. Ghost Recon 2 -- a game not only made for consoles, but made specifically for Xbox -- fixes many of the problems I had with the original, making for one of the best shooters on Xbox.

A tactical squad-based shooter, Ghost Recon 2 plays somewhat like a slowed-down version of Rainbow Six 3. It's more realistic than most shooters, with cover being vital thanks to location-specific damage for you, your teammates, and the enemy. If you stick your head out too often, it will get blown off (not literally, as Ghost Recon 2 has no blood or brains) and it takes just a few hits to the body to drop you for good. Run-and-gun play style doesn't work here. Sure, you can go Rambo in some instances, but for the most part, you need to play caution and play smart.

This type of slower gameplay might initially turn some off, but those who stick with it will find an engrossing and somewhat unique military shooter. As a less-than-ecstatic fan, I couldn't jump immediately into the Ghost Recon 2 world. But after a few of the earlier missions, GR 2 began to grow on me. If you've never played Ghost Recon before, you need to adapt your style just a bit. Once you hit the groove, Ghost Recon 2 has a lot of goodness to offer.

New Mission, New Type of Ghost
The 15-mission campaign is cleverly framed by a History Channel-type recounting of the Ghost's activities in North Korea. Each segment of the program features interviews with your team, setting up the mission you are about to relive. The story itself, of a power-hungry North Korean general who attempts to gain control of nuclear weapons, isn't nearly as interesting as the way its told. I really do hope Ubisoft gets over its North Korean fixation soon, though, as it seems to be the focus of the majority of the French company's military-themed games. Don't we have other enemies in the world to go kill?

Missions can be accomplished solo or with up to four people through split-screen, System Link, or Xbox Live and offer a wide variety of tasks. Though the basic concept is to go from point A to point B and kill everything in your path, developer Red Storm Entertainment added numerous wrinkles that actually change the pacing from mission to mission. In one instance, you're tasked to infiltrate an area, take on a predatory attack helicopter (which realistically circles and strafes as if on the hunt), and secure a building. Another has you in a trench with three others, your goal to defend the adjacent bridge and not let any enemy vehicles pass. Still another has you going in as a Lone Wolf to single-handedly take down tanks and armored APCs in a war-torn village using Future Force Warrior equipment the Army won't be adopting for another few years.

With the ability to save at any time, the trial-and-error aspects for Ghost Recon 2 aren't nearly as prohibitive as in the past. The only downside to missions is the invisible activation zones in each map. Passing a certain location triggers events, such as spawning new enemies. While this isn't anything new to gaming, there are times when you can be targeting an area, looking for baddies, cross this invisible line and suddenly activate a new threat. In a flash, baddies appear where they weren't, even vehicles suddenly make an appearance. It really doesn't affect missions much or come into play often, but I certainly would prefer to have one large active map then something that was segmented. Ch-ch-ch-changes
Anyone who has played the first Ghost Recon will notice some rather startling changes. First, the game now defaults to a third-person view (with a first-person option available). No, this isn't an attempt to compete with Sony's SOCOM II or differentiate itself from Rainbow Six 3 (oh wait, maybe that is it), the third-person perspective is necessary for gameplay. There are lots of new animations, including hand-signals for commands, and much better modeling. You'll actually want to see your character this time.

While all of these things are nice reasons to be in third-person, none make it essential. However, you have to have third-person for the Lone Wolf missions, where you finding cover is crucial. Equipped with a futuristic M29 gun, which has a mounted camera, you must systematically work through a map taking down enemies while avoiding being overwhelmed. The M29's camera allows you to stay safely behind cover, poke your gun left, right, up, down, or wherever you want, and use the camera to see around corners. Used correctly, you can avoid leaving cover and still cap enemies of call in air strikes on selected targets. Along with the camera, you get a ranged air grenade, which you can give a specific range to for the most accurate grenade launcher around. Easily the coolest real world gun ever featured in a video game.

The original Ghost Recon had a cumbersome command system, where you had to bring up a map in-game and select way points for your troops. Everything now is context-sensitive, allowing for easier commands, better control, and a more enjoyable experience. The Y button serves as your command button. Point in a general direction and tap Y and you'll order your men to advance. Point the reticule at an enemy vehicle and tap Y and you will order an attack on the vehicle. Or you can point at where you need a charge placed and tell you men to do so, again by tapping Y. My favorite is pointing to mounted machineguns and ordering men to hop behind the lethal cannons.

Along with context-sensitive commands, you can hold down Y to bring up a four-option command list (flank left or right, suppressive fire, or halt). The Black and White buttons serve to regroup your soldiers and tell them not to fire. It's simple, easy to get a hang of, and handles almost everything you will need in Ghost Recon 2. I do wish there were a way to order my men to cover, because sometimes they seem to stay in the open when they should be behind a wall, but otherwise it's an excellent system.

AI
AI has also seen improvements. Though enemies have the same starting position each mission, they react to what you do. So if you start chucking grenades, they react. I will say that, from time to time, enemies don't seem to notice their friend has just been sniped next to them, but otherwise the AI is very reactive. More impressively, the vehicles are like massive beasts hunting for prey. Rather than sitting back, vehicles patrol and if you're spotted, they come after you hard. It gets pretty intense, especially when you are going Lone Wolf in a level.

Your teammates want to preserve their own lives and complete the mission. Usually they take cover, automatically make formation, throw grenades and use rocket launchers as necessary -- just about everything you could want them to do on their own. And whenever members aren't behaving as you wish, you can also give commands to whip them into shape. From time to time, your squadmates will do some stupid things, like moving in front of you while you're firing a machinegun, but overall it feels like a co-operative experience.

Beyond the Campaign
The 15-mission campaign, which will take you anywhere from 10-15 hours, depending on your skill level, isn't the only thing Ghost Recon 2 has to offer. Each mission can be replayed in Lone Wolf mode, where you go in under identical mission parameters, in Future Force Warrior gear (yes, with the awesome M29 gun), and attempt to survive. Lone Wolf is much more intense, involved, and exciting than the standard missions and are certainly incentive to play through Ghost Recon 2 a second time. Of course, the big deal is the ability to play Ghost Recon 2 on Xbox Live. Supporting 16-players and four-player split-screen, there's a silly amount of online options. You can play through the missions online or in six other co-operative modes, which will test your mettle. Or you can go head-to-head in ten different adversarial game modes on eight different maps (with more downloadable maps in the future). The adversarial modes are largely the same as in Island Thunder, but add a new Seek and Destroy mode.

Seek and Destroy starts every player as a regular soldier. The first to get a kill becomes it and is equipped with Lone Wolf gear. They earn points by getting kills as everyone gangs up to take them out. This is similar to Halo 2's Juggernaut mode, but the Spartans never had a gun with a camera. Take that, Master Chief.

The netcode has been significantly improved. Ghost Recon ran like crap, but the sequel runs well. There's a touch of slowdown here and there, but the overall quality of gameplay is consistent, even with a dozen people shooting it out at one time. The maps are a bit large, though, and it can be tough to spot enemies in the brush. Though you are free to pick any mode for any maps, some work better than others and it's really a matter of trial and error. Live 3.0 features are fully implemented, including Clan support and better leaderboards. It's still not to the level of Bungie.net and Halo 2, but I suppose nothing will be for some time.

Ugly Duckling Turned Swan
Good Lord, Ghost Recon 2 is so much prettier than the first. Making full use of all of the graphic buzz words like "normal mapping" and "specular highlighting," Ghost Recon 2 is Paris Hilton to Ghost Recon 1's Nicole Richie. There's some spectacular details to the environments, particularly the war-torn cities. The jungles are filled with vegetation (making it sometimes impossible to see who keeps shooting you in the head), and the smoke-filled skies are eerily realistic. The character models and animations have also been improved, though some of the enemy death animations look a little silly.

On the downside, there's still some draw-in with "fog of war" keeping you from seeing for too great a distance. It's also difficult to tell if you have hit an enemy with no blood in the game and no type of hit indicator other than relying on the enemy's animations (which are sometimes misleading). The real issue is with slowdown, which is quite persistent throughout. Though not bad enough to call "chuggy," the framerate certainly has trouble keeping steady. Fortunately, it is only an aesthetic issue and doesn't hurt the actual gameplay.

In terms of audio, Ghost Recon 2 croons beautiful war music. The sheer level of peripheral sound is astounding. In certain areas, you will barely be able to hear gunfire over the roar of jets flying overhead and explosions off in the distance. With great use of directional sound and solid voice acting, the sound is top-notch. The score is minimal and a bit weaker than the excellent sound effects, but never gets in the way of the rat-tat-tat of machinegun fire.

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