When Tom Clancy's fledgling Red
Storm Entertainment released Rainbow Six in 1998, it ushered in an
entire generation of no-holds-barred military action titles, in
which the run-and-gun aesthetic of the first-person shooter took a
back seat to brutal realism. No health packs or ammo crates lying
around to help you out here...one good hit and you were a goner.
While Rainbow Six and its sequels
were concerned primarily with anti-terrorist operations, Ghost Recon
takes its squad-based tactical model and applies it to large scale
military action. The original Ghost Recon appeared on the PC in late
2001 to generally positive reviews, and like Rainbow Six and Rogue
Spear before it, was ported to game consoles in late 2002. There's
no doubting that, for some folk, these games are an acquired taste.
Quake-style frag-fests, either in single or multiplayer mode, are
nigh unheard of as the game mechanics force you to fight more
realistically. As stated above, one good hit and you're a combat
statistic. But for those who can deal with the slow pace and high
lethality, Ghost Recon offers an experience unlike anything else on
the Xbox.
The story this time around deals
with a group of Russian nationalists trying to resurrect the old
Soviet Empire in the near future. The Ghosts, an elite paramilitary
force assembled by the US military, is sent to Eastern Europe to put
down the revolution and restore world order. Though the storyline
isn't exactly engaging (despite some decent briefings), the scope
and variety of missions is fantastic. Ghost Recon lets you do
everything from rescuing downed pilots and blowing up bridges to
stopping enemy armor divisions. At least two levels even drop you
into full-on combat against division-size enemy elements. To make
this possible, the designers have opened up the environments
considerably, compared to the relatively cramped quarters of the
Rainbow Six games. While you'll occasionally find yourself indoors,
the vast majority of combat in Ghost Recon is carried out in large,
open outdoors environments. Red Storm deserves a lot of credit for
the quality of these spaces. Though, graphically speaking, they
aren't the most spectacular set-pieces you'll see on the Xbox, the
levels are very well designed and full of nice tidbits like tall
trees swaying in the wind, wildlife sounds, running water, etc. The
end result is a game that shares some gameplay elements with Rainbow
Six, but plays much differently. Instead of hunting down tangos in
cramped, winding corridors or alleyways, you're now faced with
creeping through underbrush and crouching in impact craters, hunting
down enemies that are nearly as well camouflaged as you are. This
really ratchets up the tension a few notches, as sometimes you can
get killed without ever really knowing where it came from. While
some may find this incredibly frustrating, if you're in the right
frame of mind, it can be exhilarating to spend seemingly endless
minutes crawling through the foliage, waiting for any sign of enemy
movement, fully expecting to die at any moment. The tension is
highlighted by the lack of any kind of enemy indicators or radar.
Very often, you'll only be aware of your enemies' presence when your
teammates dispatch them with a curt 'enemy down', or when a clip
full of 7.62 ammunition tears through the foliage right in front of
you. If your teammates spot an enemy, you can check the map screen
to see where they spotted them, but once they're out of sight, they
likewise disappear from the map. If you're the kind of person that
prefers to charge your enemies head on unloading ammo like there's
no tomorrow, then this isn't the game for you.
Of course, this approach to game
design would be for naught if the enemy AI were lackluster.
Fortunately, this isn't the case...at least for the most part. More
often than not, enemies will react realistically to gunfire or
sound, running to take cover and supporting their allies as you
would expect. There are some instances in which you'll see baddies
acting oddly, usually when they're trying to ferret you out of an
enclosed area. They'll sometimes line up one after another in the
doorway, allowing you to pick them off in rapid succession. But
normally they're more than up for the challenge, and can be crafty
if you're not careful. Sometimes when you're in a prone position
they'll throw grenades, giving you precious little time to stand and
flee, and more than once you'll find yourself getting flanked by
enemy patrols if you don't have someone watching your back.
Thanks to the game's clever
in-game waypoint system, however, getting your comrades to keep an
eye on your posterior is easier than you'd think. Unlike Rainbow
Six, in which the planning stage takes place before the mission
begins, Ghost Recon allows you to plot waypoints and issue orders on
the fly. Unlike the PC version in which you're given three two-man
squads, the Xbox version gives you two three-man squads. Presumably,
this was done to simplify things for the console market a bit.
Though this still gives you six soldiers to order around, it also
makes you a little less flexible. One of my favorite tactics in the
PC version was to set up a dedicated sniper team who would cover the
other two rifle teams. Limited to two fireteams, the Xbox setup
forces you to create more well-rounded groups. Ultimately, it really
doesn't impede the gameplay at all. In fact, the Xbox controls are a
marginal improvement over the PC version. Issuing orders and
changing team members is simple matter of hitting the left trigger,
moving the thumbstick, and entering your selection. It works
amazingly well, and once you get the hang of it it works almost
flawlessly. You have four different types of soldier to fill out you
fireteams; the basic rifleman, snipers, engineers, and heavy weapons
soldiers. Each class of soldier has their own specialty, mostly
defined by the equipment they carry. After each mission, each
soldier will gain 1 skill point which you can place in one of four
skills...Weapons, Endurance, Stealth, and Leadership. Though the
effect of these skills is subtle, you will notice your operatives
becoming more effective over the course of the game's main campaign.
Though the Xbox version has a
very fun multiplayer mode (more on that in a minute), Ghost Recon
has a lot to offer solo players even after the game's 15 missions
are completed. Each player profile has an attached Dossier which
keeps track of the player's progress. Completing secondary
objectives in the missions unlocks special operatives which can be
used in online play and in single-player missions, while special
tasks completed in Quick Missions allows you to unlock new multi and
single-player game types and weapons. The special operatives are
truly cool; each of them has a specialty and usually carries special
equipment like high-powered sniper rifles, assault weapons, or
silenced submachineguns. They're also far more skilled than your
run-of-the-mill Ghost Recon operatives, which is both a blessing and
a curse. You may want to take advantage of their prowess in combat
during missions, but to do so denies your regular joes a spot on the
roster, and the experience they would have acquired by taking part
in the mission. If you want to increase your soldier's stats, you'll
want them in combat as much as possible. While there are tons of
unlockables available, the Quick Missions are pretty fun in and of
themselves if you're looking for some Ghost Recon action after
you've finished all the mission modes. No new maps are available for
single-player mode, but you can play some neat game types including
Mission, Recon, Firefight, and Defend. Each type offers a unique
challenge; in Recon you simply have to guide your fireteam to the
extraction point, while Defend calls on you to defend a specific
spot on the map against an enemy onslaught.
The real fun comes when you hook
up with friends, however. You can play on a single Xbox via split
screen, but to be honest, this is really the poor-man's multiplayer.
Very few game types are available, and the only game type that holds
any real interest is co-op mode. To be fair, this can be quite fun,
as you and a buddy coordinate your actions to complete the tasks set
before you.
The real multiplayer meat comes
when you hook up via a link cable or, better yet, on Microsoft's
Xbox Live service. Using either of these methods, you can unlock all
kinds of great multiplayer modes and multiplayer-exclusive maps.
Team-based games include Last Man Standing (basically team
deathmatch in which the last team with living players wins the
match), Search and Rescue, Hamburger Hill (a variation of King of
the Hill), Domination, and Siege. There are a number of
solo-multiplayer games available as well, which call for a single
player to fend off all his buddies under certain conditions. All in
all, Ghost Recon gives you plenty of variations to justify keeping
it around well after the single-player game has been finished.
Being a port of a two-year-old PC
title, you'd expect Ghost Recon to be a little behind the curve in
terms of its graphics and sound. While this may be true to some
degree (the game's textures are particularly weak), Red Storm and
Ubi Soft have done an admirable job of capturing everything that
made the original game good. As mentioned earlier, the game's
environments are perfectly ported from the PC version...not a single
rock has been misplaced. While this means that Ghost Recon veterans
will not find very much that surprises them, it also means that
those who never got to play the original won't be cheated out of
its' great level designs. The sound has also been carried over with
equal fidelity. Since many of the game's missions take place
outdoors, Ghost Recon contains a great deal of nature sounds and
environmental audio that really serves to immerse the player in the
experience. The weapons fire is also perfectly replicated, which is
practically essential in a game with this degree of veracity. You'll
also be pleased to hear the voices of not only your squadmates, but
also the enemy, who have all been dubbed in a variety of Eastern
European and Russian dialects.
As good as it is, Ghost Recon
isn't completely free of faults, though most of them are very minor.
When using a rocket launcher or grenade launcher, the game will
pause for a split second as the weapon goes off. Also, the enemy AI,
though spectacular for ninety-percent of the game, can sometimes
lead to some questionable moments, as when they bizarrely charge
over a hill at your troops, heedless of gunfire. It's also a minor
problem that in order to speak over the headset in an online game,
you have to hold down the white button. It doesn't hurt the gameplay
much, but when most Xbox Live games require you only to speak into
the headset to activate it, it makes for some questionable design.
Ghost Recon occupies an
interesting niche in the Xbox lineup. Most mainstream gamers may
find it a bit too realistic for their tastes, but for gamers weaned
on Red Storm's previous efforts, or those who enjoy the concept of a
hardcore military sim, Ghost Recon is just what the doctor ordered.
