Pros: Excellent fun, great live play, amazing graphics
Cons: occasion lag and a-holes with the live game
The bottom line: BUY IT.
Adam and I have been playing Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon on the Xbox for about a month now. We primarily play LIVE using the Xbox live kit (see my review at: http://www.epinions.com/content_86276083332). The verdict? We love it! Here goes yet another game review…though I should say I am going to primarily deal with the Live play of this game. There is a lot to cover to review this completely, so grab some popcorn and get ready--

The Plot
It is the not too distant future and there is turmoil in Russia. You are part of an elite team of peace keeping green berets sent in to help stabilize the situation. 'Nuff said.

If you play the mission based non- on-line games you’ll be given a mission, usually with 4 tasks to complete, such as securing some caves, capturing a specific person, and eliminating enemy threat without harming civilians. There are two types of gaming mode if you’re playing single player. The first is campaign, where you and your team will be assigned talks as I mentioned above. When you complete these missions, you are able to unlock new characters, and improve skills. You will also eventually earn promotions. The second mode is “Quick Mission”- in this mode you will participate in more of a firefight scenario where you pretty much want to kill, kill kill!

When you are playing on-line the plot really doesn’t matter that much- just keep your trigger finger ready and your weapon loaded.

Weapons
You can customize your soldier in a number of ways! Apart from choosing male or female, the type of soldier you choose will wear different gear- some of them are outrageous, and make you very, very difficult to spot! In addition, you can further customize the weapons you carry. Weapon options include:

Sniper Rifles:
*take longer to reload
*Are not rapid fire
*You have a massive zoom range
*Sometimes too zoomy for specific maps
*Snipers are a pain in the @ss in the live game (more on that later).

Machine guns
*You can often customize the number of shots you will fire when you hit the trigger (1,3,5)
*Must take care to reload
*Must take care not to overshoot, which decreases your accuracy
*You must re-select your shot preferences if you’ve re-spawned from being killed

Explosives
*Can be very effective if you’re not a great shot (more on that later!)
*Range from claymore mines to grenades, grenade launchers (my personal fave) and rocket launchers
*It’s easier to blow yourself up than you might think
*Should never be used as a primary weapon (more on that one later, as well!)


Please keep in mind that this is a small sampling without specific names of the weapon choices. I can assure you that there will be something for everyone in this game! You can usually carry two weapons. Most will choose an assault rifle and a grenade launcher. You can also carry extra ammo or binoculars in lieu of another weapon. Unless you’re playing with a team, I wouldn’t bother with carrying either of these items. When playing on-line the host of a game can put kit restrictions on a game- most often this means no explosives. This is great for some of the very small maps, where you occasionally end up with people who use a grenade launcher as a primary weapon in a small map- a sneaky way of attempting to accumulate the most kills! So, sometimes no explosives in a given game are key. You can also carry a silenced pistol.
The crosshairs of your target sight are key-- if you're not targeting correctly, you won't get the kill. Period. No "close enough" in this game.
Also, if you're shot, and it's a good shot by someone else, you can go down in one shot. Yup, no health point depletion, or healthpack to find. Unlike Quake and Unreal, if you get shot in this game, you're usually dead meat.
Not a problem, as long as there are unlimited respawns!


The Look of the Game
Wow. That is really the best descriptive word I can think of. As you might imagine, the graphics in this game are first rate- sometimes too much so! The people in the game look good, and the movement is fluid. The snow and rain effects are most impressive, as well. There are a number of maps to choose from, which have been taken from the two PC versions of the Ghost games, and expanded upon. The maps differ in size and variety- some have buildings you can enter, some do not. Some allow you to climb walls, stairs or towers, some aren’t as higher-ground based. Some of the maps are a training facility (great for lots of kills and a small number of players), The Castle- for a mid-number of players- this map can be played during the day or at night, with different options for wall climbing in each, The docks, with a number of crates and buildings to sneak around and hide behind, and the Embassy, with alleyways, streets, buildings to go inside of and on top of, a parking garage to lie in wait in, and some shrubs to get acquainted with as you hope someone will cross your path. There are a number of other maps, but the above mentioned are probably my favorites!

The coolest and often most annoying aspect of this game is that all the characters, yours included, are Ghosts- which means that they are nearly impossible to see because of cammo. There have been instances where I was literally directly in front of a person, and didn’t recognize they were a person until they shot me. It is often easier to see the flashes of light coming from a fired gun than it is to see who is actually firing on you. This is especially true in the outdoor missions, and less so if you’re indoors. Lighting is very impressive, and the shadows and shading are well done as well. Fire looks like fire, stone looks like stone, water looks like water… you get the point, I’m sure. I would also like to mention that I think the good folks who designed the game have been a little sneaky to intentionally drive you insane. As you play, you’ll notice that there are some very crafty hidden images. By this, I’m talking about a specific tree whose trunk looks exactly like a pair of legs, a rock which casts a shadow that looks like a crouching soldier, and a tree branch that waves in the breeze and makes you think it is a person running along a castle wall. Very, very sneaky (and, I admit- clever) and I bet it was intentional. You’ll see what I mean as you play more!

If you shoot someone as they are moving, the way they cry out and fall is great. When you’re shot, the pool of blood on the floor that you’re forced to watch spread for a second or two before re-spawning is just perfect!

Sound
The sound in this game is also perfection! The guns all have a unique sound, and there is an appropriate sound when you reload your weapon, crouch down, lie down, walk, and crawl. If you’re walking through a dirty alley, you’ll hear flies buzzing and the squish of trash and rattle of cans beneath your feet. If you are shot, but not killed, then your breathing changes. You begin breathing heavily, and you sound like you’re in pain. (As a side note, the labored breathing is one 2 second SoundBits repeated over and over again- not noticeable when you’re playing, but when I’m watching Ad play or vice versa, the wounded breathing is a little annoying!). Gunfire sounds great, and you can often determine where the action is by following the sound. Very impressive! You can also hear other players approaching- by the rustling of grass, the sound of a can being hit with a boot, or some labored breathing! Finally, one of the most impressive sound features is shell shock. If a grenade or rocket explodes near you, you loose your hearing for a good 15 seconds, which actually does disorient you!

Odds Ends and Features I’m Not Sure Where Else to Mention
One of the great aspects of this game is the threat indicator. The server of a live game has the option to use this, or not. It is mainly useful when there are only a few players using a very large map. The threat indicator is a circle, broken into 4 quadrants (think the game, SIMON). If there is someone in front of you somewhere, the top quarter will light up, if they’re to your left the left quadrant lights up, if there’s someone in each direction, both will light up. In the center of this circle is a small circle which will light up red if someone is very, very close.

You can look at the map you are playing at anytime. Maps are particularly useful for telling you if someone is in your sights when the threat indicator is turned off. Don’t spend too much time looking at the map, though- it makes you an easy target, as looking at the map doesn’t pause your game.

The game features AI, as well. If you’re playing on a team (not playing live- if you play live team, your teammates are real people), then you select the other soldiers you want to lead. There is generally an Alpha team, led by you, and a Bravo team. You tell the bravo team where to go by positioning them on the map. If you need backup you can move them to your position, and they will arrive shooting at the bad guys. It’s very clever, but I find it to be more annoying than anything. Your opinion may differ, of course, depending on your gaming preferences.

Moving Around
Moving around is pretty straight forward, and there is an excellent, and fairly quick tutorial at the beginning that you can do to help you become accustomed. The left stick moves you, the right allows you to look around and target. To open doors click the left stick. To zoom in and out click the right stick. To stand, crouch or lie down you use the D pad. To select how many bullets your weapon fires, you press the black button. To change weapons press B and to reload press A. The right trigger fires your weapon. To talk to other players in the Live game, press the clear (or white) button. Overall the controls are very simple, easy to master, and sensitive enough for you to creep, crawl, run, and peek. You’ll run faster if you’re not zooming with your weapon, and you’ll obviously move fastest if you’re standing and slowest lying down.


Playing Live- It’s All About the People!

The one thing that will truly make or break a game for you is the people you end up playing with on-line. Some of the biggest A-holes out there are the ones who snipe constantly (make it impossible for others to kill and enjoy the game if there are only a few people playing), people who use grenade launchers as a primary weapon (everyone assumes that these people are crap with a gun, so they take the easy way out, but it’s as annoying as f*ck!)

Another serious pet peeve are the people who take this game way too seriously. If you kill them, they’ll swear at you and tell you they’re going to f-ing kill you or whatnot. And they aren’t doing it in a good-natured way. There are plenty of people who get really upset and offended if they’re killed, and the whining, b1tching, and swearing can really detract from a game. When I play, if I’m swearing at you, it’s in a good natured way. If someone pops me, and I didn’t see it coming, or if they just outshoot me, I’ll say so with a simple “nice shot.” I have fun, and tease when it’s the right group, and finding a group who know it’s a game, who are all good sports, and who can take it and give it is fantastic!

On another note, there are people who seem unable to get over the fact that they are talking on line with others. Some of these people take rather extreme advantage of this. An 11 year-old white boy recently assaulted our eardrums for a solid 20 minutes with the most horrid rapping you can imagine. Ugh.

Finally, some people are just crude. I was playing for a while, and when I said something like “good shot,” for the first time, the other players realized I was a female. One of them began telling me to suck his…well you can imagine. Eventually, the game ended, and I handed the set over to Adam for a game. The guy was still taunting me, but Adam shut him up pretty quickly.

Don’t get me wrong, most of the people I’ve played with have been great, but some have been a misery- and it makes all the difference!

Finding A Game
Can sometimes be a nuisance, but I am not going to go into great detail here, as it is info on the Live options, and not on the game itself. You can search in a number of ways, and there are many different gaming options. My favorite is Last Man Standing- where you try to accumulate the most kills in an allotted time. My least favorite is Cat and Mouse, in which you try to get most kills as the mouse. The Mouse changes, and each time it does, a siren goes off and you must look at the top left corner of the screen to see if you’re the mouse or not. I found this to be distracting and annoying! It says you can play with upward of 16 people, but we really haven’t found this to be true. Eight or so people seems ideal, and with more than that you run a higher lag risk.

Ok, the Review is Finally Over
On the whole this is a fantastic first person tactical shooter game. The best I’ve played, without a doubt. With the live kit the replay abilities are endless, and it is worth every penny of the $50 they’ll most likely charge you for it. Get a copy and go to it- and if you like to have fun with a game, e-mail me, and Adam and I will set you up with our friends list – we’re always looking for cool people to play with!

Feel free to leave any questions and I’ll be happy to answer them!