Okay, let me be up front: You’ll never understand why Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon made so many rabid fans out of PC gamers until you play it on the Xbox. Sure, Ghost Recon is available on other consoles, but there’s some really good stuff on Microsoft’s machine. Get a taste of what made both PC Gamer and IGN PC name Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon as 2001’s “PC Game of the Year. "
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon is a tactical first-person shooter that made its mark by wrapping realistic, squad-based action in a compelling, high-stakes story line. You lead a highly trained Special Forces unit known as Ghosts into hostile territory in the former Soviet Union. There, you must complete a series of military missions by assembling a team of snipers, demolitions experts, and combat soldiers from your larger Ghost unit. Each mission has different goals, and the members of your squad have different abilities, so it’s up to you to field soldiers with the best mission-specific skills and then lead them to victory. You can control any one member of your squad, even switching from Ghost to Ghost in mid-mission to make sure the job gets done right. Through it all, you remain in constant contact with your squad mates, issuing simple, realistic commands through your controller (in the single-player game; more on multiplayer communication later). The A.I. makes sure all the soldiers that you aren’t directly controlling still follow orders, which means you can lead a full-frontal assault of heavily armed grunts while your sniper hangs back and thins thin out the enemy and your demolitions expert plants his explosives.
Ghost Recon on the Xbox includes all of the missions from the original game, plus a handful from Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Desert Siege, an expansion set of additional maps and missions that PC owners had to buy separately. These missions haven’t just been translated for the Xbox; they’ve been redesigned and updated.
In fact, just about every aspect of Ghost Recon has been upgraded for the Xbox. Graphics have been beefed up, including better lighting, weather, and particle effects that make the most out of the Xbox’s power. There are new cut scenes, new weapons, new unlockable content—even a new playable female character. The A.I. for both friends and foes has been tweaked, making your squad mates and your targets smarter and harder to stop. Developer Red Storm even based the control scheme off of actual U.S. Army technology and real Army commands. Your Ghost’s targeting reticule has also been given the Xbox treatment: When you are under enemy fire, the reticule will give you a visual cue so you know where the threat is coming from, just like in Halo.
The biggest Xbox advantage, however, is found in Ghost Recon's online and multiplayer capabilities. Ghost Recon is one of the launch Xbox Live titles, so it’s been designed to make the most of the online service. You can play Cooperative, Deathmatch, or King of the Hill against other human players from all over the world—up to 16 at a time. You can customize multiplayer options like time limits and equipment kit restrictions, but for the ultimate in multiplayer gameplay enhancement, you need to try Tom Clancy's Ghost Reconwith the Xbox Live Communicator. Your squad mates can all talk to each other in real time, so time-sensitive objectives can be handled in their proper order no matter how far apart your squad has gotten. For example, your demolitionist can blow the bridge as soon as your last Ghost makes it across and verbally signals that all is clear. Voice communication also allows players to instantly check their locations against each other, relay enemy positions, or call for covering fire without having to type the information in (as PC players did).
With Xbox Live growing larger every day and the independently playable expansion Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon™: Island Thunder™ due out in fall of 2003, there are still plenty more ways the Xbox can explore and expand this excellent gaming experience.
