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Written by: Austry Polanco

Critically acclaimed for the Rainbow Six series, Tom Clancy came up with even a greater achievement. It’s called Ghost Recon. You take control of an elite team of “ghosts”, specially trained green berets in the year 2008. Conflict has broken out from the boarders in Russia and you’re there to pave the way for the NATO peacekeeping soldiers. You get the latest weapons of war in this fantastic first person shooter, such as the new prototype OICW, M4, M16 with or without grenade launcher, M136 Anti Tank bazooka, and the AUG SA80 among many, many others including sniper rifles, secondary and heavy support weapons.





Graphics: Absolutely phenomenal and mind blowing if you have the system that can handle this baby. The most realistic looking trees of any game are found here, to the water and wet effect that stays on your soldier’s uniforms after a quick soak. The effects of rain and snow are pretty well done considering how huge the levels are and how far you can see. The player and vehicle models are top notch and have perfect proportions. The M1 Abrams looks exactly like its real life counter part and so does every other vehicle in the game. Hum V’s, Bradley’s, APC’s, BMP’s and T60 battle tanks. The explosion and particle effects are also worth a mention and you’ll be surprised from time to time.





Sound: Whoa, turn up those speakers boys and girls, a Hollywood movie has just entered the building. From the authentic sounds of an M16 firing to the radiant, marvelous, spectacular, brilliant, magnificent, glorious, splendid, superb, outstanding, stupendous, stunning, and astonishing theme music in the main menu screen. This game out shines many from the start because simply the sounds and noises set a mood that no other game can match when it’s all said and done.





Gameplay: The multiplayer aspect of this gem is extremely appealing and from the get go it’s fun in any mode. Be it Mission co-op/team, Hamburger Hill single team/multi team, solo last man standing, team last man standing, recon team missions, etc., all to be played with up to 36 players from around the intercontinental U.S. Some lag will occur though if a player has a low ping and it'll drag most of you down until that person leaves. Having a good host is always a great idea. Single player modes are firefight, recon, and mission mode along with campaign mode that goes into the games story about the conflicts near Russia, Georgia, Uzbekistan and many other real locations around central Asia. In some missions you need to rescue POW’s and top ranking enemy commanders to retrieve valuable information. Or strategically find a way to blow up a bridge to block off a convoy of enemy troops.





Lasting appeal: Like most games after you beat it and unlock all the secret characters (which they are certainly here too, “the specialists”) there’s not much to do other than practice and create missions from scratch with the IGOR mission editing tool that’s included with the game. But since this game has a very cool multiplayer game, you’ll definitely keep looking for a challenge against other very good players. And you’ll definitely want to share your created missions with others or play it with them. I mean you won’t only get the privilege of playing this awesome fps, but in doing so you have the opportunity to learn a thing or two about scripting and mission/map editing, and if you get good enough you can even land a career as a editing specialist but it’s something definitely hard to accomplish because of the deepness within IGOR. Look for the up-coming expansion of GR: Desert Siege due out in stores on March 26, 2002. If you do, you’ll even be able to create your own LEVELS for a fantastic game. How cool is that?





“Tango down!”



AP33ME

Gameplay: 5.0
Graphics: 5.0
Sound: 5.0
Value: 5.0
Multiplayer: 4.5

Final Score: 5.0   (out of 5)