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The
difficulty is really a key trait here, as it is in all the games
of the Tom Clancy line. If you are one who
is easily aggravated, this game is definitely not for you, particularly
now, because the new environments mean death when it's not even
clear there's danger present. There is a mini radar and a movement
indicator near the targeting reticle, but the former does not always
show positions and the latter is pretty general. Compound that with
the fact that some missions have camouflaged snipers - which is
actually startling to see at first, a piece of grass moving to reveal
a man setting up his shot - and that there seem to be super Korean
soldiers in the mix and you get some moments of 'oh what the (insert
explicative)!?' To properly explain the enemy AI : if one were to
take five random enemy soldiers, he would find that three of them
are of adequate skill, but tend to have a fetish of running towards
gunfire with reckless abandon, offset by the fact that they can
take a good four of five rounds before dying. There would be two
who seem to be oblivious as to what is going on and think the guy
lying in the grass with a gun pointing towards them is there to
say hello, and the last would be the SKS, the Super Korean Soldier
- this is the guy who can get a headshot while running around a
corner or up a hill and firing from the hip without stopping to
aim, all while keke'ing at your death and inability to do a 360
while on one knee and take them out with your first shot. The problem
with the SKS is that his exploits are not duplicable by the player.
Also, since there is no blood - most likely to get the Teen rating
- there is a Call of Duty: Finest Hour affect, in that it
is hard to tell when an enemy is being hit or dead because the animations
are similar.
While the commands may seem to favor fields of combat slightly larger
than those found in Rainbow Six, they are actually used in
wide-open areas. Most of the missions now take place in large forests,
towns, and plants. The only real downside to the larger areas is
that invisible walls and concrete bushes can make safe navigation
a bit of a hassle, but the commands themselves never cause much
trouble. Not only do most of the objectives not call for the Ghosts
to be all that stealthy, they ask them to be downright Rambo-ish
at times, mowing down wave after wave of assaulting troops. Actually,
the missions that specifically featured this were often quite fun;
whether it was fighting off enemies in the last defensible trench
or going from side to side to plug holes created in the barrier
surrounding a battlefield hospital, but the (frequent) times that
this style pops up in the midst of the missions where stealth would
be beneficial is when things get hectic to the point of aggravating.
There is one type of solo mission that is especially fun, though.
It allows the player to use the new rifles that the U.S. military
is looking to adopt in a few years; it has a camera mounted at the
top, allowing the soldier to hold it around a corner, and, by way
of a small monitor, see what's going on without risking a hole in
his helmet. Going through a bombed out city with one of these bad
boys is great, and so is the ability to call in airstrikes. An airstrike
can be called in with a normal gun, but the fact this gun allows
you to see the destruction from relative safety makes it the most
entertaining choice for the bombings. The developers definitely
took into account this guns lethality, too, as the enemy presence
is stepped up to compensate.
Missions that require solo play can be pretty harrowing with those
SKSs to worry about, but those that let the player's squad accompany
them tend to be only slightly less difficult. The allied forces
have improved a bit, and are actually quite good now, often spotting
hard-to-see enemies and taking them down with little difficulty.
Since the Ghosts seem to have cutting-edge body armor, they can
take a few rounds before dying. What is pretty cool is that they
can also be healed, either by the player or by another member of
the team. I am curious about one thing: the game is played with
levels being introduced by way of a show called Modern Heroes, a
History Channel-style special where mannequin-esque troops recall
their experiences that lead to the beginning of the missions, but
I was never able to find out if someone who died in combat would
be in a cutscene later. Seeing as how there is no real penalty for
the death of a squadmate, I would assume not, but I could not find
it in myself to complete a mission with someone dead to see what
would happen. The ability to make sure everybody comes out alive
is refreshing, and it is made possible because the player can now
save anywhere. As opposed to R6 3, where a save just meant
playing from the beginning of one portion, a save here means an
actual save, as in you start from the same position at which the
game was saved, and there are no limits on how many times the game
can be saved. I can only assume that this and the fact that the
missions are mostly scripted are to help alleviate some of the frustration
from the player constantly being outnumbered and the enemy having
vehicles handy to assist their infantry, and they do, but what would
also help is for the volume not to automatically increase for the
gunshot that spells your doom and the radio chatter from central
asking about your status - it's like when a commercial comes on
and you wince from how loud it was - since the ambient sounds are
low, you've got your volume turned up a bit. Also, unlike the original,
the player does not gain control of another squad member if he dies
- the death of the controlled character means the end of the mission.
There were a few problems I had with the weapons and teammates that
were pretty consistent. In regards to weapons, the bazooka refused
to cooperate with me. I thought I might need to aim at a certain
point on a vehicle or be a certain distance, but it seemed that
it would only go off when it felt like it. There was one mission,
the aforementioned trench one, in which you are charged with letting
no enemies through: well, I was aiming at a tank rolling past my
location for a good twenty seconds and, despite clicking fire about
ten times, not once did it fire, while other times it would fire
the first time. What saved my hide more than once was the ability
to tell my troops to fire on an approaching vehicle. The problem
with this is that the button that tells them to do an action, which
is described at the bottom of the screen ('Attack Vehicle'), is
also the button that tells them to advance, so you can rush to a
break in a line and telling a teammate to man a gun, but an unexpected
dip in terrain can suddenly sends him charging into enemy gunfire.
I would have also liked for them to hold their position until told
to move, but they would automatically regroup whenever I fired a
round. Other than that, though, the controls and new system work
surprisingly well, they just call for patience and a steady hand.
I cannot recall Ubisoft ever doing poorly with the online portions
of their games, and Ghost Recon 2 is no different, although
it does have some slight blemishes, like Black Arrow's performance
problems. There are solo, co-op, and squad options, as well as the
ability to play over a system link. There are the usual types of
options - no respawns, certain weapons, etc. - to be chosen, and
there are plenty of people to play against, as well as stat tracking.
The only thing I am not a big fan of is that when selecting class
and weaponry, the player is vulnerable to enemies for however long
the host wishes. You have the ability to choose your spawn point
in some cases, but most of the time people would just stay slightly
off to the side and shoot whenever I was getting my gear together.
Since the maps are generally good, I would like to play more, but
it really put a damper on things when most of the hosts had invulnerability
set for a few seconds. There is also the ability to play the game
in split screen on one system with all the bells and whistles, which
is appreciated and was taken advantage of.
Like most games these days, Ghost Recon 2 uses the light
bloom effect. Also like most, it looks good here. Despite some minor
framerate fluctuations and bland enemy designs, there are some striking
scenes, especially in one multiplayer level with a bombed out city
in the midst of a rain storm. The music is not bad, but it takes
a back seat to the radio chatter and environmental sounds. The chatter,
aside from the last call, can be hard to hear at times, but that
is not too troublesome. The third-person view actually makes the
game look pretty good, and the sound being focused more on the actions
at hand keeps the atmosphere feeling right.
Overall: 7.5/10
You will love it one minute and hate it the next. With the patent
Clancy AI that keeps the player on his toes with extremely difficult
objectives, plenty of enemies, and a hint of randomness, Ghost
Recon 2 also has a new streamlined approach to bring the series
in a fresh direction. With fifteen missions, many of which are done
well, the difficulty serves as a way of extending the experience.
A solid online component is there after the campaign to add longevity.
It stumbles a little while it gets used to its changed gameplay,
but it makes for a fun, if sometimes frustrating, time.
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