I picked this game up yesterday and played it for about 5 straight hours so I figured I would give you guys the heads up on the game.
Now I have been playing Ghost Recon Games since the end of 2002 when the first Ghost Recon game came out on the Xbox, I mainly picked it up at the time just because it was one of the few games that was Live Enabled (It was pretty much Ghost Recon, Unreal Championship, and Mech Assault). I loved the way the game played though, very tactical, very stealthy, and very real. It was a great tactical first-person shooter with alot of weapons, great environments, good enemy AI, and awesome online play. Ghost Recon 2 however doesn't have alot of the things that made the original so great.
Before you even start playing the game with first thing you will notice is the menus, gone is the day of the blue menu eye sore and in it's place is a maze of menus which do the same thing but take twice as long. For some odd reason there are 3 different Online Features menus (1. in the main menu 2. in the online menu 3. in the pause menu) with different options in each. The main menu Online Features menu has the option for "Teams" (clans) and "Downloadable Content", yet the Xbox Live Online Features menu doesn't have these options, all it has is the option to Appear Offline and check your Friends List. The final Online Features menu found in the pause menu only has the options to check your Friends List and Sign Out (no appear offline?). Also when you are on Xbox Live you have to flick through 7 (That's right SEVEN) different menus to find out everything you need to know about the game you are in, when in the original Ghost Recon's it told you everything you need to know in 1 simple menu, what was wrong with that menu?
The biggest difference in Ghost Recon 2 is the fact that you can now play in a third-person over-the-shoulder perspective which allows you to see where you are at in the environment instead of assuming you are under cover. The only real problem with this is the fact that when you are online you can look around corners by adjusting the camera and you won't be seen, in tern you can see when an enemy is coming down an alley, or around a corner without them seeing you (which was one of my biggest gripes with Socom II online). Luckily this feature can be turned off online, making people play only in first-person perspective which will probably only be applied in clan matches but that is the only place where it is needed.
The graphics in Ghost Recon 2, for the most part, are actually very good and drudge up memories of America's Army, actually it's more like America's Army on a bad PC. While the environments are rich with detail and the textures and character models look great the game tends to bog down from 30 FPS (Frames Per Second) to 10 FPS in areas with trees and/or lot's of enemies, which tends to become a big pain in the butt when you are getting killed by 10 enemies in your spawn point and can't aim because the frame-rate sucks so bad. All in all the game looks great though, a little of time and effort making the framerate more consistant would have been greatly appreciated since when you play it now you feel as if you are playing a bad PlayStation 2 port on your Xbox.
Gameplay has always been the biggest draw for the Ghost Recon series, it's been fast, tactical, bloody, and real, but for some reason this game feels more like a Men of Valor sequel then a Ghost Recon sequel. For starters the enemy artificial intelligence is terrible, even on hard mode enemies will consistantly be seen randomly walking into walls and acting stupid, they also can't aim to save thier life and can't see you when you are 2 feet in front of them. Oddly enough though in jungle stages you will die an obscene amount of times just because the enemies can see you straight through eight trees and three bushes and fire blindly until they hit you. Because of all this there is really no need to be strategic at all, and you can pretty much run and gun with a M249 through the whole game.
Online the game plays fairly well, it feels more like an indoor Rainbow Six 3 then a sequel to Ghost Recon though. Biggest, biggest, biggest problem with online is that you do not choose your kit in the lobby, once you spawn in the game (that's right, there is no freeze time, you spawn first) you then have to pick your kit making you wide open to get shot if you don't pick your weapon kit fast as hell. Remember in the first Ghost Recon where it would run perfectly (no shot lag, no teleporting, no crazy stuff at all) until the host got one too many people in the room then people started teleporting and grenades would disappear and such? Well now, even with 2 people in the room there is bullet lag (everyone has it besides the host of course, sound familiar? *coughs*Rainbow Six 3, Return to Castle Wolfenstien *cough*) and the more people that join the worse it get's. You'll find yourself shooting outlines around people trying to compensate for it which becomes very frustrating.
Also, the M29 (the OICW in the previous Ghost Recon) makes it's return and it's even more broken then ever. It now has a fiber optic camera in it which you can use to look around corners and over objects with it, without having any body parts exposed, which sorely get's abused online. Lucky for you it can be turned off, but if you get caught in a game where the host hasn't turned it off, good luck. Rocket Launcher, you spawn with one of these bad boys no matter what, sounds fun online doesn't it?
Final Verdict 6.2
+Graphics, nice lush jungles and great character models
+Lot's of levels and options
+Cool weapons
-Menus, too many
-Lag, lag, lag
-AI is dumb as dirt
-Doesn't feel like Ghost Recon
?Why doesn't Ubi Soft beta test games?