Ghost Recon

Our review of Tom Clancy's latest action-strategy game.

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Ghost Recon developer’s Red Storm have had a couple of critically acclaimed successes in recent years; Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear, both tactical-action games, based around the style and plots of successful espionage writer Tom Clancy. Ghost Recon marks Red Storm’s third outing in the genre too, and once again Clancy’s name adorns the military-styled box. This time however, the competition is more fierce than ever, as Codemaster’s Operation Flashpoint currently occupies the crown as on-line and single-player game of choice. Ghost Recon certainly has some catching up to do, as the strategic shooter genre is an increasingly competitive one.

So what does the game offer? Well, initially not a lot more than Rogue Spear, the gameplay once again being based around the pain-staking sniping of the enemy, occasional brief fire-fights, and a number of story-based mission objectives. It is however, in the main, all done a lot better. A new Clancy-esque plot once again riddles the single-player missions, and is the basis for the games missions. This time, the game is set in 2008, and sees the player as part of an elite US-led force, taking on Russian nationalists wreaking tyranny in Georgia, Kazakhstan, and a number of other former Soviet republics.

The plot isn’t too bad either, allowing for diverse and varied missions, in some quite interesting settings – all of which is nicely illustrated and progressed through the mission-briefings. It just isn’t terribly innovative, sadly.