Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2

THE BAD:
- Slow performance
- Bad AI
- No easy mode
- Easy cheats

SUMMARY:
When I bought this game, I was really excited, because I was a huge fan of Tom Clancy games and Ghost Recon was one of my favorites, and it still is. So I brought the game home, put it in the Xbox, turned it on. I was immediately impressed by the opening sequence, it looked good and was a nice preview of what was to come. I then created a profile and started basic training. So far I was thrilled with the game. Then the shit hit the fan - as the camera began to pan towards my character, I noticed the graphics slowing down. As disappointing as that was, I continued to play the game and found that I was able to put that aside and enjoy myself, until the first major firefight, complete with grenades, fully automatic weapons fire, mortars, etc. It really took a toll on the Xbox, and the graphics slowed down to an almost unplayable level - quite disappointing. I've always preferred console games to PC games because you don't have to upgrade the console to play the latest games. You buy the games for that console until the next console comes out. Anyway, on to the next disappointment - AI.

Imagine, if you will ...you're decked out in full camo, time of day is in the evening so it's getting dark, you're sneaking through the bushes, hiding behind large trees, can barely hear yourself when all the sudden bullets begin to whiz by. You look up through your viewfinder and find the enemy that is shooting at you is 200 meters away. Not only is he shooting at you, but he's hitting you, through trees, rocks, bushes and darkness, and using an AK-47 on top of that. Your enemy is using old-school gear, doesn't have night vision, etc. Something wrong with this picture? I think so. That scenario is often my downfall, I've had to turn the game off in frustration many times because of it. The team AI can be just as bad sometimes. One of the tactics I use on missions is to have the team stay put while I scout ahead for any threats - worked well in the first Ghost Recon because the team didn't start moving after you got more than 30 meters away, but in this version they just don't seem to know how to follow orders. Ask them to hold fire, do they? No. As soon as an enemy appears, blam blam blam.

Overall I do like this game, there are some really great points, such as the scenery, the size of the levels, the ability to refill your ammo, and things like that. There is quite a bit of challenge to the game, excluding the horrid AI and bad performance it can be a lot of fun to play. The best part of the game is the multiplayer by far. Its a blast! I get my assed kicked all the time, but its fun, and I know my human enemy can't see me from 200 meters away when I'm burrowed into heavy brush behind trees and rocks. Very cool.