GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
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Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 02/28/2003
- Released on: 02/09/2003
- Originally published on GameSpot: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (GameCube) Review
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon was originally released on the PC back in 2001. Since then, Red Storm Entertainment has ported the game to the Xbox and the PlayStation 2. The Xbox version was good and offered the exciting online play of the original. The PS2 version, however, didn't include an online option and suffered from a number of problems that simply put it well below the standard set by other PS2 games like SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs. That brings us to today and to the recently released GameCube version of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, which falls somewhere in between the poor PS2 port and the online-enabled Xbox version.
Finding enemies with the threat detector takes all of the suspense out of sneaking around.
The game puts you in control of two squads of three soldiers. You can outfit each soldier with different weapons and equipment, like sniper rifles and explosives. The original PC version of the game gave you three teams to control, which made the game a bit more exciting and practical, since you could create two general-purpose teams and then create a specialist team of demolition experts or snipers. In the GameCube version, you'll have to make do with just the two squads. Once you're in the field, the GameCube version of Ghost Recon has the same basic setup as the PC version in that you can control each soldier in your complement by switching from one to the next. You can also tell your teammates to meet you at rally points by simply targeting the spot where you want them to meet and pressing the Y button. The controls for switching between the soldiers and controlling their actions are fairly simple once you get used to them. The controls for actually moving and firing weapons are also fairly intuitive, but they're a bit clunky in terms of their responsiveness.
The biggest problems with the GameCube version of Ghost Recon are found in its general gameplay mechanics. The game is designed to be a stealthy first-person shooter in which you're supposed to sneak around in wide-open environments, using trees and shrubbery for camouflage. While this is certainly interesting in the Xbox and PC versions of the game, the GameCube version spoils the suspense by including a threat-detection radar. This enemy detector lets you know exactly where the enemy soldiers are and whether or not they are hiding behind an object. Even worse, your crosshairs will turn red (which denotes a threat) when they track across an enemy, whether that enemy is visible or not, which makes it possible to shoot enemies that you can't even see. The threat-detection radar can't be turned off unless you play the game on the hardest difficulty setting, which also dramatically improves the enemy soldiers' aim.
The artificial intelligence for both your teammates and the enemy soldiers is poor. When you fire at an enemy soldier from afar and miss, and he doesn't even notice that you're taking shots at him, you can't help but feel disappointed in the game. And the only noticeable change in the AI at higher difficulty settings is that the soldiers have better aim.
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