In Ghost Recon, you lead the Ghosts, an elite American infantry unit using the most advanced technology the United States has to offer, onto the front lines and into battle. The Ghosts are the spearhead of the United States Army’s quick response. They are the first unit deployed into dangerous situations and the last ones to leave when things get rough. As the leader of a platoon of Ghosts in the field, it is your responsibility to select your fire-team members, train them, equip them out, and command them once the shooting starts. You control them as they seek to execute your orders, which you give during the heat of battle, and complete their missions. Particularly spectacular performance and the completion of special objectives will unlock Specialist characters, who bring new weapons and new levels of expertise to your platoon.

The game consists of a series of fifteen missions along a single storyline, which forms a campaign. While many of the gameplay elements of Ghost Recon may seem familiar if you have played Rainbow Six or Rogue Spear, it is an entirely new game in an entirely new setting. If you’ve played Rogue Spear or Rainbow Six, prepare yourself for the next step in squad-based tactical games. If you are new to this style of game, get ready for edge-of-your-seat action and challenging tactical gameplay.

Prior to each mission, you'll get a mission briefing of text and an audio voice over along with a basic map.  I'm a big fan of the audio briefings because I hate reading tons of text. Your mission include but are not limited to blowing up bridges, rescuing downed pilots and hostages, ambushing armored forces, and eliminating any threats.  The mission maps are quite extensive offering many different types of terrain and conditions.  From ruined towns do hardwoods to open fields.  Different weather conditions add to the realism, as well as, day and night missions.    

Each mission requires various ordinance requirements.  You have tons of weapons to choose from.  When you pick or auto pick your squad mates its nice to have a variety of weapons to take with you for a couple of reasons.  One being when you die, and you will, you will take over another teammates character.  This gives you a chance to play around with the weapons a bit.  You can also toggle between characters for the same effect.  Also you may need some demolition gear to blow something up, but don't want to be hindered by the limited choices of firepower while carrying the explosives.  One down side in the weapons category is the grenade.  Though effective they can be a bit tricky to throw because there is no distance meter.  Takes some getting used to but some practice will have you lobbing balls of death in no time.

The mission planning interface gives you control over your squads. The management of your units is helpful because sometimes the AI just doesn’t quite cut it, but isn't that true in most games.  A few times I found my squad mates following me so close in close quarters that they were getting in my way.   This can be avoided if you micro-manage your buddies, but that can get tough when the bad guys are raining bullets down on your position.  On the flipside they often were shooting at enemy targets that I did not even see coming at us.

 A problem I found was that some bonus objectives that I would have liked to complete to get some more points to add to my squad's skills could not be met.  If you defeat all the enemy forces the mission is ended if you met the essential elements.  This does not let you finish the optional objectives. One more worth mentioning is that you can't jump. That might not be a big deal in the mission portion of the game, but in the multiplayer games that I have played in the past, it’s a well-used tactic to avoid enemy fire. 

All in all nothing really holds back my recommendation of the game.  If you love military style mission driven or squad based game, I highly recommend it.  It is both stimulating to the eyes and ears and will have you jumping out of your chair when the fit it’s the shan.  The character rendering and animation is top notch.

Squad-based tactical combat with next-generation military action in stunning 3D environments

Mission-driven storyline with 15 different single player maps (as big as 400m x 400m), and 6 dedicated multiplayer maps

Up to 36 people can play online multiplayer games via Internet (TCP/IP) or LAN.  At time of review the dedicated server at ubi.com, which the game is supported, seemed to have some server problems.  When I did connect and join some games it was incredibly fun.  I checked out some forums and got mixed reviews about the ease of online play at UBI. Though I personally had some connection issues, I am not going to bash the game up because of all the underlying problems that it could be.  (ISP, system hardware, user being an idiot, etc)  Again once you connect its fun as hell. Here is an idea of the kind of games you will find online.

Solo Multiplayer

· Hamburger Hill – The player who spends the most time in the central area of the map wins.
· Last Man Standing – The winner is the last one standing.
· Sharpshooter – The winner is the player who has the most kills at the end of the game.

Co-Op Multiplayer

· Firefight – The map is seeded with randomly placed enemies, whom the player must defeat.
· Mission – The game plays like a single-player mission, with the same objectives, enemies and so on. If your team does not have the required equipment for a mission, a chat message will go out informing all players of this and the game will not advance.
· Recon - The players must make it from the insertion zone to the extraction zone.

Team Multiplayer

· Hamburger Hill – The winner of a Hamburger Hill game is the team that spends the most time in the central area of the map.
· Search and Rescue – The winner is the team that finds the three hostages placed on the map and escorts them to safety successfully. The hostages are invulnerable to fire.
· Last Man Standing - The winner of this game is the last team still alive at the end of the game. If time runs out before one team can eliminate all of its rivals, the win goes to the team with the most kills

I'M a huge fan of online massive multiplayer games, and this title promises hours if not days of non-stop action for those desktop grunts that think that they are all that and a bag of chips!  Still want more check out their web site at http://www.ghostrecon.com/ 

Install:  Medium
Setting up for online play can take some time in addition to just installing the game.  Minimum of 1GB of space is required.

Gameplay: 7
Commanding your task force can be a bit tricky with the current interface and options.

Graphics: 9 
Great rendering and animations

Sound: 9
3D Sound with fantastic environmental sound effects immerse you in the game

Difficulty: 9
3 levels of difficulty.  Even the easiest can be quite difficult.  Go online for the ultimate challenge.

Concept: 7 
Squad based shooter with multiplayer capability.

Multiplayer: 7
Dedicated games at UBI.  Joining can be cumbersome, but once your playing…Awesome

Overall: 8
Lots of playability here