Ubisoft has gained some reputation
for its realistic military-style games in recent years. Starting the trend was
Rainbow Six; a solid game plagued, unsurprisingly, with AI problems and some
clunky controls. By the time Rainbow Six 3 was out, though, it was a
surprisingly polished game. Immersive, pretty, exciting, and really, really
cool. It allowed for lots of team-based strategy while not ignoring tight
action. Splinter Cell has also gained lots of attention since its debut on the
Xbox a few years ago; its stealth-centered gameplay has become a very attractive
outlet for wannabe spy gamers. It, too, received a high-quality third sequel
recently.
Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon series is a
bit different. Although the original title had some decent tactical ideas hidden
deep inside, they were hidden by a muck of horrendous graphics, choppy
framerates, screwy controls and some painfully large levels. Still, if you could
look past the presentation, it offered some fun thrills for those who enjoyed
military strategy.
The sequel, creatively titled Ghost
Recon 2, has something of a strange and unwholesome development history. Two
versions were planned: one that would set up the beginning of a story in 2007,
and another that continued the story in 2011. The Xbox version was the 2011 one,
and it’s obvious where the most work went. The PlayStation2 version is entirely
different. Similar fundamentally but executed very, very differently, it’s a
pretty poor game, which is too bad, since the Xbox game is actually pretty fun.
The PlayStation2 version features
graphics that aren’t even close to what some games have pulled out of the
system, sluggish controls, and a fairly uninspiring story mode. At least you
could play online.
The GameCube version, unfortunately,
is a port of the PlayStation2 title. Even worse, it doesn’t take advantage of
any online capabilities, leaving gamers to cope with the mediocre offline mode
and nothing else. It’s unsurprising, as it would be – what, the third online
game for Gamecube? Still, it’s disappointing. As the GameCube undeniably nears
the end of its life, with a mere trickle of games being released each month, it
could use a good pick-me-up.
Instead of being a really strategic,
thinking-man’s game, the actual gameplay is more straight-up action. Seeing as
you can’t actually switch between any teams or members in your squad, nor can
you direct your squad to split up in different directions, they’re usually just
trailing behind you. You have the option to command them in several ways; tell
them to fire a rocket, toss a grenade, lay down some suppressing fire, or
whatnot.
A real problem is, despite all these
years after Rainbow Six was released, the AI. Your squadmates are, frankly,
idiots. You’ll tell one of them to fire off a rocket, only to find your whole
team caught in an explosion a few seconds later. Why? Did the rocketeer
accidentally hit a tree with some bad aiming? No – most likely, one of your
other squadmates nonchalantly trotted in front of him, taking a rocket to the
side of the head. And you’ll love the way your team gives suppressing fire; they
don’t bother to take cover, they just let their guns blaze, standing upright in
the open and taking damage, until they finish off their targets. Their inherent
dumbness will grate on your nerves pretty quickly.
The game is played out in a
third-person, over-the-shoulder viewpoint. The controls are a bit on the
sluggish side; some clunky-looking animations seem to merely stall for time so
reaction times aren’t too unrealistic. This ends up being more annoying than
anything, as they can’t be interrupted and sometimes take a noticeable little
bit of time to execute. The framerate is hardly rock-solid, and it’s also not
uncommon for the game to freeze up for a moment, and if you were doing anything
with the analog stick, expect to be disoriented when the action picks up again.
The graphics in the game are far
from good GameCube standards, especially when they aren’t particularly great on
the PlayStation2. Foliage is blocky and annoying. Character models are not
detailed with too much care, and their animation is less than impressive.
Textures seem to have been cleaned up slightly, but are still nowhere near their
maximum potential. On a related note, load times are absolutely abhorrent – even
worse than the PlayStation2’s.
On the plus side, the audio is
pretty solid. The music is your usual grand score that’d be fitting in any war
movie. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, but it certainly works here. Sound
effects are good enough, with the standard footsteps, explosions, radio calls,
gunfire, and so on and so forth. There’s not much in the way of important
voiceovers, so there’s little issues with that. While the sound, overall, isn’t
astounding, it’s easily the nicest part of the game.
Ghost Recon 2 is, more or less, how
not to release a game. First of all, both the PlayStation2 and Xbox
games should have been equal, but the PlayStation2 version is far inferior. To
make matters worse, not only is this GameCube game a port of the PS2 version,
it’s lacking the multiplayer qualities that may have made the PS2 version
slightly bearable. It’s too bad that the GameCube’s release list has grown quite
small in recent months, but please put your cash towards something more
worthwhile than this tossed-together title – Ghost Recon 2 for Xbox, for
example, is a much, much better investment.
|
|
Gameplay: 3.0
Not worth playing; control is clunky and glitchy, AI makes things a real
pain to get anything done.
Graphics: 5.5
Not impressive in the least for the GameCube, these are even mediocre for
the PlayStation2.
Sound: 7.0
Easily the most bearable aspect of the game, the soundtrack is fine and the
sound effects are decent.
Concept: 5.0
Really, there’s little here that hasn’t been done in some way or another
before, and it’s actually missing features that the other versions sport.
Difficulty: Medium
With AI posing a real problem, as well as sometimes vague mission
assignments, the game isn’t overly challenging but it can be difficult.
Overall: 4.5
Hardly worth a second glance, Ghost Recon 2 for the GameCube is just not a
worthwhile game. Go for the Xbox version, and don’t look back.
