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Platform
Xbox
Genre
Shooter
Publisher
Ubisoft
Developer
Red Storm
Entertainment
ESRB
M (Mature)
Released
Q3 2003
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- Intense multiplayer maps and
action
- There’s a liberal need for actual thinking and strategic
planning to succeed
- Variety of soldiers and accompanying weaponry to fill you
elite force’s roster
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- Graphics can be very
underachieving at times
- AI has its low-I.Q. moments
- Too few single-player levels don’t use the great plot and Tom
Clancy storytelling touch to its fullest potential
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Review: Splinter Cell (XB)
Review: Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance (PS2)
Review: Rainbow Six 3 - Raven Shield (PC)
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Tom
Clancy's Ghost Recon: Island Thunder
Score: 8.4 / 10
Ubi
Soft’s Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon has been one of the biggest selling
titles for the Xbox to date, primarily for its stellar online
capabilities over Xbox Live. Hot on the heels of the incredible success
of that game, Ubi Soft has released a follow-up title -- an
oxymoronically described “stand-alone expansion” -- Tom Clancy’s Ghost
Recon: Island Thunder (IT).
The game has a new Tom Clancy-driven storyline (unfortunately not delved
into too deeply) revolving around the death of Fidel Castro and a
politically unstable new Cuba in the year 2010 requiring the services of
Ghost intervention for its single-player campaign missions. But with
only a handful of new levels for single-player gameplay, it’s hard to
call IT a “stand-alone” title worth $40US. Fortunately, the
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good premise for a story, the multiplayer gaming is what IT is all
about. This is another game in the mold of Unreal Championship for the
Xbox where the short single-player game is more of a practice facility
to learn the game’s controls and jungle, desert, and Cuban urban street
levels you’ll be playing while online.
Those single-player story missions come in real handy, however,
especially if you are a rookie like myself that doesn’t have any
experience playing the original game. IT, like the first Ghost Recon,
requires a lot of tactical strategizing to control the two three-member
Ghost platoons, Alpha and Bravo, which you order around the map. You
must plan either one of both teams’ movements while personally
controlling one team or switching between individual platoon members to
successfully complete the mission. The ultimate goal on top of
completing your objectives is to avoid sustaining any casualties, which
isn’t always easy, especially on IT’s harder difficulty levels.
In addition to the strategy elements, there are just the basic controls
of moving around and using weaponry that require some acclimation.
Veteran first-person shooter players will become familiar with its
control schematics rather quickly, but there are a host of controls to
master for every button, trigger and control stick on the Xbox
controller. You must be able to move, shoot, switch weaponry, reload,
open entryways, use a binocular-like zoom (to see faraway landscape and
roaming individuals), and stand, crouch, or crawl to avoid getting
killed.
Featured in IT is some spectacular visual and sound effects on the
flipside of some disappointing graphical weaknesses, especially
considering the award-winning renderings seen in another Tome Clancy
game, Splinter Cell. The environmental visuals on the varied levels are
not anywhere near standard Xbox quality, with too much blurring fogging
effects used to compensate for the game’s poor anti-aliasing
capabilities.
However, there are a few graphical touches of greatness. IT’s soldiers
are well detailed. Not Splinter Cell excellent, but really good
nonetheless. That’s important too, because there is a huge squad of
elite Ghost members to select from, and an even bigger total to unlock,
each with a specialized skill such as demolition expert or sniper, to
differentiate between. Most have distinctive weaponry, providing a vast
assortment of options when putting together a platoon for a particular
mission. Having an array of Ghosts with a big selection of weapons to
equip them with carries over into multiplayer game setup too.
Even better than the character detail is the amazing weather effects and
environmental sound effects. Seeing convincing rain falling with
supporting lighting and thunder sounds is simply marvelous. Sound
throughout the game is exceptionally used. Background noises such as
birds chirping or planes flying overhead exponentially add to the
dripping realism of IT. One particularly impressive object sound effect
is in the abandoned town prison. When you move across the rustic scraps
of metal strewn all over, you make a very noticeable creaking sound. On
this map in multiplayer matches, paying attention to the sounds of the
creaking metal make it easy to place your enemy in the room and target
him for a kill shot.
IT’s challenge level in the single-player campaign doesn't always
example the smartest AI in the jungle. Enemy AI reacts more attentively
and aggressively on the higher difficulty settings, but overall can be
shaky. The game seems to assign each enemy a specific perimeter that
controls his reaction to your platoon’s actions. If you move into an
enemy’s perimeter, he will react by taking cover, shoot at you before
you see him, or counter-attack. The problem here is that you can engage
an enemy in his perimeter by shooting at him. He will react to your
fire. But an enemy in an adjoining perimeter that logically should be
able to hear and/or see his fellow enemy soldier being attacked will
illogically not react at all until you actually invade his perimeter.
Recognizing this behavior makes it easier to defeat enemies, but takes
away from the accurate military fighting simulation IT can be in most
instances.
A uneven AI doesn’t matter at all over Live for multiplayer IT gaming,
where you square off against infinitely-smarter-than-AI ( in most cases
that is) human competitors. IT’s online multiplayer action is the game’s
meat and potatoes, a fact that the game’s developers and publisher isn’t
afraid to admit. IT is designed to be a solid multiplayer title first
and foremost. There’s an incredible amount of online multiplayer modes
to partake in too. Four cooperative games, five team games, and four
solo games give Xbox Live IT players plenty of first-person shooting
choices to enjoy.
Included in IT is a wide selection of great multiplayer maps borrowed
from the single-player game and carried over from the original game. The
maps aren’t small either. Just when you thought that one couldn’t be any
bigger, you discover a branching path to even more areas of a map. The
fogging anti-aliasing effect does crop up in multiplayer games though,
sometimes making finding an enemy particularly troublesome with
sometimes deadly results for you.
I wouldn’t consider scooping Island Thunder unless you are a Live
subscriber, because as good as the game’s story and single-player
missions can be, there’s simply not enough levels and gameplay here for
going solo. However, IT continues in the footsteps of its predecessor by
providing an exceptional multiplayer experience that not many games can
match today.
- Lee Cieniawa
lcieniawa@armchairempire.com
(September 7, 2003) |
