Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon

Moby ID: 5557
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Description official descriptions

The year is 2008, and Russian rebels have taken over Moscow in an attempt to restore the old communist regime. You are in command of The Ghosts, an elite military team and the United States' first line of defense.

Both single-player and multiplayer modes are available. In the single-player missions, you have an entire platoon of men at your disposal. In multiplayer, you command just one man, with the rest of your platoon controlled by humans instead of the computer.

Ghost Recon is a first-person tactical shooter. You can choose one of four characters: sniper, rifleman, demolitions expert, and support expert, with specialists being unlocked as you complete the single-player missions.

Spellings

  • Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Команда "Призраки" - Уничтожая зло - Russian spelling (Media-Service 2000)
  • Золотая коллекция хитов Тома Клэнси. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon - Russian spelling
  • 幽灵行动 - Alternate simplified Chinese spelling
  • 汤姆克兰西 之 幽灵行动 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 火线猎杀 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

147 People (134 developers, 13 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 54 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 79 ratings with 5 reviews)

Both "edge-of-your-seat" and "over-before-you-know-it"

The Good
Single Player Game Review

Set in 2008, we learn during Ghost Recon’s opening that Ultranationalists have seized control of the Russian government and have begun a westward expansion in a bid to resurrect the Soviet Union. While the world watches, a U.S. Army Special Forces unit is already in the Baltics supporting local forces in their attempt to oust the Russian expansionists. Under the guise of peacekeeping, this elite team of “swift, silent, and invisible” troops will face overwhelming odds to disable the Russian war machine.

Coming under the “Tom Clancy” license and having similar elements, Ghost Recon naturally invites comparisons to the Rainbow Six series. Both are squad-based shooters with an emphasis on realism, but where Rainbow Six was focused on hostage rescue in buildings, Ghost Recon is combat driven on huge outdoor maps. Ghost Recon’s interface is either a streamlined or dumbed down (depending on your point of view) version of Rainbow Six, limiting the amount of pre-mission planning in an attempt to get the player into the action as soon as possible.

A single briefing and 2D mission map precede soldier and kit selection. Where Rainbow Six offered a core group of named heroes and back-up expendable troops, Ghost Recon has two divisions of troops: your standard roster and unlockable specialist units. Beginning with your standard roster, you have a good selection of low level troops: Riflemen, Heavy Weapon Support Units, Snipers, and Demolitionists. Each has four stats: Weapon Skill, Endurance, Stealth, and Leadership ranked on a scale from 1-8. After the successful completion of a mission, surviving troops gain an additional point that you can spend where you decide. If, during a mission, you complete a special secondary objective, you unlock a specialist unit—basically a super version of one of the four classes with higher stats and better weaponry. Since the Tom Clancy games pride themselves on realism, I can only guess that the real Army works like this too.

As an aside (and neither a compliment nor a complaint), you really aren’t penalized for losing troops during missions. You’ll prefer to keep your specialists alive and if you’ve leveled up your regular troops, you probably won’t want to start over with someone green, but you don’t have to worry about running out of soldiers.

Kit selection has been streamlined or gutted down to one of four preset packages for each class. Gone are the armor, cameo, and primary weapon options. All that’s left to decide is whatever secondary equipment the designers have determined your character should have access to—which isn’t consistent among classes (meaning that you might want to bring your specialist Demolitions expert on a mission only to find that he doesn’t have access to the AntiTank weapon).

Then you divide your maximum of six troops into a maximum of three fire teams and go straight into the mission. This is probably the most jarring difference between Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. In Rainbow Six, countless time was spent in the mission planning mode setting waypoints and go-codes. In Ghost Recon, everything is done in-game. Hitting left space brings up the mission map lets you give orders to your troops in real-time, orders which are either simplified or simplistic.

As far as the missions themselves, this is where the game shines. Ghost Recon has fifteen levels with drastically different maps and game objectives so you won’t get bored here. The first mission involves searching the Baltic mountainside for a local warlord holed up in a cave, other missions involve running cover for a tank column through a bombed out city, rescuing POWs from a camp, and holding off waves of troops and tanks at a UN checkpoint. The game itself can be difficult enough, but you’ll push yourself to complete the optional objectives to unlock the specialists. Also, with the help of a threat indicator (which shows the general direction of enemy troops and gunfire) and in-mission saves, nothing is really that impossible. Finally, after a mission is completed, it can be replayed, played as a kill-em-all, or played as a recon mission.

Graphically, the game is a step up from Rainbow Six, but it wasn’t cutting edge even back when it was released. Character animations look good, from a limping, wounded soldier (with bloody uniform) to enemy troops falling to a prone position when they are under fire. Ghost Recon is also the first Tom Clancy game to have a believable outdoor environment. But it’s still hurting for the lack of dynamic lighting or damageable terrain (i.e. don’t try to shoot out spotlights).

The Bad
I’m definitely in the dumbed down, gutted, simplistic camp. Ghost Recon is a quality game, but I disagree with many of the design choices here especially because the Rainbow Six interface worked very well. To begin with, the limited kits are extremely frustrating. Why can my snipers have grenades but not my riflemen? No one should be getting that close to my snipers. Why are silenced weapons limited to specialists?

I’m actually okay with lack of pre-mission planning using a map and go-codes, because the battlefield is much more fluid than a hostage situation. However, I would have liked go-codes during the in-mission planning. Orders are followed out as soon as they are issued, so coordinating an attack can be difficult—plus while you are issuing orders you are basically a sitting duck. Also, the 2D map is not very useful, especially when there are a few multistory areas.

Team AI is very good (including seeking cover), but if you want to take out a tank, you have to control the demolitionist; they won’t do it on their own. Same with planting charges. All this is too bad, because usually the trickier part is providing cover for the demolitionist. On both the team and enemy AI, the range of detection seems short. I could snipe enemies my AI sniper couldn’t.

While Rainbow Six had an Escort mode for hostages, Ghost Recon doesn’t have an equivalent for their rescue missions. To “rescue” someone, you have to bump into them and then they will follow you. Tired of them following you? Bump into them with someone else. You’ll find this bumping technique also works for the occasional glitches that cause teammates to get stuck on rocks and doorways.

My biggest annoyance with Ghost Recon comes from the over-scripting present in some of the missions. The key to some missions seemed to be learning the script: find out what caused the enemy tank to spawn and do that last, put support troops in the spots where enemies respawn, line up the snipers to take out the truck that shows up after five minutes.

Finally, this game suffers for following some precedents established by its predecessor. Like Rainbow Six, all that is present of the gun carried by the soldier you command is the targeting reticle. While this separated Rainbow Six from other FPSs, now it seems more like an oversight. At least the option to toggle a weapon view should be offered. Likewise, the ability to crawl while prone doesn’t make up for the lack of a jumping or mantling option. Finally, an inventory sharing system during missions would be nice.

The Bottom Line
At 15 missions, Ghost Recon should be a good trudge, but it’s actually kind of short. Storywise, it’s a shallow game with a blink and you’ll miss it storyline which might have seemed plausible or relevant if it hadn’t been released two months after September 11th. But we’re here for the gameplay, which will have you on the edge of your seat.

Windows · by Terrence Bosky (5397) · 2004

Easily the worst video game I have ever played.

The Good
The only thing I liked about this game was the storyline. That's about it. The multiplayer was alright, but the game still sucks.

The Bad
Where do I begin? Even for a 2002 game, the production values were terrible. The graphics for the game are incredibly pixelated; in fact, even the text on the main menu is pixelated! Oh, my god! Every mission is exactly the same. For some games, this wouldn't be a problem, but the missions for this game are boring, and repetitive. Every level goes something like this: shoot enemies, rescue hostage. That's it. No bonuses, or anything. And as for sound, this is how I describe it. Put a cottonball in each ear while shooting a pop gun. THAT is the amount of sound you get in the game. And I hated how you can't see your gun. There's just an aim assist. C'mon! This isn't 1997!

The Bottom Line
The die hard tactical shooter fan may like it a bit, but as for me, it is the worst video game I have ever played. If you like normal FPS games, check out Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Halo, or Metroid Prime. Don't play this game.

Xbox · by Austin Bruner (4) · 2010

Advanced AI, high realism, but is it fun?

The Good
Unlike others who had played other Tom Clancy games like Rainbow Six, this is the first Tom Clancy game I've played (bought at Office Max for $10, bundled with Island Thunder), so I can only compare it to the other special forces-based series I know, Delta Force. And what immediately struck me about the game was the amount of cooperation between you and your team. In Delta Force, nearly all missions have you going alone into a terrorist camp to kill several dozen terrorists all by your lonesome, and if you actually do have comrades along with you, they're highly scripted automatons that simply provide sniper over-watch at best, and get in your way and are liabilities at worse. In Ghost Recon, you control up to six soldiers (you can select less, I suppose, but that seems to just make you more likely to fail the mission), and you can switch between controlling any one of them directly (sort of like Sim Ant, to use a very old example), but you can also control waypoints (which the computer is smart enough to find a path if it's not possible to walk directly from point A to point B), stance, and how ready they are to advance, but I didn't end up using that last feature much because Advance at all Costs seemed reckless in all situations and Hold seemed worthless, since you wouldn't give them move orders if you don't want them to hold. That said, your soldiers follow your orders like Myrmidons, able to follow you up a flight of stairs without bumping into the wall, and actually firing back when an enemy is in range. It may not sound like much, but compared to the terrible friendly NPC AI in other games, your NPCs in Ghost Recon are geniuses.

Another big similarity between Ghost Recon and Delta Force besides the outdoors-based missions and foreign locales is the lack of soldier vitality. Whereas many other games make it so soldiers can take dozens of bullets before dying, in Ghost Recon and Delta Force it's usually only one or two, maybe three or four if it's somewhere non-vital and the gun's not that powerful. Of course, that and the lack of healing increases the difficulty of the missions, since neither enemy nor friendly soldiers can take much before going down. Delta Force solved the problem by making the enemy soldiers stupid and terrible shots. They'd wait 5 seconds before even looking at you, only rarely drop to kneeling or prone positions, and either walk towards you or open fire like they've got Parkinson's disease. Ghost Recon instead solved the problem by letting the enemy AI stay intelligent (they will sometimes slowly advance toward you like morons, but more often they'll take cover, kneel, or go prone, and they actually can hit the broad side of a barn at over 100 meters with an AK-47) and letting you have up to six, competent soldiers, which should in theory give you five more chances to finish the mission if one dies.

The Bad
However, this brings me to my biggest complaint about the game. Plenty of other reviewers can tell you the other things that weren't very good in the game, such as the small variety of kits, the lack of weapons models, the medium-quality graphics, and other such things. But what I really disliked about the game was the extreme frustration it caused. Worst of all, the soldiers don't feel expendable. And it was in this game more than ever that I realized how bad that can be. It's nothing new to be able to take named soldiers on missions, and if they survive, to let them level up and take them on missions again. I've already seen that in X-COM, to name a popular example. The trouble is, the soldiers develop just enough so they're better than raw recruits, but not good enough that they're more protected from harm. For example, a soldier with a Weapon or Stealth rating of 8 doesn't actually seem all that better than one with a rating of 1, one with an Endurance of 8 can maybe take one more pistol shot than another with an Endurance of 1 (and even then, they get wounded and lose combat effectiveness, which is more realistic, but can make them be a liability, like if a wounded soldier is unable to run), and as for Leadership, it's only briefly mentioned in the manual but in the missions I never saw any change whatsoever in the group based on leadership, and the manual mentions it so briefly that I never figured out whether I was supposed to have 1 per squad or per fire team, or if order mattered. However, the slight bit of difference that the increased stats caused made that soldier more important than other soldiers. Even worse were the specialists, who had weapons that regular soldiers didn't have, making them more useful in other situations, but impossible to replace. In short, the game made it so that you were punished by allowing a soldier with better abilities or weapons to die, but those abilities or weapons weren't enough to save them.

So, with many missions it went like this: I'd start the mission (On Recruit, because the game's frustrating enough even on the lowest difficulty), start on my merry way, and then something would happen that would kill one of the six troops. Now, I had to choose, should I try to continue the mission, or restart (or reload a quick save) and try to keep that soldier alive? With low-level recruits, I usually chose to continue, but with higher-level soldiers and specialists, it sometimes wasn't worth it to continue, because they had some ability or weapon that would be useful in later missions. So, each mission tended to be a torturous series of decisions where I was left choosing between going through the mission, perhaps ending with everyone dead but a single soldier (and be left without the option of using the high-level soldiers or specialists in later missions) or going entirely with recruits and never having the high skill and special abilities of other soldiers, which made the mission more difficult even though the soldiers were expendable. Or, most often, I would start with six soldiers, but as soon as one or two died, I’d restart the mission rather than continuing on, perhaps finishing the level, but never have the chance to use those dead soldiers for the rest of the game. With some levels, this went on to the point where I had to load or restart a dozen times just to finish the damn thing.

And I realized, that most of the time I was playing, actually wasn't having that much fun. Charging enemies usually just got my soldiers killed, cautiously advancing made my indicator start going red so I knew there were enemies around, but didn't know where (which was more nerve-racking than not knowing at all, and also added a degree of unrealism to the game, because last I checked there was no such thing as a "spider-sense"-like indicator that told the general direction of enemies with 100% accuracy, but went to a non-specific "danger mode" when enemies were close), or going very slowly and cautiously, which was more often than not simply nerve-racking, especially since my fragile soldier's body would fall to bullets if I didn't shoot quick enough. Then, if any of my soldiers actually did die, more often than not it meant I'd have to restart or load the game again, and go through the ponderous process again.

The Bottom Line
If there's one thing you can characterize about nearly every game ever made, and computer games in particular, their fun comes from making a player feel powerful. I didn't really feel that in this game, and though I finished it, I didn't have that much fun playing it. Even on the lowest difficulty setting, the soldiers are too intelligent and the controllable characters too weak, but that alone wasn't enough. Rather, the ability to have assistance and backup from AI teammates more often works as a liability since they're usually too powerful to be expendable, but weak enough (and dumb enough, since while their AI is comparable to the enemy's, they're certainly dumber than you) that they don't have a significantly lessened risk of being expended. So, I never really felt powerful while playing the game, and killing soldiers was more a relief that they wouldn't harm my soldiers than an enjoyable act. I also tried some mods after completing the main game, and don’t get me wrong, some of them are expertly constructed, with new missions, weapons, and settings, but they still weren’t very fun because none of them changed the essential dynamic of the game. So, if you're looking for a first person shooter that leans more towards realism than creative license, than perhaps this is the game for you. In fact, you might just as well use it to simulate actually being in the Special Forces, since it's close enough to reality. But, if you're looking for a first person shooter where you can have the opportunity to feel powerful and brave without the game punishing you for even trying, than perhaps something less realistic, like Delta Force: Land Warrior or Delta Force: Xtreme would be more down your alley.

Windows · by kvn8907 (173) · 2009

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

German version

In the German version, all blood effects were removed and killed enemies disappear almost instantly. The covermount version which was released on the German magazine GameStar 10/2006 is uncensored.

Awards

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon was ranked # 14 in the 50 Best Games of All Time list published by PC Gamer Magazine in its April 2005 issue.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Erik Niklas.

PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0. Xbox added by POMAH. PlayStation 2 added by Corn Popper. GameCube added by Kartanym. Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Paul Budd, PCGamer77, Unicorn Lynx, Apogee IV, Corn Popper, AdminBB, Klaster_1, Patrick Bregger, 一旁冷笑, Zhuzha.

Game added January 3, 2002. Last modified March 4, 2024.