"I have played all Tom Clancy: Ghost Recon games one the P.C.; namely Ghost Recon, G.R. Island Thunder, and G.R. Desert Siege, and until I played Half Life 2 (which is absolutely brilliant) I believed, as well as argued, that Ghost Recon was by far the best F.P.S. available on the market.

Why?

Well, it's simple. The missions were varied and the terrain unique. It was Mature; meaning there was enough gore to satisfy my gruesome needs. (I like mature games. I am 37, and an avid gamer, and I have no wish to play games that cater to a teen, or pre-pubescent mentality.) Not only was the concept, relative story line, and missions fun and inimitable, but you were also not just one guy running aimlessly through dark hallways. No. You were a team of Special Forces Operators, to be specific, 6 elite warriors thrown into harsh real world conditions! Being able to jump from Sniper, to Gunner, to Grenadier, to Rifleman was most definitely a stroke of what appeared to be some sort of genius. Not to mention the fact that you could order your teams- Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie- to move either independently or completely under your guidance and control. It was awesome, for lack of a better word. (Sure, the first three G.R.'s weren't perfect. The enemy seemed to be able to take you down with one shot while, at times, it seemed you had to liberally spray him with copious amounts of gunfire to take him out. Being a "realistic" game, it struck me as rather "unrealistic" when enemies shooting from the hip at a full run easily dispatched me, on my stomach, camouflaged in tall grass. Then of course there were those bullets that seemed to arc precisely over a hill and strike me at an impossible angle.) On a whole, though, the first three Ghost Recons were wonderful-fun.

Now we have Xboxs' Ghost Recon 2; the designers of which seemed to have forgotten, or maybe never were aware of in the first place, what made the first three games so good.

There are many things wrong with Ghost Recon 2. First of all, you and I have been relegated to one man. Gone are the teams. Gone is the ability to jump into the body of each team member. Gone is the theory that made the first three games so original to begin with.

Secondly, it is no longer a "Mature" game. Rather, my beloved G.R. has been abridged to some pedantic "Teen" label. Pathetic! There is no blood, no twitching bodies. In fact, the bodies disappear after you kill them.

Third, the missions are okay. However, with only one soldier you feel less of a unit, and more of a rogue. The unrealism of enemies shooting from the hip and felling you with one shot is, unfortunately, still in effect, except this time it is not accompanied by a spray of arterial red and a gurgle of death.

Fourth, is the multiplayer feature- a concept that I adore. It's fun fighting, canine and nail, alongside your buddy, or blood brother, or what have you. However, G.R. 2 sees fit to limit most of the game play. There are no respawns enabled in the Co Op: Mission, only maps of previous areas are available for the Co Op: Battle, while other maps- new areas to explore- are inexplicably available for other missions. Now this might be a lure for Red Storm to get people to go on-line. But they need to realize that there are those of us out there that simply want to play the game, with or without our buddy or significant other. We don't have any wish to get sucked into something that's going to cost us much more money in the long run. Heck! We just "chop-sticked" over twenty to forty dollars for the game its self!

The point of a video game is to have fun. Period.

I am for the gamer, first and foremost, not the programmer. If you, as a programmer, make your game overly difficult or indecipherable in any manner you take the players mind and emotions out of the game, which then makes them realize they are wasting countless hours staring at a video screen twiddling their aching thumbs over buttons and tiny joy sticks. Don't do that! Make your games fun! Make the gamer feel as if he has not just "played" a video game, any game can do that. Instead, make him feel as if he has had an experience. Make the gamer feel as if he or she has accomplished something, without causing them to become aggrieved or aggravated over tough levels, antiquated save points, and unrealistic action. Lastly, remember what it was that made the games fun in the first place. New, better graphics are all great and wonderful, but if the programmer loses touch with the inherent "coolness" of the original idea, it makes me, and all of us, feel as if we're being cheated by something that's supposed to be bigger and better, but isn't. " - Kevacho