As you may well know, the country of Georgia and Russia are totally going at it right now. The body count is rising and it’s a political mess. I’m not writing this post to talk politics. No, I’m going to talk about one of my favorite games of All-Time – Ghost Recon.
The original PC version of Ghost Recon was released in November 2001. The entire campaign took place in Russia with some locations being in Tblisi and Ossetia – the sites of today’s turmoil. That’s what sparked my interest in jumping back into the game again. And I’m so glad I did – it’s truly one of the greatest games made. I can play it for hours and hours; it never gets boring. In fact, it’s massively suspenseful.
Ghost Recon was the very first (and one of the very few) games where enemies in camouflage are 100% effective. You can be lying in prone position on the ground as a sniper in your ghillie suit, scoping out the area, and not spot the enemy crawling slowly toward you in full camo – it’s that amazing.
It has every multiplayer option you could hope for….and I always hope for Co-Op. It has excellent support for Co-Op as well as a bunch of other modes. My favorite way to play is to just jump into a Quick Mission on Castle MP06 (daytime), make Team A be only myself as a sniper with an SP25 + Grenades and Team B be a Demolitions expert with an MM1 and a Tank Killer rocketlauncher. I like trying to take the entire place out by myself. If I get killed then I’m auto-switched to the Demo member and I just go nuts bombing the whole place until I’m taken down (it’s inevitable). I start with a Team B member because I like hearing the confirmation of every kill.
After saving Moscow from the Russian rebels, the game ends. But that’s not all. Red Storm released two additional add-ons: Desert Siege (2002) and Island Thunder (2002). DS took place in Africa and IT took place in Cuba. Both are just spectacular experiences. The storylines are serious and the environments and missions are sublime. In all games, the enemy AI is what totally shines – they are TOUGH. You’ll know what I mean if you try to play a map by yourself with no backup. Crazy suspense and totally FUN.
You can buy all of this in one big Ghost Recon Gold box for about $20. It’s so worth it. The graphics look dated by today’s standards but it’s the gameplay that will live forever. It’s DirectX so it works great on everything. I play it on Vista with no issues. Performance is top-of-the-line as the game is 7 years old. Go pick it up – you’ll love it.
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John, it is great to hear from you again.
I’ll give Ghost Recon a try if my schedule permits it.
razgriz
Yeah, I like reading your blog and Ghost Recon is one of my favourite games too.
I always thought the early Rainbow Six games had better gameplay but they weren’t as stable and the netcode didn’t compare to Ghost Recon.
If you haven’t heard of it, there’s a game in the works called Ground Branch that is going to be a hardcore tactical shooter and the team itself is made up of some of the ex-Red Storm guys.
Nice to know! Thanks.
I never got into Ghost recon when it were released. But I will give it another shot now that it’s on Gametap.
The real war is not game…
And of course great to hear from you again!
But thanx for reminder of Ghost Recon
Ghost Recon is pretty awesome. If $20 sounds like a lot to any of you, you can get the game digitally on steam for $9.99, and be playing it in just a few minutes.
That’s curious, the game takes place in 2008. Granted the Ghost Recon force won’t be coming in as they should be too busy in Iraq and the like… along with some Georgian troops, in fact
…or even cheaper – for 9.99 at Gametap along with lots and lots of other games as well, including the mission packs for GR! /Mattias, Sweden
You most definitely will be wanting to play the mission packs. Desert Siege and Island Thunder are awesome.
One of the best war games ever created. Is good to know that you like it.
Another game that takes place in Georgia: Splinter Cell, the first one; based on Tom Clancy’s book, the first missions are in Tbilisi and oddly enough, camouflage and going undetected also have a lot to do with the game (in fact, it’s what makes it fun). Maybe not one of the best games of all time, but pretty good anyway. The graphics are beautiful, especially the lightning effects.
Check this out for more info:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/splintercell/index.html?tag=result;title;2
Maybe I’m the only one, but I found it difficult to complete even the first mission on Veteran(without losing anyone, of course).
It’s definitely difficult. But make sure you SAVE often when everyone’s healthy and you just took down a group of enemies.
Yes, the amount of reloading you’ll be doing could be a bit. But everytime you know it’s your fault.
I played Splinter Cell once more on hard difficulty. Just to snipe that Saakashvili on the end. Nikoladze wanted to blow a dirty bomb in US, Saakash killed 1400 civilians, women and children.. with US weapons and people. Unlike most of the population, i try to get info from all sources, just to compare it. The disinformation in US and Europe is somehow not surprising since 9/11. Democracy in US is dead.
I installed GR + both mission packs a couple months back during a week-long internet outage at my house (that was brutal). I always loved that there are no viewable weapons. Nobody looks at weapons other than the first 5 seconds of a game. While the game is pretty decent, there are some frustrating elements:
Your AI teammates can be either really good at taking out enemies, or absolutely horrible. If you command a second team to patrol around the map or to take a different route, they almost always get slaughtered.
Your other teams will also never get moving from the stopped/prone position after a firefight. You have to command them to advance.
The demo with the mm-1 grenade launcher never shoots it.
Teammate demos with anti-tank weapons will never use them against armor. You have to switch to them and manually attack the armor yourself.
If you equip a sniper with a pistol, he will usually use the pistol for the entire mission.
The sensor and the claymore don’t really have a use in the single player game.
And what I consider the most important design mistake: The mission objectives are monotonous and don’t tie into the story well. With a few exceptions, there is no incentive for the player to complete them (other than to get to the next mission). For example, blowing up a bridge doesn’t equate to fewer armored vehicles the following mission.
@kyle: i agree with all your points – the team AI in the game is pretty crappy, especially in Elite difficulty. So i pretty much never use them. I enjoy taking out the entire map all by myself.
It’s a truly exciting game in multiplayer, especially if the players are crazy for the special forces.
Its interesting that you enjoy GR ORG. GR ORG is the best Ghost Recon game available on the PC.
Personaly FPS and Tatical FPS games should NEVER be released on console unless they support using Keyboard and mouse .
I recommend you check out Joint Operations . I would like to see what you think of it .
Also check out Ground Branch
(Black Foot Studios) at the current time they are the only hope for PC games by releasing a decent tatical coop shooter on the PC. Since the Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six titles have been reduced and ruined by Ubisoft.
LAN coop is a important feature that a lot of older gamers enjoy but its a rare gem to find it in today’s mass spammed buggy featureless noob/casual
gamers aimed games.
I have been compiling a list of PC LAN COOP games , feel free to check it out and suggest any games I might of missed.
http://charliebrownau.vox.com/library/post/pc-x86-co-op-lan-game-list-by-charliebrownau.html