Ghost Recon Preview

To give the single player game some replay value, you can play any Campaign mission you've completed in one of three modes: Standard, Firefight (neutralize all enemies on the map), and Recon (work your way across the entire map to an extraction point). But it's the multiplayer game modes that will give Ghost Recon the real replay value... Since some of the environments are too big for multiplayer mode, each of the single player maps will be scaled down a bit to provide a more intense multiplayer. Additionally, there will be six dedicated multiplayer maps 200 meters long by 200 meters wide.

How dare you come here unwashed and unshaved!

Well, from the past week, or so, I've been suffering from this pain in the neck.

There will be four multiplayer modes, one of which exclusively team-based. Last Man Standing is self-explanatory: The last surviving soldier wins (if more than one is left, it's decided by kill count); Sharpshooter is more or less a standard deathmatch, where the winner has the most kills; In Hamburger Hill players or teams score points by controlling a section of ground in the middle of the map. Although it might occur that this mode can easily turn into a fragfest, there are countless opportunities for setting up perimeter defenses outside the area and ordering teammates to move into the area, should a controlling friendly go down. The fourth, Search-and-Rescue mode is for teams only - you must collect three hostages and bring them safely back to your base.

Up to 36 players, as many as nine on four squads, can participate in multiplayer games, but there can be more troops than that on the battlefield in cooperative play because AI enemies don't count into the 36-player limit. In team play, players will vote to elect a commander, which is the only person who can set waypoints and issue orders, before the battle begins. If no vote is taken, the game randomly selects a player to be the commander (this also happens if the commander dies during the mission). Red Storm has decided to add a respawn option to Ghost Recon: Whoever sets up the game will be able to choose no respawns, limited respawns per player (1 to 20), a "pool" of respawns per team (1 to 20), and infinite respawns (for inexperienced players).

The M4, M16, M249, M5, L96AI, SVD, RPK74 and the M203 grenade launcher are just a few of the weapons you'll have access to in the game. As in the previous games, there won't be any chance to take the ammo or weapons from the corpses of dead soldiers. Certain weapons can only be carried by certain characters; i.e. only snipers can use the OICW sniper rifle, for instance, and only demolition experts can carry demolition equipment. Heavy weapons men will be able to use the M136 rocket launcher. The riflemen are the foundation of your fire teams, however, and have access to many of the game's 30 or so weapons. Beyond the basic characters you start with, you'll be able to recruit specialists during each mission. Basically, the specialists are the same as the other characters but are more skilled.

There will be over fifty characters within the game, all modeled in detail with over 800 polygons per model, but the development team is also designing lower poly versions which are used when the models are viewed from a distance. The models are rendered in real-time with an incredible level of detail, all with buttons, seams and pockets in the right place. Since there's lots of rain on some of the levels, the team is looking at ways to add mud layers and wet effects to clothes dynamically. In other words, if you character lies down in the mud, when he gets up, he will be covered in mud.

The characters will use 650 different moves, consisting of altogether 2757 seconds of motion-captured moves. The most stunning feature, though, is dying! Characters will die a certain way, based on where they've been hit, and there are at least eight different animations just for headshots, for instance. Apart from that, leg shots cause you to limp, arm shots cause decreased accuracy... Characters will also be able to go prone now. They can even move and fire from these positions. The team has disabled the third-person view in the game so you won't be able to see your own character perform these moves. Since Red Storm's longtime partner, Sound Deluxe, is handling the sounds for the game, we believe that that particular aspect of the game will be as good as ever. After all, in a game with such high amount of realism, SFX have to be made flawlessly.

The PC version of Ghost Recon is due out this December, with an Xbox release shortly after. Adjusted properly, the Xbox version will be "more specialized" and include auto-targeting features and other control shortcuts.