Ghost Recon: Desert Siege Review

Mowanda raises his hand again. The General rolls his eyes.

I'm gonna shoot me some birds.

Hiding in the shrubbery.

"Yes, Mowanda?"

"But general! It's not a question of who sees who; it's about who gets to shoot who first!"

ARGGHH! The General pulls out a pistol and shoots him in the head.

"YOU STUPID GNU! You dare challenge my rule! WE WILL KILL Ghost Recon pigs! Who are you to ruin our uplifting pre-victory dance!? Anyone have any objections!?"

....

Well?

The crowd pauses... HOORAY FOR THE GENERAL!!!!

Aeeee, aeeee... the celebration, dancing, and well... they'd feast but they don't have any food, so they all get drunk well into the night.

This little drama shows that the enemy in Desert Siege isn't exactly led by a bunch of brain surgeons, though that shouldn't stop your high-tech fighters from using the slight advantage of super high-tech technology over their less fortunate opponents. Hey, at least they come in numbers.

But seriously, the AI in Desert Siege shows great improvement over the original installment. The tangos seem more environmentally aware, and they actually use some tactics this time around trying to smoke you out with grenades, flank you, or even rush a sniper.

However, apart from these few technical innovations (like improved mip-mapping that should help your aim by reducing long-distance clipping), the game's original concept is essentially the same. The missions are quite similar to those in the original, and they basically come down to shooting the living crap out of the opposition and sometimes rescuing a few hostages or escorting a convoy.

With Desert Siege all you get is a bunch of polished up Ghost Recon missions, but I guess that's what expansion packs are all about. Unfortunately, along with the same approach to game design, come the same drawbacks that used to bug me in the original game -- claustrophobic levels and the inability to jump. And I can't go through walls, but I think only your enemies believe that to be possible. They'll just shoot a few heretics, who've heard about the laws of physics, so that they can have a nice and uplifting pre-victory celebration dance.

In a nutshell, and this is all you have to read BTW -- and that is if you haven't stopped reading when I told you to -- Desert Siege brings virtually nothing new in terms of mission design, interface, weapons (well you get some new ones in multiplayer) or anything like that. It's a pretty straightforward expansion pack with some new single-player missions, two multi modes and improved stability and AI. If you didn't like the original, you won't like this one either. For those of you who enjoyed the action in Ghost Recon however, I'm sure you won't mind parting with $19.99 for more of that good stuff.