I really like the engine. It's a giant step up from the ancient R6 engine (which recently got trotted out for another milking in the form of Black Thorn). Great graphics, great sound. *EXCEPT* for the complete and utter lack of mip-mapping. It's sparkle fucking city in there. Christ. Do we need to send these guys to remedial graphics programming 101? This is a mistake that even value publishers of 3D games like Deer Hunter 6 don't make any more, guys. The original QUAKE had mip-mapping.

On to the big problem-- using the standard medium "veteran" skill level, the enemies are all evidently world-class snipers. It's the same old bullshit from Rainbow 6 et al. Totally comical. I had a sniper crouched partially obscured behind a rock, using MAXIMUM ZOOM to target three enemies. Took two of them out, and the third headshot me. with an AK-47. From sniper range. And it's totally repeatable. On the second attempt I took off sprinting at that distance, running perpendicular to the last shooter. And of course he nailed me in a single shot. Impressive-- FOR A ROBOT.

This is oddly similar to my experiences in R6/RS. It just sucks all the fun out of the game, since you're playing terminators instead of opponents that aim even remotely like other humans. You might as well just play a game against the UT bots on "godlike" skill level. This is a major, major problem.

Can my characters not jump at all? I can't get them to fall off the edge of anything no matter how hard I press the "W" key, and, coincidentally there's this convenient ledge all the way around the level. When is an arbitrary level boundary not an arbitrary level boundary? When it's a ledge, evidently.

Anyway. Enough complaints. I do think this is a major step forward for the engine, once they fix the mipmapping problem. But, as with the previous games, it feels totally artificial in terms of AI and aiming. That's a showstopper for me.

One of my biggest gripes with the game is the use of specialty troops, which is so completely unrealistic (as far as I know) that I wonder what the designers were thinking, other than harkening back to the Commandos syndrome. You know the one.. you need this guy, say the demo dude, to complete the mission, and he gets shot by some dude way off in the distance (echoing your complaint Jeff). Mission oh-vah.

Red Storm says it's a gameplay matter, to help keep you guys alive.

A) It's incredibly hard to keep your guys alive, because they die with the regularity of butterflies.

B) It goes against the grain as far as special forces training goes. If I send in a team of ten guys and only one of them knows how to use a bomb and gets killed, do I abort the mission? No, that's why SOF guys train so much -- they learn *everything*, so no one person is mission critical. Duh.

Weapon selection/loadouts are dumb. Your guys don't carry grenades -- evidently you carry way too much as it is. That is, you have two weapon slots, your primary and secondary, that's it. Usually your primary is your main weapon (and a lot of ammo admittedly) and your secondary is.. well, can be more ammo, or a pistol, or a primary-weapon add-on.. but that's it. Come on, give me a break. Makes for clearing rooms extremely difficult, especially with super-accurate supermen on the otherside.

--- Alan

Ghost Recon is the best game of 2001, and perhaps 2002 as well. It's a brilliant and endlessly absorbing tactical-ops masterpiece.

And by the way, Alan, the U.S. Army Special Forces contributed to its design and will be adopting it as a training tool at the Joint Special Forces Training Center at Fort Benning, GA. Small-unit infantry simulations get no more realistic than this, my friend.

Did the US Special Forces play OFP? Havent played Ghost Recon yet, but OFP has a pretty good feel for combat.... or my imagined idea of it!

And OFP has the new 1.29 beta patch with they Steyr Aug and the G36. Both are awesome new weapons to OFP. Next patch will include a A-10 with GBU's laser guided. BEAT THAT! Anyway, Ghost Recon should still be ok I'm guessing.

Heh, OFP still my fave game this year even after playing the timesink DAOC. Theres a ton of missions for OFP that enahnce the game so much....

etc

Are you serious? I played the demo, and I was taken back to Rogue Spear in 1998...which is kind of sad for the year 2001. Graphics are pretty awful (basically the same as RS), and the EXTREMELY ANNOYING habit of enemies shooting you (when they're smoking a cigarette and looking the other way) is still there.

It's too maddeningly frustrating now that I've experienced Flashpoint (which, IMO, blows Ghost Recon out of the water). See that abandoned truck in the Ghost Recon demo? In Flashpoint, you can drive it. All the way across a giant island...'nuff said.


Oh, and when I tried the demo at work, I discovered that it has severe issues with multiple monitors (i.e. not being able to play the game)...and afterwards, it "corrupted" things so that running some other games afterwards resulted in Really Bad Things. Not the way to impress a potential customer...

I've logged hundreds of hours playing counter-strike against other human beings-- many of whom were very good-- and I can assure you that they DO NOT aim like the T-2000 AI in Ghost Recon. It's just not believable, not even remotely. Assuming our goal is to model real people firing real (virtual) weapons, that is.

Did you read the example I gave, with the sniper rifle at max zoom? How is that possible? Hell, I've played against cheaters in CS who had worse aim than the bots in Ghost Recon. That's just depressing.

I did think the grapics/sound/engine was a big step up from R6/RS though.

Ghost Recon is good, but it won't be the best of 2002 as it comes out next week, or even 2001 for that matter. There's no doubt it's a good game, but it's got some problems. The engine *is* an improvement over R6/RS, no doubt about that.

Special Forces *did* contribute to the making of Ghost Recon, but mainly in the area of information and doctrine. The idea of having a team where only one guy knows how to plant a bomb is a gameplay decision admitted by Red Storm in at least one, maybe more, print articles. It's an extremely questionable decision.

As far as contracting the use of GR for special forces, that doesn't really surprise me. A lot of games are contracted for use by the military, and a lot more try to be (hell I know I was in on one). Doesn't really mean much, because unless they change the game variables, the current settings are fairly unrealistic. The whole joining/multiplayer interface is one step behind RS as well.

--- Alan

"And by the way, Alan, the U.S. Army Special Forces contributed to its design and will be adopting it as a training tool at the Joint Special Forces Training Center at Fort Benning, GA. Small-unit infantry simulations get no more realistic than this, my friend."

The game plays fine so far, but as a former active duty Special Forces soldier still involved in the Specops community, I'm going to nitpick on the choice of GR's unit focus A TON. I find designing a game around misunderstood SF tenants, doctrine, and structure, annoying as hell. Why marginalize one of the Army's best trained group of soldiers in GR with erroneous background material and poorly implemented doctrine? I'm sorry, but I don't care if GR takes place 6-7 years in the future. Last I read, ARSOF and SOCOM's SOF VISION 2010 had SF structured with the very same force doctrine and disposition (with minor tweaks), in the very same way they've been structured since early Vietnam-- that's 40 years ago. So why change it? Zombie blew it with how they erroneously portrayed SF in SpecOps II, and now Red Storm's doing the same, albeit, RS has created a much better and more playable tactical game by far. Still, there's no excuse for a lack of attention to detail when your goal is to propose realism.

If Red Storm was shooting for an overall realistic *feel,* they erred badly, IMHO. I find it difficult believing the USASF was deeply involved in designing GR. I'm sure there was input from an SFer or two, but not at the influencial level Red Storm seems to indicate. Otherwise, things would have been different. Just take a look at the intro (in the manual, too)-- laced with erroneous Special Forces unit dsignations-- Group 5? D Company? Platoon? Elite Infantry unit? It'd been better if they used proper terms like, 5th Group SFG(A), A-Team or ODA-33 (Ghosts), UW, instead of platoon. FWIW- there are no platoons in Army Special Forces aka Green Berets. And though they're capable, they're not considered infantry. That's the other Army SOF unit-- Rangers.

Furthermore, Alan makes a great point. Red Storm is marginalizing SF capability by dumming down soldier skillsets. Elite? Uhm... no. For those who do not know, the US Army Special Forces (SF) soldiers are formed into small, team concept structures known as Operational Detachment- Alpha or ODAs, not platoons. Each ODA has 12-13 highly trained soldiers, cross-trained in a number of 18-series Military Occupational Specialties (MOS): Weapons, Commo, Medic, Combat Engineer (Demolitions), and later in their careers, Operations and Intelligence (O&I). Officers are trained with different specialties, I might add. So, for example, a typical, deployable SF NCO soldier can be trained in both, Weapons and Demo. Once these soldiers earn their SF tab after spending a year and half plus at the Qualification Course (Q-Course), schooling just begins. After graduation, SFers must now attend more advanced courses in Jungle Warfare, Artic Warfare, Sniper, LRS, LRRP, Armor, Advanced Target Interdiction, CQB, HR, Mountain Warfare, PSYOPS, etc.... All SF soldiers are Airborne qualified, and eventually train in more advanced forms of infil/exfil such as SCUBA, HALO, HAHO, and Air Assault (fast roping). Also, SF soldiers must become foreign language qualified depending on their Special Forces Group's Area of Operation (AO).

Because of SF soldier's unique cross training specialties, advanced training regimins and high skillset standards, ODAs can be split into two groups of six soldiers each for a more dynamic operational response, and/or contingencey. On the contrary, Ghost Recon supports up to four soldiers per mission which is not ideally suited for Special Forces (at least according to future ARSOF SF parameters for the next several years). The way in which Red Storm models soldier's RPG skills and specialties, shows GR is better suited for conventional infantry fireteam roles. Units like the 82nd, 101st or 24th ID, would have been better served, rather than SF.

Fort Benning? That's where the The US Army Infantry school resides, not SF, though one of the SOCOM's SOF units, the Rangers, and their world renowned Ranger School, can be found there. FWIW, one of the most prolific worldwide military training schools is run by the US Army JFK Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS) located at Fort Bragg, NC, where a number of US SOF units (SEALS, CCT, PJs, Rangers, etc), and other worldwide SOF units regularily train. So, to have a marginally trained and inexperienced three-four man SF team, operating deep behind enemy lines without at least someone having a demolitions capability, is just plain ludicrous.

Excuse my rant, but let's get things straight-- GR has SF all wrong. However, other than Red Storm's rather egregious error on unit types, I'm looking forward to finishing this game. It's still a tac sim, and I'm a fan. As you were....

Raphael

Now thats a great rant. Thanks.

Thanks Raph, that was fascinating. How do you manage to keep all the military and game acronyms straight?

They don't let just anyone in those services Mark. Acronym memorization is one of the criterions I think (and really the only reason I'd have washed out. Um, probably).

Ahem.

Here's an interesting article:
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2058474

Particularly if you read Hersh's criticism of the Afghan ops in the New Yorker.

-Andrew

>Why marginalize one of the Army's best trained
>group of soldiers in GR with erroneous
>background material and poorly implemented
>doctrine?

Didn't you notice the "Tom Clancy's" in the name, Raph? :-)

Awesome. Raphael for president!

When I visited Red Storm for our story on the game in our October issue I heard the whole spiel from the team. Raphael has it dead-on, as others have noted. The entire game structure is, well, gamey--it's built around stripping the pre-mission planning from Rogue Spear, making the missions more combat oriented, and giving you an incentive to keep your teammates alive (avoiding the lone wolf syndrome, which BTW is how virtually everybody I talked to at RS played RS--using the other team members as meat shields).

It looks fun, and I think the engine looks good as well. It certainly isn't terribly realistic, from the bot-like shooting of the AI to the hyyper-specialized friendlies who don't know how to pick up an AT4 or a SAW or a block of C4 if necessary. When I asked them about picking up weapons, they said that the SF types they consulted told them that soldiers in the field don't pick up enemy weapons, usually. As for friendly weapons, they said flat out that they didn't want the player to do everything, and they feared that if they let you have cross-trained team mates you'd not care if they got killed.

Eh, whatever. Personally I dislike it when designers take that approach--if I want to play the game like that, that's my business. Or, if it means that much to you, design the game so that your team mates have value beyond their ability to carry particular weapons. Give them solid AI, build a relationship between you and them (RPG elements) and the like.

Still the game appears to be quite entertaining, so I look forward to it.

"Still the game appears to be quite entertaining, so I look forward to it."

You find the insane bot-like enemy AI entertaining? I remember a lot (and I mean a LOT) of people complaining about how difficult the Quake 3 bots were on anything but the easiest settings. Why can't we make those same complaints about Ghost Recon?

Then again, it's the same AI we saw in R6/RS. So are people just masochists, or am I missing something here? I feel for the poor people who playing this game thinking that other FPS players aim this accurately. It's just not true.

I dunno, I've played through the demo a bit, and won it pretty easily. The AI is annoying in some respects, but it's not that much worse than other games of this ilk. I enjoyed the demo, so yeah, I'm looking forward to the full game. I'm reviewing it, and it should at least be more entertaining than some of the stuff that comes through here....

I played the GR demo for a couple of hours. I still think Flashpoint is a far better game. Once you have a taste of freedom to do whatever you want in OFP it's hard to go back to a limited game like Ghost Recon. I'll pass on this one.

Well, I was trying to avoid the Op. Flash comparisons and judge the game on its own merits. The big stumbling block for me is the crazy AI.

Being sniped with an AK.. while said shooter is barely visible with maximum zoom in my sniper rifle.. and I'm partially behind a rock.. is pretty much the definition of "not fun" in my book. Particularly when it's repeatable.

Nice post Raph, someone with authority speaks! :)

I haven't played the GR demo mission but I found the game missions on Vet. level to be incredibly hard. Well I'm not saving every five seconds either, but the sniper AI is a real killer. Holy crap.

The RPG layer stuff is one way of preventing the whole body-protection/lone wolf deal, it gets worse because you can't position individual men, only whoever is in charge of the "squad", which is just plum silly -- they could have their asses hanging out in the wind (not to mention the fact that you have to manually get them to go prone), and can ruin perfect ambush positions.

As far as not picking up weapons, that's silly too. Friendlies worse than enemies. As far as not using an enemy's weapons.. okay a very possible situation: you're deep in enemy territory, typical SF deal, and you run out of ammo or lose your weapon. What do you do, throw rocks or your hands and say "I give up!" The liklihood that you'll run out of ammo in GR is low I admit, but still... and yes SF guys do use enemy weapons, for a variety of reasons (confusing the enemy, etc... the SAS is a particular case in point).

While I think GR will rule especially in the multiplayer sense (team play is great, though can get unruly with sniperville), the regular game is merely okay and is basically RS:UO with better graphics and more trees.

--- Alan

One thing that is much better in my eyes than the RS games is the complete absence of the planning phase. I never did figure that out in any of the earlier titles. :-)

I hate to bring OFP into this since it's a misleading comparison, but it makes a strong case for in-mission flexibility. For example, if you lose your AT guy you have the ability to pick up his weapon and compensate. R6/RS avoided this problem by allowing all team members to perform all functions (albeit at a severe penalty for unequipped non-specialists).

So, I thought about it last night and figured out what has been bugging me about the idea of non-controllable ultra-specialists. It hearkens back to the days of the early space-sim escort missions, where if your bombers bite it, you're screwed. One word: babysitting.

- Alan

For the record, the full Ghost Recon is making a much better impression on me than the demo did. I'm not entirely sure why-- maybe it was that boring castle level they included in the demo? Damn, another recent game where basing my buying habits on the demo has failed me (AVP2 being the other).

Ghost Recon's graphics are a hair shy of being outstanding. I'm so glad that 3D games are finally capable of representing outdoor, forested areas with some semblance of reality. One neat effect I haven't seen done this well in any other game-- the trees gently swaying in the breeze. And it isn't just aesthetic; this masks motion from humans, too.

I am floored by the sound quality in this game. Just the ambient sounds as you wander around are some of the best I've heard. Full use of 3D sound, and effective use of reverb in EAX. Mighty impressive.

Two major downers though:

1. The clunky squad movement interface. Is it too much to ask that I can point to a guy with my mouse and point to where I want him to go, Battlezone style? Jesus. How difficult is it to figure this out? I don't like holding down CTRL to pop up the mini map then forcing squad movement. Also, I wish there was a simple way to just get everyone to follow you, posse style.

2. AI, AI, AI. This game's enemy AI seems virtually unchanged from R6/RS. Why don't enemies attempt to take cover? Why do they stand there motionless waiting for you to appear and fire? And of course.. when do they ever miss? To be fair, I have seen them miss a few times. But it's rare. I'd have to rate this AI as one of the worst in a modern game, as far as representing realistic humans go.

I'd swear in the first mission that enemies teleport in to ambush you (after you pick up the prisoner) in blatantly scripted style.

That's another problem, the scripted teleporting enemy. Happens a little later too -- though admittedly a bit of it is off-map triggered events. The problem is you don't know where it'll come from (like the urban map) till it happens, and then you can restart and plan accordingly.

Maybe Al-Qaeda will develop this next as a weapon of mass destruction, and Red Storm is looking into the future for what Special Forces will have to train for down the road.

Swaying trees I agree is an excellent implementation -- have had to look closely just to figure out it wasn't someone crawling around. In fact in one multiplayer game yesterday I mistook a dead guy next to a swaying tree as a live one and gave away my position :(

Also seems the net code is worse than RS. Red Storm used to blame a buggy MS Zone interface for RS' initial problems; wonder what the deal with GR is.

--- Alan

Sorta OT but i just played a mission a few days ago in OFP where it was just me and one AI "regular soldier" left, i then commanded him to be LAW, Sniper and MG soldier. He did AWESOME. Best part was when he took an enemy pk and i hear enemy soldier is history! rpg soldier is history! i thought holy crap this guys winning the mission for me! he gave me covering fire as i ran across town to take out the last of a few Russians!

Anyway, things like this in OFP do make it hard to play a game thats like it and be content with it. OFP is really one of those rare games imo... i still play it at least a mission a day or everyother day. And with the 1.30 patch... WELCOME LASER BOMBS!

etc

The V1.30 patch is fabulous. Some of the new weapons and vehicles are excellent.

I can't wait for the new Red Hammer campaign.

www.flashpoint1985.com have also just released thw Official Command Reference info today.

It should go without saying that if you have *any* interest in Ghost Recon you should ALREADY own a copy of Op. Flashpoint. If you don't, slap yourself, then proceed immediately to your nearest software store and buy it.

There was an interview recently with one of the producers talking about the crisis of confidence that ensued when the GR team looked at Op. Flashpoint. ;)

http://pc.ign.com/news/39858.html

http://pc.ign.com/news/39835.html

Fairly interesting interviews actually.

Still, I think OF and GR are very different games. GR does make some incredibly annoying mistakes (AI, both your team and the enemy, and the command interface) but it's still worthwhile. However, I agree with the 7.9 review on GameSpot. This is not a 5 star game as many would have us believe.

Ok in multiplayer I've started to run into this annoying problem (over the net on Ubi.com, not on LAN or direct to IP connections) where as soon as I tag somebody, I get booted out of the game. Started happening on the demo (not the first couple of times) then it transitioned into the full version. Obviously it's pretty annoying.. anyone have any clue what's going on? As far as I can tell my connect is good, with a free greens on the meter. This also happens both at home and at work.

--- Alan