Thread: New Game for Xbox-Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike

Platform: Xbox
Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment
Developer: Red Storm Entertainment, Inc.
Release Date: 08/01/2005 Genre: Shooter

Few franchises seem as at home on the Xbox as Ghost Recon. Although novelist Tom Clancy's involvement with the games has become merely ceremonial, the series still ranks among the most popular of Xbox Live hits, and with good reason. Summit Strike is a stand-alone "expansion pack" for Ghost Recon 2, containing a bunch of new content and retailing at a wallet-friendly $30.

Far be it from us to stereotype major publishers, but other studios may have called this Ghost Recon 3. Calling Summit Strike an expansion is a touch on the self-deprecating side. It's the Ghost Recon 2 engine and game structure applied to a whole pile of new content.

Among the inclusions are an eleven-mission single-player or cooperative campaign, more multiplayer maps, 15 new weapons and yet more multiplayer game styles, to swell the already excessive 22 modes in the original. From the looks of the Xbox Live options, downloadable content is also a realistic expectation for purchasers.

Picturesque and chic, the fashionable republic of Kazakhstan is the setting for Summit Strike's campaign. Well, OK, it's not quite the hot vacation destination, but at least Red Storm resisted the temptation to set it in the damn Middle East again. Now, snowy mountainsides and lonely, wintry forests are the order of the day.

Unsurprisingly, not all is well in Kazakhstan -- after all, there's not much scope for a special ops game set in a stable, peaceful country. In the game's intro, the country's unfortunate president is incinerated in an explosion engineered by a Pakistani warlord, who seeks to plunge the country into chaos for his own Clancy-esque ends.

Most of the new missions focus on taking down his forces -- destroying their artillery and SAM installations, capturing their bases, and so forth. You know the drill. This time, though, the missions have a more open-ended structure, and players have a touch more choice about how they go about their destruction.

The first level, for example, takes place around a series of tight mountain passes. Four artillery pieces are tucked away on various mountaintops, firing on an unknown remote location. There's also a village, occupied by enemy troops and strangely (not to mention conveniently) devoid of civilians. Whether you want to hit the guns one at a time, or take out the village and its ammo dump before going any further, is up to you.

The snowy surroundings of these early levels play well to the engine's strengths. A lurking, camouflaged enemy is surprisingly hard to tell apart from a small tree against the stark background, and low light levels make it even harder. Summit Strike includes new weather effects that make matters even harder -- on one or two of the levels, it's actually snowing, which hardly helps with the enemy-spotting process. It sure helps with the atmosphere, though.

Not all the missions are so rural. Later, the Ghost team moves into a built-up area, fighting around skyscrapers, bus stops, parked cars, and dumpsters. Even though the engine is dated, it's still able to pull off a convincingly realistic performance. If Red Storm can nail the occasional framerate problems, Summit Strike will be more than capable of holding its own against this year's other new releases.

The star of the team's new arsenal is the still-in-development SCAR, a high-tech modular weapons system intended specifically for Special Forces operations. Available in both 5.56mm and 7.62mm calibers, and with accessories including a handy silencer, it's definitely the choice of the discerning operative.

One of the two new multiplayer game types is the surprisingly engaging Heli Hunt mode. Like the name suggests, players in a team of up to four have to take down attacking enemy helicopters. Ghost Recon's realistic damage system means leisurely lining up a bazooka shot on a hovering chopper is going to get your entrails spread thinly across a wide area. Tactics and sensible use of cover are the order of the day.

The other new mode is called Armor Strike, and also pits players against vehicles. This time it's a competitive, two-team setup: Each team starts with three tanks, and must protect theirs while taking out the opposition's. Rather than attack them directly, though, each player carries a laser pointer, and must hose down a tank for a set period to call in an artillery strike on its position.

Releasing at a cut-price $29.99 in mid-August, Summit Strike will be nothing if not great value. Far from only being of interest to owners of the original Ghost Recon 2 game, Summit Strike should be a tempting choice for any realism-focused first-person shooter fan. We'll bring you the definite verdict when it hits stores.

Nice info

nice game i think so

nice game thinkx

will surely buy this 1 man