I picked up Ghost Recon because I'm not ready for Splinter Cell. I've always preferred low-thing games (Tony Hawk, Unreal, etc).

The premise of the game is thus: You are on a covert ops team deployed in eastern Europe. In 2008 there's unrest in the former Soviet Union. Your team takes on a number of missions to prevent Russian militants from reassembling the USSR.

Missions range from hostage rescue (with some nice close quarters combat), to demolitions to suppression (involving some pretty hectic firefights).

The game is fun, and has kept it's replay value fairly high. But there are some drawbacks.

First of all, please tell me that these guys can't jump. The game will only allow you to traverse flat terrain. No rock climbing, not even a jump over a log. Which I think is pretty lame. All the buttons on the Xbox controller and they couldn't get "JUMP" in there somewhere.

The graphics are average. Heavy use of fog to hide sloppy backgrounds. And characters can act very twitchy (especially when trying to get two people through a door).

I have played Splinter Cell, and Ghost Recon is definitely taking a back seat. But it's a good prep course for realistic military games.

One of those games I should have rented first.

Recommended: Yes