Ghost Recon: Island Thunder
Score: 75% ESRB: Mature Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment Developer: Red Storm Entertainment Media: CD/1 Players: 1 - 32 Genre: Action/ Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: There is little difference between Island Thunder and Ghost Recon. One would be hard pressed to find any difference between the core game and it's add on pack, as no new features have been included. Despite fixing up some of the bugs from Ghost Recon, there is nothing new about the visual or audio elements. Trees and shrubs still have a flat look to them, and there are a lot of jagged lines. But it wasn't all that bad in the first game, and it's not detrimental here either.
Gameplay: Also unaltered are the gameplay elements. Island Thunder adds 8 new missions and a handful of multiplayer maps to the mix, but besides that, there isn't much else. Thankfully, though, the plot is fresh and does the name of Tom Clancy well. Set four years in the future, after the death of Fidel Castro, you and the Ghosts are sent to Cuba in order to keep Democracy alive, and this means killing as many radical guerillas as possible. The levels this time around are good, but they are basically the same experiences played over again. And while this isn't bad, as Ghost Recon had some awesome combat encounters, if you didn't like what you got in the first game, there will be nothing here that's going to change your mind.
Difficulty: Again, the AI this time around can either makes thing go like clockwork, or throw a wrench into the gears and send your well laid plans in the ditch. Ninety percent of the time you'll lose half your team to gunfire that came out of nowhere, from people who seem to have better eyesight than nightvision goggles can provide. But when things work right, it makes all of your previous failures obsolete. Achieving victory in this game is one of the sweetest things you'll ever experience in any game, as long as you can put up with a lot of failure.
Game Mechanics: With no new weapons or game modes, everything that worked in Ghost Recon will work in Island Thunder. This expansion does exactly what the description implies; it expands the original game. Forget fixing or improving. This is 8 more levels of Ghost Recon, and if they were included in the original game, you'd hardly notice the difference. If you loved Ghost Recon, definitely spend the resources on this piece of software. However, if you're craving something new and exciting, or you just didn't like the original game, Island Thunder won't be of much help to you.
-Snow Chainz, GameVortex Communications AKA Andrew Horwitz
Minimum System Requirements: Ghost Recon required, Pentium II 450 MHz processor or equivalent; 128 MB of RAM; Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP; DirectX 8.0 or higher (included on CD); 16MB DirectX 8.0 compatible 3D card; 1GB minimum hard drive space; 4X CD-ROM drive or better; DirectX 8.0 compatible sound card; Properly configured TCP/IP connection at 28.8 KBPS or faster   Test System: Windows 98, 1.4GHz AMD Athlon, GeForce 2 mx 32MB video card, 40 gig hard drive, 56x CD-ROM, 256MB DDR Ram, Sound Blaster Live! sound card, T1 Internet connection
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Global Operations