Kainan

I'm a Halo FANATIC and I must say that this might top even the mighty Halo if you enjoy sniping but I consider it the 2nd best game.
This game makes SOCOM look like a kids game on the Playstation. The graphics are MUCH cleaner, the maps are 10 times the size as you seem to be able to see forever into the distance, and the control is a LOT more refined. I expected a lot from GR but I never dreamed I would be this happy. Did I mention that when you go online you not only play against others but you can get with some buddies and play through your missions as a team. It is like taking the troops in the single player game and replacing them all with friends!!!!!! This is too cool. This game has a plethora of gaming options. You can turn spawing on and how many times and where you want them to spawn, choose maps, choose # of kills, choose time limit (or not), and so on. You can really configure the game to be just about whatever you want.
My big problem with SOCOM was that you never really felt like you had a good environment for sniping. You either had bad weather or something that kept you from taking the sniping approach. Also, the control felt very twitchy to me with SOCOM. GR has none of these problems. You will often be fighting your enemy from 100 to 200 yards away (if you are smart) but you also get a guy with a machine gun in your group in case you get flanked or run up on the other group unknowingly.
There are a few negative things to say about GR but they are minor. The first is that there is some funky collision detection at times. For the most part it is great but when people die sometimes their body will be partly in the ground. It is odd looking but doesn't happen that much and is minor anyway. The other thing is that the interface to this plethora of options that I've been talking about is not very user friendly, at least not at first. You will find yourself overwhelmed and bewildered at first by all of the different options and what they mean. I've been playing for hours and I still find different things that I didn't realize I had control over in the server settings for a game.
In the end I would give this game at least a 9.5. If you are tired of brainless straff and fire shooters (including Mech Assault and UC) then this is your way to go.)

Icculus

Hmmmm... I bought this one last night but was considering returning it for UC, now I'm not so sure.

Do you know if the graphics are 480p? On the back of the case it says they're not but I thought almnost every Xbox game was in progressive scan (with the exception of the Thing).

syphon00

yup it's in 480P but not 16:9
it's also DD 5.1

JaxComet

I didn't like it at all on the PC. I just couldn't get into the "send team A here, send team B there".......Maybe I didn't give it enough time........

Kainan

The Back of the box is VERY misleading the way it has a LIST of things and then certain ones highlighted. Yes it is 480p and DD 5.1. Oh I didn't get to go into the sound. If you want to see your house shake then play GR. This has some of the deepest base I've ever heard in a videogame. Just going through the training mission shows this. When you throw a grenade it will make a book that is very real.
Another thing that is cool about the sound is if someone throws a grenade near you and it goes off but doesn't kill you then you won't hear anything for a few moments. I'm assuming this was intentional and it is like Saving Privater Ryan where you have your ears all screwed up from such a loud boom. Anyway, it is a very neat effect.

Ok, to me I didn't get into this game so much for sending troups A to such and such and troops be to such and such. Yes it is part of the game but thank God it is FAR less part of the game than SOCOM. (IMO) Like I mentioned, at least you don't tell them to throw a grenade into a certain area and they throw it into a freaking door only for it to bounce back and blow them up. This happens in SOCOM. Now, the good thing is that you can hit the right trigger and switch between men in your group. This comes in very handy if you want to say.. use the grenade launcher and you don't have it. Your supporting guy might use it on his own but you can take control and do it yourself. The game is very stealth oriented in that you do not just run full steam ahead out in an a patch of trees or you will be lying face down before you know it. To me it is IDENTICAL to a realistic war movie where you break to a cover area, use your sniper to scope the next area ahead and then break for the next area. If you don't like the idea of taking this long to do something realistically then you will not like this game. I'm trying to answer what I can here but not give any false impressions. This is not a run and shoot game. It is a slow moving methodical war simulation where you get the pleasure of sniping people from 150 yards out while they are unaware of your presence (hopefully) but then you see them get in a frenzy and you hope you have support.

Icculus

Cool, thanks.

bluntman72

any others with opinions on this game, I bought it but have not opened it and the manager at the gamestore I go to said he tried it last night and it was horrible. I am trying to decide whether or not to keep this game.

cowboy

I didn't like it, but I only tried it for 15 minutes or so. the game didn't feel intuitive, so it seems harder to pick up and play. the framerates were pretty slow when there was action, sometimes even when you encountered a valley. the reticle was a pain in the ass.

everyone seems to love it though, I'm gonna play it again tonight.

Ralph Wiggum

I'm also very interested in hearing impressions about the game.

I don't have an Xbox yet, this is one of those "push me over the edge" games though.

WOWZY

A friend and I went to Comp USA to pick his LIVE starter kit up and a memory card (so we could put each others account on our Xboxs'. We also picked up GR and had a blast with it in split screen mode until we wanted to play split screen on live. We tried everything in the book to get both of us online at the same time but to no avail this game doesn't support but one player online.

I think this was really stupid on Ubi-Softs part to bring a normally multiplayer game to Live that doesn't support multi-player with Live! I called Ubi-Soft and tried to get an explanation of this stupidity, but they just played dumb.

I mean think about it, some households are gonna have 2 kids, each with there own Xbox Live account and are gonna feel pretty pissed when they get only one copy of GR but will have to own 2 Xbox's and 2 copies of GR just so they can play together.

That kind of chit really gets my goat!!

But it was a fun game even though we had to take turns between each of our LIVE accounts just to play.

karnblack

This game is not for the impatient, or for people who just want to run and gun. The graphics are not awsome, but graphics aren't all that matter. A couple of my friends picked up Ghost Recon the other day and both of them are having a lot of fun. Also, I've read a few posts where people are thinking about trading in Mech Assault for Ghost Recon. Plus what is Ghost Recon being compared to that makes it horrible? Some SOCOM players said they were switching to Ghost Recon because it is better. Now, all of these are opinions, and I haven't played Mech Assault or SOCOM so I can't compare them. All I know is that a lot of people are having fun with this game including me.

If you don't like tactical FPS you will probably not like this game. If you like tactical FPS them by all means give it a try.

Ralph Wiggum

So if I prefer the stealth and sniper aspects of SOCOM then I'll probably prefer Recon?

khai

Hmm, Wowzy, so did it support more than 2 player split screen?

spainlinx0

I don't want to buy any game that doesn't allow you to have friends over and sign them on as guests for XBLive. Can anyone DEFINITELY confirm that this option is not available in this game please? I haven't played a game yet on XBLive that didn't give me this option so I can't believe it wouldn't be included here.

karnblack

It is only one player per Xbox on Xbox Live or through system link. Kinda sucks.

Gallant Pig

[Chief Wiggum]Ralphie Honey, this game makes SOCOM look like an arcade shooter[/Chief Wiggum]

Face/Off

So obviously this is supposed to be a realistic tactical combat game, but are there moments when all hell breaks loose and you have to start running and gunning a la Halo?

WOWZY

That's a big 10-4!! Only it's hard to see where the shots are coming from, ala camoflage. So if you're playing and all hell does break loose, run like hell!!

WOWZY

I called Ubi-Soft again and talked with someone different and even they confirmed that only one player per Xbox could play LIVE at a time no matter how many accounts are on your Xbox. I asked them if they left a "Hook" so they could change it later with a GR booster or LIVE download and he said "no".

vbellino

This game is definitely more tactical and stealth based than SOCOM. You cannot just run out and start gunning or you'll be shot down in seconds. I find it to be more of a take cover/use your binoculars or scope to assess the situation out in front of you/move to the next piece of cover type of experience. One important difference is the strafing aspect. Strafing in GR is very slow compared to SOCOM which is, I think, more realistic. It does however make firefights much more difficult. Also the reticle doesn't glow red when you're on an enemy which makes spotting tangos in good cover difficult at times.

I can't say for sure which I like better GR or SOCOM yet but GR is definitely getting better with more play. It is taking me awhile to get used to always viewing 1st person versus the 3rd person view in SOCOM, but like I said it's growing on me. I plan on playing for awhile tonight...I will report back after.

If anyone is online my XBOX Live Gamertag is: i c e m a n

Kainan

Yes, I must admit that the one player per box on LIVE sucks. I heard someone say that the single player isn't that great in another forum but I couldn't disagree more even with this aspect. Your troops are smart so and you don't have to tell them to wipe their butt (if you know what I mean).

Now to compare to SOCOM

1. In SOCOM you have a TON of things where you have to tell this troop to go do this and tell that troop to go do that. There is TOO MUCH NEED for communication with the troops. It is like they took the idea of using the mic to order the troops and went WAY OVERBOARD. With Ghost Recon you tell your troops a few things. (A) Move and where to move (B) What type of action as to whether to basically shoot anything that even moves or whether to only shoot if they really need. That is about it. Tell them the direction to go and the general idea of how to act.
2. I can't remember if you could do this on socom or not but on GR you can switch to any man at any time. This works out great for special things that need to be done. If you need to set detonation charges then just switch to the guy with the right equipment and do it yourself. No stupid socom soldiers accidentally blowing up half the platoon.
3. Socom graphics are horrible in texture detail and the distance you can see (draw in) when compared to GR. PERIOD. Someone said that GR graphics were not good but everyone I talk to says the opposite. It isn't that everything looks perfect but the fact of how good everything looks in a map that is HUGE with you being able to look around for hundreds of yards. All of the maps on Socom have the level design to where there always seems to be a hill or something keeping you from looking 1/2 the distance or less than GR.
4. The shooting is more realistic in GR. In GR your sight rectical (as someone called it I think) is larger while you are moving. This means your shot is less accurate. When you come to a dead stop it shrinks to a nice focused spot. When you squat or lay down it is even more accurate. To me they couldn't have gotten much more realistic here.
5. Online play has so many options (other than the STUPID fact that only one person per box can play) that it is ridiculous. This is about the most customizable game I've found for a console online game. I hook up with a couple of guys pretty often just to go through the missions together.
6. You can turn on SPAWINING! Nothing would tick me off worse than getting killed in socom and having to wait 5+ minutes to start a game. Also you can make spawning spawn people in the same place or in multiple places.


From my comparisons it sounds like I hated socom but I didn't. It wasn't near as good as I expected but I liked it ok. I was disappointed in the small environments and with the control of socom. The missions were pretty cool but GR has more realistic seeming missions and the gameplay is just way deeper. It is cool in GR to set up each squad with one sniper and then some guys with machine guns. This way the sniper spots baddies far off but the gunners get the multiple bad guys that come out like a hornets nest when they hear shots.
The KEY to enjoying this game though to be hones is to be REALISTIC and run from cover to cover and then slowly check out each area ahead. It is the slow methodical gameplay that I like because the run and gun games are a dime a dozen.

Ok, I'll shut up now.

Sloth911

is this game as involved as Hitman 2 or Thief 2 where you have to hide bodies and stuff? or is just a tactical shooter with a little more difficulty then Halo?

Gromit

I've played the first 2 campaign missions and I'm liking GR. I haven't tried online yet.

Xbox games that everyone loves, I don't care for. A lot of people hate GR, but I kind of like it.

No hiding bodies (at least in the first 2 missions). It's a tactical shooter. Nothing like Halo IMO.

Gallant Pig

Online is fun with a sniper rifle.

Kainan

Jason-

You have to keep in mind that this is a TRUE FPS game. No FPS games have you picking up bodies that I know of. Second, as a WAR game you really don't have hiding bodies much. Think of Saving Privite Ryan, I don't believe they bothered to hide a SINGLE body in that movie. You are too busy killing to bother hiding bodies. Also keep in mind that I said most of these maps are huge. If you have a huge swamp or wooded area then there really is no need to hide a body. If you want hiding bodies then waith for Splinter Cell. I've seen that this game has received two 100% ratings on Reviews so far.

Gallant-

I totally agree but I'm finding much more than the sniper rifle now. Many people are picking maps in a city or with houses that you go in. At first I didnt' like these because I like to snipe but it didn't take me long to come around. My buddy and I played some two on two at the Training Level last night and I changed my weapons accordingly. I had a ton of fun realizing the strategy of covering each others back, using grenades, and using the buttons to peek around corners. Fun stuff.