Private, can you move in front of me? I think I have this guy targeted.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Good enemy AI and intriguing story.

Cons: Sub-typical FPS. Sometimes more aggravating than fun.

The Bottom Line: 
A decent military style of shooter. Although, everyone else may be displeased overall.

Author's Review
Ah, the wonderful world of terrorism. Sure it sounds promising. Work you way up the ranks, and one day you can stash tons of coke in your basement or just get a free bomb to detonate with you strapped to it. Fortunately for this game, you play the soldiers who put a bullet in these guys' heads. Sounds more promising? Let's sign you up.

You get a bunch of strapping new outfits all in camouflage but in many impressive colors and different bullet protection. This game's wide variety of possibilities is great. You get to choose you outfits, your guns and the way you attack these lily-livered pansy boys. You even get to choose your teammates, the amount of sub teams you have. In fact, if your brothers in arms start running straight into the aforementioned pansy boys bullet chambers, you can elect to play solo. The amount of variety in each mission is very good.

However, soldier, hosts of weapons and gear is not all what it's cracked up to be. After all this is war ... sort of. Okay, you're snuffing out losers. Let's face it. You're really a glorified cop who has to stop global street scum from grouping together and trying to kill the world. The losers are kind of like a glorified Mafia really. Not really, just a bigger Mafia.

The good news is that the bad guys are not stupid or supernatural. I'm sure on your other commando raids you get your sights on some slacker and BAM! He turns around immediately and starts shooting at you. What's that ... a mixture of spider-sense and caution to the wind mentality? When was the last time that you turned around immediately and shot someone ... Hmmm, sorry I asked. Well, anyway, the good news is we can shoot some of these guys the old fashioned way - in the back. This is war not a duel, soldier.

These guys don't shove their face into your gun either. In fact they can be downright hard to get at. As soon as they see you, they unleash nerve gas. How are we supposed to kill this guy if he kills himself and us with him? A bit too hard in spots this game ... ahem ... mission is.

The bad news is that as real as your enemies truly are, you partners ain't. Let's face it, with a war in Iraq going on we had to lose a few of our best and brightest. These guys and gals can shoot but they ain't much in the way of coordinating and they control skills are a bit lacking. I remember one of my first fine missions when I targeted my bad boy with the scope, and pulled the trigger. Wait what was that green blob that passed by? Oh, that was one of my team. I guess if he was stupid enough to walk in front of my gun, a lobotomy won't put him that much more in the hole. In your missions, you may want to scope out the place by yourself first and use them as back up.

One thing to remember in your mission is don't get discouraged. Sure it's not as sexy as some of the new directives, but ... oh forget it, it's pretty antiquated. The good news is that it's at least interesting. No massive blow ups or special guns, but you'll want to see what happens in the end. A lot more can be said for that than mindlessly killing people. No anti-heroes here. Just good, quality missions that lend into each other and then great movie briefings in between.

Since you'll be on some stealth missions you'll get to use cool, state-of-the-art gadgets. You won't get stuck in just sniper fights or all out gun battles, but don't count those out either. The stealth missions require you use your ears and this part of you task is well done. You get a good element of sound that is above the others out there.

But buck up private, they'll be some hard times, too. You can't just start your assault and come back later if you want to. No, we'll start you right back at square one if you do that. In fact, I believe the enemy throws a few surprises that you can't guess, just so you have to start over. This is called artificially lengthening the game play. I have no idea what that means. Just try one thing and then another until you figure it out. Sure it takes all night sometimes, but war wasn't meant to be easy.

Now, report back to base and let me talk to your CO for a minute. Okay, the graphics are decent and pretty much what you expect from a shooter. If you like military based shooters, you'll probably at least enjoy this one. People who like to save their games, not so much. Although, the story has enough for everyone to like (at least a little.)