The first game in the series had flaws, serious ones. They seem to have fixed most things this time around though. I received it today and played it till 4:30 am, got to the second mission. Weapons are awesome, the whole military feeling is nice, excellent sound and it's probably the first Tom Clancy game with some kind of plot and nice videos around the missions (Splinter cell had story too though, IIRC), unlike the first one which felt more like a training simulator than a tactical action game. Missions in the second game are much more cinematic and varied. You actually feel like you're accomplishing something instead of just killing off enemies. They also changed the boring first person view to a much nicer third person view (although you can still switch back if you're into that). Oh, and you only control one 4-amn squad and can't switch between characters. Also you have no influence over their weapons (the whole game has a rainbow six 3 Xbox feeling, only more military and war) Don't get me wrong, I loved the first game, I just think the features they added are great, and make it a more enjoyable experience.
Squad commands are cool (you gotta love the "regroup" animation, graphics very nice. I haven't tried out multiplayer yet, but from what I read in the manual it's quite sweet; co-op missions with respawn, 3 or 4 other co-op modes, team vs team action, hostage rescue, you name it. Both offline and online.
My only problem with the game so far is the AI. I started off in normal, found that enemies were retarded, so I tried out hard: Enemies are twice as many, die hard, do flanking moves, throw grenades, charge at you, snipe you from afar. However, squad AI still sucked, i.e they kept running out in the open, not taking cover, running too far when I told them to go somewhere, hesitated to fire at the enemy... I ended up doing most of the dirty work, which I don't really mind, but it's nice having someone to watch your back. They were still useable in some situation though, mostly as simple firepower.
Looks like the game is going to last a while too, after a few hours of play I'm only at the second mission (good thing you can save anywhere you want, sometimes it gets a bit trial and error). Then I'll enjoy the 4 player co-op mode. It definitely beats Halo 2 though.
Oh, it's set in a North korean future conflict by the way. The game was banned in both North and South Korea, with the excuse of it messing up peace negotiations and such. Meh. Maybe they should play it instead of setting up barbed wire and armed guards against each other.
I give it 9/10 so far. Oh, and make sure you get the Xbox or PC versions, the PS2 version is a whole different game, and sadly sucks really bad.
Squad commands are cool (you gotta love the "regroup" animation, graphics very nice. I haven't tried out multiplayer yet, but from what I read in the manual it's quite sweet; co-op missions with respawn, 3 or 4 other co-op modes, team vs team action, hostage rescue, you name it. Both offline and online.
My only problem with the game so far is the AI. I started off in normal, found that enemies were retarded, so I tried out hard: Enemies are twice as many, die hard, do flanking moves, throw grenades, charge at you, snipe you from afar. However, squad AI still sucked, i.e they kept running out in the open, not taking cover, running too far when I told them to go somewhere, hesitated to fire at the enemy... I ended up doing most of the dirty work, which I don't really mind, but it's nice having someone to watch your back. They were still useable in some situation though, mostly as simple firepower.
Looks like the game is going to last a while too, after a few hours of play I'm only at the second mission (good thing you can save anywhere you want, sometimes it gets a bit trial and error). Then I'll enjoy the 4 player co-op mode. It definitely beats Halo 2 though.
Oh, it's set in a North korean future conflict by the way. The game was banned in both North and South Korea, with the excuse of it messing up peace negotiations and such. Meh. Maybe they should play it instead of setting up barbed wire and armed guards against each other.
I give it 9/10 so far. Oh, and make sure you get the Xbox or PC versions, the PS2 version is a whole different game, and sadly sucks really bad.