Here’s the video clip of Ghost Recon as promised in the previous post.
Watch Ghost Recon – Mission 1 in Video Blogs, Animation, and Game Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
The cool thing about using Vimeo is that I can have a High Definition version of the clip available, such as the clip above, and it’s all done automatically by Vimeo. If you look closely, you can see a “HD” button on the right side of the video. If you click that, it will bring you to the high definition version of the same clip. The High Definition version will probably be almost as good as the original clip which I uploaded.
Update: 6 Nov 2008: Due to a surprising policy change by Vimeo, my gaming clips will no longer be hosted by them. From now on they will either be at Viddler or Veoh.
Anyway, Ghost Recon, as mentioned in the previous post, is an old game circa 2000 or 2001. The game autodetected my graphic settings as “HIGH” in all options (of course, it only required a Pentium 2 with 128MB RAM).
For people who know me, know that graphics actually isn’t a very big factor in deciding whether a game is “good” or not. It’s normally the gameplay that captures my attention. A game with zero content but very pretty graphics will soon sit on the shelf (or in my case, lost and forgotten in the depths of my cupboard). A game with so-so graphics but good gameplay will remain on my harddisk for a long time to come. Ghost Recon is just such a game. Operation Flashpoint is another example (OFP actually was on my harddisk from 2001 till 2006, when Armed Assault was finally released).
For a 7 year old game, it’s still pretty playable. Graphics don’t look too dated. Gameplay – beautiful. As you can see from the short 3 minute clip above, it still is pretty good. I think that the unique thing about Ghost Recon is that you can either play it as an FPS or an RTS. Let me explain.
In the game, you can actually activate “Observer Mode”. In that mode, the characters all come under the control of the AI. You bring up the command map as shown in the video, and give orders there. In Observer Mode, your camera is locked onto the team currently selected, eg Alpha, Bravo or Charlie. You cannot directly control any character in this mode. Hence, if you prefer a more RTS-like way of playing, feel free to permanently play in this mode. Just give orders, and your men will move and execute them. Your camera will follow whichever team you have currently selected and hence, you can see the firefight as it progresses.
So far, I have only played the first mission. I had to stop because of Chinese New Year and the reunion dinner thing.
Will have more updates later.
