Ghost Recon Synopsis [gr-s]
Rocky

Last updated 12th October 2001

All information and images presented are based on the Pre-Alpha and Beta versions of Ghost Recon and are subject to change prior to Final Release version.

If you have read this page before, please check the updates to find what's new since your last visit.

Scenario | Mission Preparation | Action Phase | Armoury | Multiplayer | Developer | Credits

This report will be constantly updated as new pre-launch information comes to light regarding Ghost Recon. New features, map and mission information, weapons and gameplay enhancements will be catalogued as they are announced.

This report will serve as a one page pre-launch fact finder.

Scenario

Official Press Release : "War has begun on Russian soil and threatens to encompass the globe. Lead an elite infantry team through a series of military missions around the world, ranging from covert actions to search-and-rescue operations, to all-out firefights in this first-person squad-based action game."

"The whole storyline revolves around old-school Russians trying to get power back." A militaristic group comes to power in Russia in 2008 and begins to arm insurgents in neighboring territories. When the insurgents begin to agitate, the saber-rattlers in Moscow have a perfect pretext to step in and use military force to reassert their influence in several former Eastern Bloc territories. The Ghost Recon squad (loosely based on the US Army's Land Warrior program) steps in to save the day."

The "elite infantry team" are the "Ghosts" operating as six-man teams working in pairs. Ghost Recon is a military based situation in comparison with Rogue Spear's Counter Terrorism scenarios.

Mission Preparation

The Ghost Recon preparation screens will be pretty familiar to Rogue Spear veterans. In Rogue Spear it was possible to very quickly equip the squad and get into action, in Ghost Recon the planning is even swifter. This is accomplished by two major improvements.

Firstly, and most surprisingly, the pre-action planning phase has been removed. Planning is now carried out "on the fly", read on for more details. Secondly there is now a "auto-equip" feature that assigns each operative with the appropriate arsenal depending on his area of expertise and ammunition requirements.

These two major advancements mean it is quicker than ever to get into the meat of the game. Minor enhancements include animated characters as they are equipped, and an enhanced character information table showing skill-sets and abilities.

These character skill sets are advanced throughout the missions as characters gain experience and time in the field. As the game progresses and more missions are completed successful, additional highly skilled operatives will become available for new missions.

ACTION PHASE

The action phase benefits from an all new game engine boasting graphics worthy of the next generation of First Person Shooter from Red Storm Entertainment.

The animation is first class due to excellent use of over 600 motion captured movements (2757 seconds of animation), that's more than Operation Flashpoint by a large margin. The polygon count for operatives has increased to around 1200 polygons for each character. The character movements are extremely realistic and smooth giving as close to film quality immersion as we have seen to date. New movements include but are not limited to kneeling and prone. From a prone position characters can rotate or shuffle from side to side, as well as crawl forward.

The maps themselves are based more in the outdoors than Rogue Spear was,with large areas of up to 400 Square metres. During the mission players can control the movement and objectives of the team by calling up the full screen map. From this overhead view players can direct the characters direction of movement and rules of engagement. For example one pair could be instructed to change direction and provide heavy fire from one side, while a Recon team gains covert access to the objective.

Night vision capablities are included, and according to SimHQ Ghost Recon "does do the best job of portraying Night Vision Goggles", praise indeed!

The Ghosts also have the means to call in additional support in the form of troops in tanks, helicopters and close air support.

At any time the player can switch to take control of any character, or simply take a quick check on each character's state of health by calling up a character status overlay.

Save games will be enabled in Ghost Recon with QuickSave and Save Mission options.

Respawning comes in four flavours : none, per player (1 to 20), per team (1 to 20), and infinite respawns.

RPG ELEMENT

weapon skill : how quickly the aiming reticle closes and how tight it gets.
stealth skill : decreases the chance that the enemies will detect that character.
Endurance : keeps you character more active even after taking wounds.
Leadership : provides a performance boost across the board for all members of the fire team.

MISSIONS

Mission details have not been officially released, however we have managed to gather the following snippets of information!

Training Missions

Seven missions including obstacle course, rifles and pistols demolitions equipment.

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Campaign Mission Titles

1. Iron Dragon : Escape to helicopter at American Embassy, Georgia
2. Eager Smoke : Rescue a downed F-18 pilot
3. Stone Bell
4. Black Needle : Rescue under fire NATO Troops
5. Gold Mountain : Rescue prisoner
6. Witch Fire
7. Paper Angel
8. Zebra Straw
9. Blue Storm
10. Fever Claw
11. Dream Knife
12. Ivory Horn
13. Artic Sun
14. Willow Bow
15. White Razor
16. Red Square

Campaign Missions

?. University Square :
?. Escort Tank Column
?. Destroy Tanks
?. Flooded Farmhouse :
?. Destroy Bridge
?. Defend Bridge
?. Rescue POWs from a POW camp
?. Eliminate Georgian rebels

Types of Mission

1. Misson (Play the misson with objectives)
2. Firefight (Like terrorist hunt just kill them all)
3. Recon (Get your team from point A to B and do what you want just get there)

ARMOURY

Ghost Recon features both familiar and brand new weaponry. The Arms section of GhostRecon.net will be kept up to date with details of each weapon as it comes to light. New weapons include the futuristic OICW from HK and heavy artillery like the M-136 antitank rocket launcher. The total arsenal of weapons is around 30.

Another huge deviation from the Rainbow Six series is that characters can now interact with vehicles such as helicopters, tanks and transport vehicles during the mission. The extent of this interaction is not clear at this time.

Multiplayer

Up to 36 players (not including AI) with a delegated Commander for each team.

Four modes of online play :
1. Last Man Standing
2. Sharpshooter
3. Hamburger Hill
4. Search and Rescue

Developer

publisher [Ubi Soft]

developer [Red Storm Entertainment]

producer [Darren Chukitus]
associate.producer [Robbie Edwards]
chief.game.designer [Brian Upton]
assistant.designer [Gary Stelmack]
lead.level.builder [John Sonedecker]
lead.engineer [Clark Gibson]
director.of.art [Jonathan Peedin]
artwork [Travis Getz]
interface.artist [Sloan Anderson]
artist [Demond Rogers]
artist [Suzanne Meiler]
sound [Jeffrey Wesevich]
motion Capture [Steve Wasoff]
missions [Mike Haynes]
map.design [Ray Tylak]

CREDITS

research and report [Rocky]
images [Vaxc3 of Rogue Spear Retreat]
Contributors [CR6] [Mod Viper]

UPDATES