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Well, the truth behind the matter is, you won’t give half a thought to the game’s plot. At one point I was shooting Ethiopian’s and had no idea why. Last I heard Sally Struthers was still sending them food. Not a lot of people bought the original Ghost Recon for it’s involving plot and offline play, and chances are even less will buy this one for the same reasons.

Island Thunder is a glorified expansion pack that features a new set of maps (8 new maps and 4 from Ghost Recon) and a few new weapons (including the SOCOM and a really fun automatic grenade launcher). Cool? Definitely. Frustrating? Beyond a doubt. The guys over at Red Storm had promised us downloadable content before Ghost Recon had even hit the shelves. They spoke of such things as downloadable maps and downloadable weapons. But I suppose instead of giving it away for free they may as well package it up and market it as a new game, charging an amazing 40 dollars for it. Honestly I sat there in the store holding the game and thought ‘are a few new weapons and maps really worth 40 dollars?’ The answer was of course ‘no’ but I bought it anyways, as I knew I would probably get my moneys worth in the long run. Unfortunately I don’t believe a lot of people are going to see it this way and that might hinder the sales.

As I said before and I will continue to say until the end of this review, gameplay is where it is at. Island Thunder offers an experience much different to the gun blazing rampage games out there such as Unreal, Mech Assault and many other shooting games. It offers a fairly realistic wartime experience to people without all the inconveniences of bullet wounds, battle fatigue syndrome and death. Not all people go for this type of action, as one bullet will more often than not take you down completely. If you are the person who prefers subterfuge to flagrancy and would rather stealthily move around the map waiting for that perfect kill, then this is your game. More often than not you aren’t going to be charging in somewhere with your gun blazing, or you’ll end up dead like you would in real life. This game will also require immense team strategy if you plan on playing it competitively on live with your friends. Some of these maps are huge with all sorts of choke points and sniper perches, so coordination is a must. Of course you also need to remember that if you didn’t really like the original Ghost Recon, then you aren’t going like this one and shouldn’t even bother. Everyone else who loved Ghost Recon on Live, go buy this, even if it is overpriced for what it actually is.