Knersuz

I have mixed feelings about Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. The actual gameplay is just pure brilliance; Red Storm traded the arcade run-and-gun style of games like Quake and Unreal for realism (one bullet can actually kill you, enemy opponents take cover if fired upon and don't just run blindly into your bullets). These changes pose a different kind of challenge to the player without taking away any of the enjoyment. There is nothing that quite gets the adrenaline pumping like stalking your enemy knowing that one careless step or missed shot could end your soldier's life instantly.

For me Ghost Recon was one of the first games where the artificial intelligence of your team-mates and opponents were actually worthy of the tag – artificial intelligence. You're team-mates won't beat the missions on you're behalf, but are generally useful backups to have in fire fights and won't get stuck inside buildings or get themselves killed in idiotic ways too often. As hinted upon above, your enemies are competent adversaries (a Rambo walking around with guns blazing would only last a few seconds before succumbing to a head shot). My only gripe would be that their observation range seems somewhat short, while they react realistically to gun-shots falling around them, a lot of times they seem oblivious to any sounds further than 30 feet away. That said, being repeatedly killed by super intelligent & observant enemies would probably be no fun at all! At 2001 standards, the graphics were OK without being brilliant, and by today's standards they are not bad enough to detract from a good gaming experience.

So why the mixed feelings? The big letdown for me was the storyline. Yes there is a story, Russia invading Georgia in 2008 (how prophetic for a 2001 game!), but the implementation was distinctly lackluster. There are no cut-scenes to speak of, a weak low-budget intro movie and no end movie. Mission briefings consist of 2 maps and a brief written overview of what's happening in the global war effort along with your mission objectives. It's hard to know if your successful missions have any effect on the war effort as they are barely, if at all, hinted upon in the following mission briefing. In my opinion if they just called the game Ghost Recon and let you play the 15 missions randomly it would have made no difference to the experience, but because they plastered a famous novelist's name on the title I expected a bit more story for my bucks.

That said, if you are considering buying the game, you can't go wrong getting this title. This game will give you many thrilling hours of gameplay and as I understand the multi-player is also not too shabby. Oh and for the record, it didn't bother me that I couldn't see the barrel of my gun on-screen (a common complaint from other reviewers).

That evil Yuri is at it again, trying to take over the world (cue evil laugh). This time using his own forces rather than those of the unsuspecting Russians to unleash some more of his evil mind-control mayhem on the world. As the official expansion to Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge is basically more of the same cheesy wacky game that you experienced in the original.

The biggest addition is that of the 3rd side – Yuri's forces- to battle the Allieds and Soviets. As expected, Yuri's forces rely on mind-control of their opponents and a careless commander can quickly find his forces turning on each other and being decimated by friendly fire. It's an interesting challenge to figure how to counter Yuri's mind control effectively but once you do, there is no plan B from Yuri as most of his units are relatively weak.

Yuri's revenge's single player campaigns are a bit more difficult than RA2's campaigns, but never so difficult that you will pull your hair out in frustration. Westwood also added some new units for the Allieds and Soviets, but I only bothered to try out a few of them, finding my old favorites from RA2 still adequate in most situations.

The new cut-scenes were a little disappointing, a number of them simply consist of a person telling you what happened and what you're mission objectives are. Scattered between the mission-briefings though, were a few good cut-scenes that were on the same standard as those in RA2. One strange quirk is the long loading times of missions, it was a big complaint back in 2001 – and the problem still persists on modern computers in 2009. Not sure how the programmers screwed that one up.

To conclude, Yuri's Revenge is a very competent add-on to the original RA2, and a must have for any RA2 fan.

If you want an example of what an ideal expansion pack should look like, Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction would probably be it. This expansion overhauled the original so comprehensively it is inconceivable nowadays that someone would play Diablo 2 without installing the expansion pack as well.

For one the pretty ordinary graphics of Diablo 2 is improved to an acceptable level, and secondly Diablo 2 has added a considerable amount of additional content. Another Act is added to the storyline, 2 new characters are added that can be played from the start, numerous additional treasures and weapons were added and finally your character's stash size and weapons that he/she can carry have been increased. Even though all this additions have been made, they all contribute to better the game without changing the essence of what Diablo 2 is all about.

My only critique would be of the personal kind. By the time I installed the expansion, I have had my overdose of the hack-and-slash gameplay that Diablo 2 offers, and the expansion didn't manage to rekindle my flagging interest in Diablo. I just grew tired of killing the same monsters repeatedly just to slowly increase my skills and look for that weapon that's just that little bit better than I already had.

If you are planning to play Diablo 2, don't even bother to install the original without adding the expansion immediately. If you have played the original and liked it, I'm pretty certain you've already tried out & liked the expansion!