Chris Haythornthwaite... your orders: disable a rogue Korean military faction before it triggers full-scale nuclear Armageddon... Cripes.

"Ghosts we've detected artillery moving in on your position, take those tanks out." If I hear that one more time, I'm going to shove that radio where the sun don't… oh hello, you're a bit early the review isn't quite ready, I've just got to finish this… blast, die tank, die… look just hold on a minute will you.

Bang, oh god, just fire will you, damn, blast, HA! There, at last, please no more tanks I don't think my nerves can take it.

Right sorry about that, I'm ready now. Ghost Recon 2 for the X-Box is the sequel to Ghost Recon, a popular part of the Tom Clancy franchise. This sequel is bigger, badder, better yet slightly more frustrating as well. Let me explain what I mean.

The game is set in 2011 in a war-torn Korea, you and your Ghost Recon team are sent in on different missions to try and complete various objectives whilst dodging the bullets and keeping your squad alive. The missions are introduced via a fictional documentary about how the conflict was fought and resolved. This adds a particular amount of realism especially in our present world culture of conflict and political upheaval. Each mission offers something slightly different, to begin with you start outside the main cities moving your character and your squad through the country blowing up bridges and disrupting tank convoys. You then move into the ruined cities and complete objectives such as clearing areas for medic convoys to travel through and holding a bunker against a continual enemy onslaught.

The graphics in this game are very, very good, at first it seems like any other from this genre, but as soon as you see the river in mission two you notice that actually it is extremely realistic, and soon you marvel over all the little graphical touches, the details on the buildings and the movement of the enemy soldiers. The weapons are suitably powerful and varied, so that you can try the missions over and over with different types of weapons to change the experience.

The sound is good and when you get shot, well it still makes me jump after 10 hours worth of playing, the noise is short and loud and is matched with a violent rumble from the joy pad, which serves to shock and surprise the player. Ghost Recon 2 also utilises the microphone that comes packaged with Rainbow Six 3. You can give your squad members orders via the microphone or via the joy pad, there are lots of options and once you know how to control them they can be very effective in helping you complete objectives.

However, there are some weaknesses to this game. Probably the most annoying one is how much you have to shoot an enemy before they will drop to the floor. I mean not all the time, but more often than you would like, you can be zoomed in targeting your enemy, they spot you so you just pop one in 'em and they still keep coming, so you think, not a problem I'll just shoot them again, and again, and again and before you know it you have unloaded a full clip into them and they are still running towards you, shooting. This can be very frustrating especially when you take into account that this game is very hard, even on the normal difficulty setting it will challenge an experienced player.

But this might have something to do with the fact that Ghost Recon 2 doesn't quite know what it wants to be. It starts off very much like its predecessor as a squad based shooter, however even here it is more action oriented rather than tactical. To my mind in a squad-based shooter you should be challenged to figure out tactical ways of completing objectives, rather than running forward with your men shooting until everyone is dead. Then four or five missions in you get some futuristic weapons with a gun-mounted camera, (which is pretty cool, I'll tell you why in a minute) and are asked to run around a city on your own taking out tanks. This is where the game tries to be a standard FPS (First Person Shooter), which it could just about pull off, however you don't have the equivalent FPS health, you can get shot twice maybe three times then you're dead. Also with no idea where the people will jump out from next it means the game turns into a trial and error exercise, remembering where the soldiers are and trying to get them before they get you.

This has put me off a little bit, because it seems set to carry on in this fashion. Oh and the bazooka, well, that has to be the most annoying gun ever, due to it not firing straight away. Imagine standing with it in your hand in front of a tank that is shooting, you're not getting hurt but you are pressing the fire button over and over again, at last it fires and you destroy the tank, you turn round to see all you men dead on the floor and you think, might as well restart.

The gun-mounted camera on the other hand is quite nifty and is one of the selling points of the game. You can switch your view to the camera and hold the gun out from behind a wall, meaning you can't be hurt. It doesn't always work but most of the time it's quite a cool little feature that with a little bit of development could be used in really innovative ways. You can also call air strikes through this gun which makes blowing tanks up a little easier, if can get near them.

I might have been a little bit harsh here, but these small weaknesses stop this from being a truly awesome game. It has all the multiplayer options and the ability to be played online so if you really enjoyed the first title and you want more then I am sure this will satisfy you. If you're new to this type of game then try it and I'm sure it will offer you a satisfying gaming experience but for those waiting for the ultimate in squad based tactical action, I'm afraid the developers have just missed the mark.