The Tom Clancy line of games has been huge success for Ubisoft. Ghost Recon 2 made significant strides over the first game on the XBox, and now we're greeted by Summit Strike, which is, for all intents and purposes, an expansion pack. But really, for $29.99 you're getting a full game complete with new single-player missions and plenty of online content. It may be more of the same, but if you loved GR2, this is a worthy addition to your library.

For those of you unfamiliar with the franchise, Ghost Recon is a more realistic spin on the FPS genre. Unlike the faster pace of Halo or Doom 3, there's more strategic, steady-shooting gameplay here. If you've ever played Rainbow Six 3, it's remarkably similar, from the fire team you control to the realistic war story you follow.

You control the leader of a four-man fire team of "ghosts". Once the mission is laid out for you and you've configured your equipment, it's off to some pretty standard first person shooting. Commands for your team are simple. They will always follow you and try to find some covered positions to fire from, but you also have some orders at your disposal. You can have the other three team members hold, move forward, flank, and attack targets. They're relatively bright, but don't be surprised if they get themselves shot moving from one position to the next.

Therein lies my biggest gripe with this game and the series in general. While it's fun working all this strategy, I can't help but notice similarities to some old platform games. Yeah, I know it's a stretch, but some of those games made you die in order to learn the correct path to follow. I get that same feeling here. It's almost like I have to get shot by someone, somewhere in this wide open terrain, before I can go back in a second time and clean up with ease. Unless you're up for scanning the terrain through your scope in every direction every few feet, you're bound to lose a life, or more likely one of your teammates, and that can be very frustrating. On the next pass through, it's a piece of cake now that you know where to focus fire.

Just like Rainbow Six 3, this game is a lot more fun for me in online co-op mode. I know I can have a real conversation with my teammates, and I know that they will have as good a chance of survival as I do, maybe even better since I can give real intel. I'm not much for the PvP side of the online mode, but there's plenty available for those that do, including two new modes added just for Summit Strike.

Summit Strike is a pretty XBox game. I remember wanting to tear my eyeballs from their sockets at the sight of the first Ghost Recon. The visuals are all around clean. The character models are tight, and the environments are good but not great. There's lots of new environment and player skins in this installment, which is a nice bonus. Also, I love the third person view that was implemented with GR2.

There's not much more to the audio portion of the game other than the expected bangs and booms. Nothing ground breaking here, but it does make good use of 5.1. The voice chatter in the game is a little odd considering this is a highly trained group of covert operatives. With all the sneaking around, you'd think your partners might want to keep their voices down, but instead they are all too quick to congratulate you on a "Nice shot, sir."

I'll be perfectly honest; I am not and probably never will be a big fan of any first person shooter, but I can appreciate a good game when I play it. Ghost Recon has always had this feeling of intensity that sucks you into the game's environment. It's that edge of your seat, "I think someone is staring at me down their scope right now," kind of feeling that makes it so enjoyable. It's a little disheartening that there can be so much trial and error involved in the single-player missions, but it's nothing new. It's great to see expansions working on consoles where you don't have to own the original to play, and you still get a full helping of gameplay for only $29.99.