Title	Game Info	Screenshots	Gamester Score
	Publisher: Ubisoft   Developer: Red Storm   Ent.   Genre: Action   Release: 08/06/03   Rating: Mature		Control 4/5 Graphics 3/5 Sound 3/5 Orginality 4/5 Value 5/5 Overall 3/5

If you've played the Xbox Ghost Recon, Island Thunder is more of the same, but it's more of the same of an already solid game, with the same style of online multiplayer that made the previous Ghost Recon so exciting.

Graphically, Island Thunder is perfectly serviceable but probably won't blow you away, unless you haven't been looking at console games very much for the last couple of years. The game looks like what it is--a year-old PC game. Again, if you played Ghost Recon on the Xbox, you should have a good idea what to expect visually out of Island Thunder. The mostly outdoor environments are nicely crafted, with a lot of variety in the terrain and landscape features you'll encounter. The character models are also fairly detailed and animate pretty well. There aren't a whole lot of whiz-bang graphical effects going on, as Island Thunder is true to its recent-past PC heritage, but it looks fine for what it is. Since the Ghost Recon games strive for extreme realism, the sound design in Island Thunder is pretty minimal. You'll hear radio reports from your teammates when stuff is happening, and the sound of gunfire is prominent in a firefight, but since you're trying to keep things covert there's not a whole lot else to break the stillness. That's quite appropriate, of course, given the setting of the game.

Like Ghost Recon, Island Thunder has a bevy of multiplayer options. Split-screen and system link options are available, but naturally the real meat of the multiplayer lies in the game's Xbox Live support. You can play in games of up to 16 players online in modes ranging from simple deathmatch to competitive team games to cooperative missions that have you working together with your allies to complete a set of goals. Island Thunder's matchmaking setup is fully featured and lets you look for specific game types, a maximum number of players, and so on. Within a few days of the game's release, it was easy to find active games of varying types online, so Island Thunder should be a solid bet if you're looking for on-demand tactical shooting action on your Xbox. It should also be noted that the game has support for downloadable extras through Xbox Live, though no content was available at the time of this writing.

Is Ghost Recon: Island Thunder for you? That's an easy question to answer if you played the original Ghost Recon. If you liked that game and were left wanting more, Island Thunder is exactly what you're looking for. However, if Ghost Recon didn't particularly wow you, there's nothing so fundamentally different here that your opinion will be changed. Finally, if you're completely new to the series, Island Thunder functions just fine as a stand-alone introduction to Ghost Recon, and with the full single-player campaign, the large number of maps and weapons, and the solid online support, there's a lot of bang for your buck here. Console-bound tactical shooter fans would certainly do well to give Island Thunder a look.