PSEx: Ubi and Clancy produce PS2 twins

Ubi Soft seemed especially keen to show us their console ports of tactical-action favourite Ghost Recon and Sum of All Fears at their PlayStation Experience pods, despite their respective unfinished state. Sum of All Fears on PS2 appears to be pretty much a straight port of the slim PC original, and didn't seem to be altered in functionality from the original. This isn't really surprising, as we doubt it could have been much simpler in the first place. The far more impressive port is easily Ghost Recon. Eventually arriving on both Xbox and PS2, we got to play the latter and see just how far along the port has come. The Ubi Soft representative was keen to express the fact that much of the game has been reconstructed from the ground up, and has a great deal to offer in the way of features to attract newcomers to the genre. An example of this is that the in-game planning facilities of the original are intact, but should you wish to sidestep it completely then a simple click of R3 on a piece of the landscape will direct your secondary team to that spot without further instruction. Should you not trust your AI team-mates though, a split-screen co-operative mode is also included, and we're promised full Xbox live support on that platform as well, making the Xbox port a far more multiplayer focused package. Graphically the engine doesn't appear to be pushing the PS2 envelope at all, and it appeared to be fairly rough around the edges compared even to the PC version. Apparently the team are concentrating on implementing AI properly before they embark on tidying up the visuals, and are confident they can get it much closer to the original. The final release will include all of the single and muliplayer maps from the original Ghost Recon, and Ubi have thrown in all of the maps from the Desert Siege expansion pack as well for good measure. It's nice to see Ubi Soft and Red Storm producing something worthwhile from their PC ports for console gamers, and this reflects their willingness to bring in new recuits to the burgeoning tactical action genre.