Ever noticed how much videogames rely on characters to make thm work and get us interested? Sam Fisher (this month's cover star), Solid Snake, Jak, Daxter, Ratchet, Clank, GTA's CJ - we've written about them all quite a bit. We know all these people very well, like friends. They're heroes, anti-heroes and reluctant champions. All of which makes the fact that Full Spectrum Warrior never lets you directly control its soldier characters as an all the more interesting surprise.

Instead, you play as God, or fate, or some omnipresent force of will that never tells your men exactly what to do, but keeps an eye on where they should be going and in what direction to fire. It's not quite like a Sims-style god game because your viewpoint is solely stuck around one of the eight soldiers you control (split into two squads of four). But it's not quite a standard action game either, as you merely give your men permission to fire and what to shoot at, but never pull the trigger yourself. What it is, however, is massively unique and surprisingly easy to get to grips with.

This payload of invention comes as a way to make the way you're fighting in thoroughly realistic, despite the fact its setting is fictional (although the country, Zekistan, may as well be called something more honest like Iraqistania, given the way it clearly borrows from topical warfare and real places). To keep everything ticking along in ultra-realistic mode, not a single sentence of dialogue goes by without being infused with military chat. So get used to calling your A and B teams Alpha and Bravo. Phrases like 'Charlie Ninety one one two' pop up all the time, even the menu options are 'redeploy' instead of restart and 'retreat' instead of quit, and you don't save the game - you radio in a 'sit rep', AKA a situation report. (Which in itself is an ironically unrealistic idea - do soldiers who die in real battles get to rewind time and return to the point they last checked in with base? Of course they don't!)

As you order your teams about, you'll soon learn to love corners to peek around and cardboard boxes to hide behind. You'll fear wandering into open spaces because sending your men to exposed areas is suicide (or at the very least, time consuming, as the walk to the mobile hospital is usually lengthy). You'll discover that it's often better to fling a grenade ahead of you - but to value your limited supply at all costs - because that's sometimes an easier way to take out enemies than to engage them directly (or indirectly if you're hiding behind a nearby car for cover). A "two kills and it's over" axe hangs over proceedings, making everything a lot more immediate, and the possibility that not shooting guns yourself will be a dull, boring exercise is dismissed the minute you're gripped by the pacing. In no time you'll be hurriedly flicking between squads while they make their way in a pincer movement around each of the enemy forces. Plus, an online mode adds an extra dimension to proceedings as you co-operatively play through the missions with a friend, controlling a squad each and discussing tactics.

It also helps that the environments are so involving. Despite a few moments where it's as if the PS2 is struggling with the amount of detail being thrown around, the city of Zekistan is convincingly rendered, especially in terms of lighting. As the action takes place across one day, you'll notice the shadows lengthen while the glare of the cloudless sky illuminates the edge of buildings. And the animation of your men is particularly well done and realistic.

After a while, however, it's obvious that the effort gone into making this experience 'real' only highlights the fact that this is one Spectrum Warrior that's fairly far from full. Indeed, once you're halfway through the game's 11 chapters, you realise that every facet of the gameplay has already been experienced in the training.

Full Spectrum Warrior is based on one very, very good idea, but it's repeated ad infinitum. Each confrontation requires you to flank enemies from one side as a distraction and take them out from the other side. Level design can also frustate if you think about it too much, with the environments proving highly linear and requiring considerably more backtracking than you would normally expect. And occasionally the characters can fumble and make errors - enemies stay rooted to the spot, even when a grenade lands at their feet, and your men can accidentally stand too close to open areas and get shot. Sure, that latter point is a good translation to games of the randomness of war, but that doesn't stop it from being irritating.

But we would be fools not to recommend that you buy this game. Its flaws are, in the grand scheme of things, not a massive detriment to gameplay. Full Spectrum Warrior may not share Mercenaries' explosiveness (Although it does share the same development team, Pandemic) but the compelling setup makes it the best tactical warfare game, making the likes of Ghost Recon 2 look a little lame. And the online mode is one of the very best uses of multiplayer Internet functions we've seen. But it, but don't complete it in a hurry - you should savour each mission and play through one or two a day, taking the time to soak it all in - that ways the flaws are easier to ignore.

Graphics 80%
The PS2 can just about cope.

Sound 70%
Authentic chat, but way too corny.

Gameplay 80%
An excellent concept, just quite repetitive.

Lifespan 70%
Worth sticking with, but can irritate.

Overall 80%
Full Spectrum Warrior is a great and original concept that's only held up by the resulting game's hugely repetitive nature.