We're not going to mislead you. We've been waiting ages for this game to sneak into the office - under the cover of nightfall - patiently lying in wait for us to arrive the next day. In reality, the game actually turned up courtesy of a grumpy courier, but that's pretty much the only disappointment Ghost Recon has delivered in its tour of duty of our HQ.

The first Xbox game to roll from the typewriter of a certain Mr. Tom Clancy is a spectacle indeed. Set in the not-too-distant future (2008), the premise is a tried and tested Clancy narrative involving Russian ultra-nationalists looking to rebuild the long-defunct Soviet empire by reclaiming independent territories as their own.

As the title suggests, you play the lead in a specialist team of US Green Berets nicknamed 'Ghosts' - not because of their tendency to run around in white sheets like modern-day Caspers, but because they move swiftly, silently and are practically invisible to the enemy.

Invisibility is a skill you will wish you had mastered at Ghost school, because throughout this game you'll be kissing the ground more often than the Pope on a field trip. You take control of a group of six soldiers, split evenly into two teams (imaginatively called Alpha and Bravo). At the touch of a button you can quickly switch from one man to another, and prior to beginning a mission you can chose the speciality of each soldier - Sniper, Rifleman, Support (heavy weapons) and Demolitions.

Each soldier type plays a key role in your chance of mission success, and in this game variety is not just the spice but indeed the necessary requirement of life.

Tactical squad shooters usually either pass or fail largely depending on the control mechanics and ease of squad management. As far as control goes, Ghost Recon hits the target dead centre. Sure, no controller will beat a mouse in terms of twitchy FPS response but, in truth, Red Storm has done a sterling job in translating a keyboard/mouse mechanism to a pad.

In-game control is sensitive, fluid and intuitive, which means you won't be standing rigidly upright in a hail of bullets for very long before instinctively dropping to your belly, zooming in and squeezing off a few rounds.

Squad management is also a relatively simple affair. Previous PC-based Clancy titles had the tiresome trait of having to spend a lot of time pre-mission in planning your teams' direction and objectives. Not so here - all planning can be done on the ground through a pretty simple map and management screen.

Ghost Recon's variety of commands is fairly limited, but in our view the simple approach doesn't detract from the action or hamper the strategy involved in commanding two teams that could be achieving mission objectives on opposite sides of the playfield. Admittedly, you may need a third thumb to navigate through a few of the command options and occasional pathing problems crop up, especially in enclosed spaces like buildings, but in general the right balance is struck between action and strategy.

The main meat of the one-player experience is found in the story-led Campaign mode. The missions are quite diverse, or at least as diverse as you're ever going to get in an army game. Rescue hostages, take out camps, clear out a cave network to grab a valuable prisoner - the variety of stuff to do and the generally expansive environments in which to do it ensure you don't get bored of the gameplay.

Visually, the game is like a wannabe model - good looking without being a stunner. The attention to detail of the soldiers is excellent and all the squad members look distinctively different and are animated well. The only gripe is really with the maps. They can be a bit sparse at times, and there is more than enough fog travelling over some levels to hint at a little inadequacy on the draw distance front. But this title doesn't need to break new graphical ground in order for it to be a success; it's all about tension, suspense and controlled aggression.

If you fancy an instant, gratifying hit, then Quick missions are available that come in four possible flavours: Firefight, Recon, Mission and Defend. There is also a split-screen two-player mode, System Link play and the glorious possibility of Xbox Live.

As far as Xbox Live is concerned, well, as we said in the first sentence, we're not going to mislead you. Although we have our shiny new Live kits, we're not able to play online Recon just yet, so we can only guess at how good it is.

But there is no reason to think that online play will be anything less than an added advantage to an already compelling, challenging and competent strategy shooter. We'll be taking a retrospective look at Live-enabled games once the network is fully up and running;

Go lock and load, boys and girls.

1. Hugely playable
2. Easy command interface
3. Intuitive control
4. XBox Live enabled!

1. Could have more solo missions
2. No ugly duckling, but no oil painting

Power
Making full use of what the Xbox has to offer - a great game with online play to boot.

Style
Does Mr. Clancy proud - tons of suspense and excitement by the bucket load.

Immersion
Hugging trees and squatting behind bushes will become sescond nature after playing this.

Lifespan
Not a huge single-player campaign, but with Xbox Live on the horizon the potential is almost limitless.

Summary
What the Xbox was built for. A confident and addictive soldier shooter that sets the benchmark in strategy action games.