I've never played the original Full Spectrum Warrior game, and seen very little of the game so I had no expectations for its sequel Full Spectrum Warrior Ten Hammers. Created by Pandemic Studios who are well known for titles such as Star Wars Battlefront and Mercenaries.

My first impressions of this game were great! I'd seen no screenshots or videos of this game, so I assumed I was about to play a first person shooter army game like Ghost Recon (I love Ghost Recon). Wrong. This is actually a third person squad based real time strategy game, completely different to what I actually thought I was going to be playing... Anyway, I continued.

The great thing about this game was it has its own independent storyline to the original Full Spectrum Warrior game, which makes this games storyline relatively easy to follow, even for a FSW n00b like myself. Before you all start emailing me going "Wrong! Both games are tied together!" I know this.. The difference being one can happily start playing the second game with no prior experience of the first game.

After a graphically pleasing introduction to the main game, I started the not so graphically pleasing game! I can understand with all the hot paced action that is on screen, I can understand the downgrade in graphics from the video sequence to the main game, as with most PlayStation 2 games (lets hope hyped up video sequence graphics will be a thing of the past next-generation eh?).

I started out with a guy stood in front of me, I assumed the game was in third person. I attempted to run forward and "*wham* what's this cursor?" Completely confused by everything, I broke out my last resort... The instruction booklet! Being the guy that I am, I never follow instructions and I was pretty quick to forget about the instruction booklet and start fiddling around with controls. Thankfully the first level was a "practice" level which gives you instructions on how to use all the features of the game in the event that you're a complete n00b (like me).

Stealth or Kamikaze? If you're like me, all games with guns involves running out into the middle of an open area and blasting the crap out of everything other than the enemy! That's a disgusting habit for this game. I found myself repeating the same section of game over and over and over again, and I grew pretty tired of this game very quickly! After ditching my habit, things started to catch on! I moved my squad and started making better use of cover. My major beef is how annoying and stupid your Squad actually are. If you're being shot at, duck! Don't run out in the open and stand there like a mannequin, because you will get shot. Unfortunately, despite my best effort to get them to hide behind cover, they didn't.. They stood there for a further minute whilst being shot at, doing nothing. Commands are sluggish to carry out and reaction time is low. This is because of the complexity of the controls. Each button has multiple functions. In fact, there isn't a button that ISN'T being used. As a direct result, a lot of the time you find yourself navigating through menus assigned to each button just to carry out a single command such as "cover".

To begin with, this game is difficult to play. After the first 2 levels, my opinion of this game was "crap".. The majority of my notes on the game were negative, and I was barely prepared to give this game a second glance. Being the unbiased reviewer I am, I gave it a second glance, and I'm certainly glad I did.

Whilst it takes time to get to grips with the complex control system, this is a fantastic game. As you play you build up your own strategy and learn to take your time to overcome any enemy.

When you encounter an enemy the music changes to make you more alert. When you're clear of enemies, the music is calm and subtle. Whilst doing nothing, Alpha and Bravo team have a friendly chat, and even advise you on what to do when under fire. Flank the enemy by using cunning strategies you devise on the spot; if you fail, build a new strategy! You can call in help from Helicopters and tanks to help out when in trouble. You can position snipers independently of the squad to give you distance cover.

There are also on screen indicators to tell you where an enemy is, if they're pinned down with heavy fire or even dead. Once the enemy has gone out of visual, you lose track of them. This does take away the edge of reality the game had, since there is a lack of radar, so enemies can jump out of anywhere; half the time I'd probably not even have noticed an enemy had it not been for the OSI.

The enemy AI is great. If you fail and have to restart from a checkpoint, you can guarantee that even though the enemies are in the same relative positions, the battle will never play out the same each time giving you more of an element of surprise.

The story pans out from a narrator at the start of each level and during video sequences. He sets the scene for each mission and the game. You start the game in the mountain area, Khardiman. From there, the story goes through 4 chapters and backtracks so you know the end, but eventually discover how you got there.

Despite the game being single player, this game features online play. After spending the past 3 days trying to GET online, I've figured it's not worth it... My connection test says it's fine, but when trying to connect to the network, it tells me my network cable isn't connected! Well, I don't see how that's possible given my "Everything is hunky-dory" connection message.. Perhaps the Gamespy network is offline? Who knows, so for now, I'll put a pin in this section of my review! But according to the Instruction booklet, you choose the type of match you want to play, then you're taken to a lobby, then you can join or create a game based on a mission you want to play..

You can play as one of four Factions online, U.S. Troops, Coalition Troops, Mujihideen and Al Ra'id.

In addition to everything awesome in this game, you also have the option of using the SOCOM or USB headsets. How this works I have yet to figure out.

Overall, this is a fantastic game which has a small appeal to a certain audience. Perhaps this game is underrated because of how slow it is to pick up. Nonetheless, this is a game I urge you to give a chance. If you're not entirely sure if this is your thing, you can always rent it from Blockbusters for a night and give it a run yourself.

If you like Military / Strategy based games, this is absolutely your cup of tea.

I rate it overall 6/10.

There was insufficient information on setting up the network for this game (even though I have played a dozen games online already, so I know my network settings are fine), insufficient information regarding the use of the headset which could be a turning point for this game for many people if we knew just how it would work, and the controls were a tad confusing (tad being an understatement). I have yet to decide if this is a game I'll play at a future date if at all. I like the game play, but I don't feel like I'm in the moment with the Storyline.. I don't care too much about what happens next. The game play is the strongest part of this game, no matter how confusing it may be.