This is a very tentative recommendation. I really want to love this game to bits. It creates a really interesting small scale tactical experience that I've never seen in another game. It is not a shooter. Don't expect something like Conflict Desert Storm.

The problem is this game is fairly broken. There's horrendous performance issues and the sound is bugged to hell.

The performance issues are largely caused by the game constantly trying to contact a server that no longer exists. To find this you can add the following line to your hosts file: "127.0.0.1 fswpc.available.gamespy.com"

If you don't know what a hosts file is you probably shouldn't try to attempt this. It's a system file and that means it's serious business.

The sound problems have no simple fix. You'll just have to live with constantly glitched sound if you want to experience this game.

A perennial favorite, FSW has always been dogged by being a game that is difficult to pigeonhole. Is it a third-person cover-based shooter? Is it a strategy game? Is it a puzzle game? It is a unique combination of all three that combined forms a whole greater than its parts. Unfortunately, gamers expecting a single genre tended to be discouraged by this unusual mix and the game never got the recognition it deserved.

Despite its age - and all the technical difficulties that entails running it on a modern PC - the game's visuals remain surprisingly attractive, and it is not difficult to lose oneself in the fantasy of a fighting through the streets of the war-torn Middle East. There numerous incidental animations - be it a civilian scurrying for shelter, birds scattering as you approach or the laundry flapping in the wind - make the game's world seem alive and keep you on your toes at the same time.

But it's the gameplay that is the real star; leading my two squads through the dangerous, twisting streets of fictional Zekistan felt more realistic and true-to-life than all the Calls of Duty - or even Arma - games combined. Your crew's limited toolset - a handful of movement and attack options - are more than sufficient to engage and defeat the enemy if combined with a bit of cunning. It is almost puzzle like; "If I move fireteam Alpha /here/ and then toss smoke like this, the enemy will react like /that/, allowing me to maneuver fireteam Bravo into position /there/!" Figuring out the optimal method to not only kill the enemies but also do so in a way that minimizes casualties and ammunition use is amazingly satisfying (fortunately, for those less talented, you can often "brute-force" your way through most challenges). The game's difficulty curve is gradual and never overwhelming.

The AI is not particularly skilled but can at times be gratingly tenacious, and failing to keep your team in cover will often result in the quick loss of several soldiers. Fortunately, the tangos' skill set is even less complex than that of your troops - mostly they just hunker down behind some cover and take potshots at you, although a few do use grenades - but they make up for this deficit with numbers and being well placed. Attempt to maneuver around them and they often - but not always - will seek new shelter, requiring you to trap them between your two teams coming at them from different directions. The occasional heavy weapon (rocket launcher or machine gun), tank or technical adds to the challenge and variety. Unfortunately - and this is the greatest fault of the game - the initial locations of the enemies is hard-coded into each level, which greatly reduces the replayability of the game. Best of all, once the mission is over, you can watch a replay to relive your successes (or failures), and even - should you chose - jump into the action at any point. Would that other games offered this feature!

Released in 2004, Full Spectrum Warrior can be difficult to get working on modern computers; in my case, I had to edit my HOSTS file, tinker with the soundcard settings and muck around in a configuration file before I got acceptable performance from the game. Even then, the dialogue was filled with pops and crackles. Nonetheless, the quality of the game was well worth the effort.

Full Spectrum Warrior remains one of the forgotten classics of gaming and those willing to go into the experience with an open mind will be well rewarded with a challenging and exciting game.

The Sand People are easily startled, but they will soon be back, and in greater numbers.

This game is riddled with issues due to it not being updated in years, good luck trying to run it on a modern PC. Chances are you will have unplayable FPS, fear not though, that happened to pretty much everyone and there are plenty of fixes. Problem is none of those fixes worked for me, maybe it will work for you I don't know but even if you fix the framerate which is already annoying enough as is you'll still have to deal with other issues like audio stutter and clipping in cinematics. And god forbid you decide to try out playing online or even LAN.

As it stands the game is nigh unplayable and should be avoided. It's a shame though because it's a really good game.

8,6/10 (wihtout the bugs)

+ original gameplay, has not been done before so extensively, tactical, whatever you do has consequences, beware no shooting at all (no fps elements i mean)
+ great atmosphere, good presentation, although there is no way in my knowledge to run in widescreen
+ you are rewarded if you master the gameplay and it feels good

- may not run on your system, i have 2 pcs, it runs great in 1 of them without any fix
- even if it runs the performance is not good
- may be too unforgiving gameplay wise, but that's the fun of it i guess