Ghost Squad (2004)

Sega seemed to be determined to make this game more open to casual players and they really did good job creating a game appropriate for all skill levels with plenty of carrots-on-a-stick to motivate to keep playing when stuck.

The game has you playing as a counter-terrorist force on several missions like hopping onto airforce 1 and rescuing the president from hostage-takers. There's lots of little radio chatter and bonus objectives like disarming bombs to really make you feel the part. The character also moves around in slick ways, sneaking, or sometimes dropping under a table for cover and letting you shoot at the enemies feet.

What really makes the game approachable and replayable is the rewards for scoring. Points earned in missions unlock new guns (and there is a heaps of em) or costumes for your character (eventually moving onto very silly costumes like a panda outfit). But points also 'level up' the missions which increases the enemy density and opens up alternative roads and bonus objective; it's possible to select a lower level mission if they become too tough but the higher level ones award considerable more score encouraging players to skill-up. The higher level missions are also more fun as the enemies pop up seemingly everywhere.

Many of the bonus objectives are kind of shallow like how the bomb disarming is just cutting the wires in the right order before the timer reaches 0, which is a strike. Another issue is there aren't very many missions, yes they become more elaborate when you replay the leveled-up version, and there are multiple paths, but it's still rehashing content. The biggest strike though is the game feels like it lacks a proper narrative flow, the missions are all unrelated, rather than building on each other, and the terrorist enemies are totally generic.