Reviewed: May 12, 2006
Reviewed by: Mongoose
Publisher
Ubisoft
Developer
GRIN
Released: May 2, 2006
Genre: Action
Players: 1-32
ESRB: Teen
8
9
8
7
7.9
System Requirements
Recommended System
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
As a huge Tom Clancy fan I’ve always been impressed by his ability to include forward-thinking military technology into his novels and subsequent games. In my particular military career I’ve been privy to some “designs” that have yet to make it out of the R&D department and others that are already in the field (and in Clancy books and games).
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is the ultimate evolution of one of my favorite franchises and an uncanny vision of what our military will be like in 2013. Devices like Cross-Com have been in play for longer than you might think and the IWS (Integrated Warfighter System) is already being tested. By the time 2013 rolls around you won’t believe what military technology will be capable of. Optical camouflage (Predator cloak) anyone?
Ghost Recon has always relied on its multiplayer strengths, but for Advanced Warfighter the design team has packed in a solid solo campaign that finally evolves beyond offline training. There is a story, told both in cutscenes and interactive sequences within the missions as well as hours of verbal chatter.
You play as Captain Scott Mitchell who infiltrates Mexico City along with his fellow ghosts to stop the sale of some stolen military surveillance hardware. It just so happens that the U.S. and Mexican presidents and Canadian prime minister are meeting across town to put the final ink on a new treaty. What better time for a coup by a disillusioned Mexican general.
Within minutes of arriving in Mexico City you and your team learn that the prime minister has been killed, and the U.S. president is missing. It’s up to you and your men to once again save the day and your Commander in Chief.
So what has GRIN been doing for the past 60 days since this game debuted on the console? Read on and find out.
While the odds appear to be against you, the ghost have the luxury of some of the best high-tech gadgets military R&D can dream up. I could bore you with the laundry list of specifics, but you’ll see all that for yourself soon enough. The highlights of the IWS are the interactive HUD that includes the Cross-Com, Nar-Com, and a multi-function modular rifle. And the cool thing is it’s not as sci-fi as you might think.
The Cross-Com is your best friend in that it allows you to see through the eyes of your men. It’s great in single player and invaluable in multiplayer. Just select your teammate you want to monitor and you get a useful PIP view of what they are seeing through their helmet-mounted, high-definition camera.
The Nar-Com is similar to the Cross-Com only it allows you to receive broadcast news as well as video intel from the big brass back at HQ. Getting your orders via radio has been a staple of this series since its inception, but the news broadcasts are a nice twist in that they actually reflect the ongoing state of affairs that are directly impacted by your actions.
Technology drives the gameplay and you are never really taken out of the “experience” to navigate traditional game menus. Everything is integrated into the gameplay so even when you are reconfiguring your weapons or scanning a map of the city, it’s handled with an in-game realism.
Take for instance, the cool new AUV Cypher, a futuristic hovercraft of sorts that can fly over the city and lock in enemy positions on a 3D tactical map that is downloaded and updated in real-time from the Command Center. You pick the path and destination for the drone and it will fly there and find any enemies, indicating them with red diamonds on the map. You can then rotate or tilt the map to see if those enemies are on ground level or potential snipers lurking above.
If the enemy spots the drone they will fire on it and eventually destroy it, so you will want to watch the elevation and only lower the drone in suspicious areas. Again, it’s a useful tool in the solo game and invaluable in multiplayer.
The actual gameplay is surprisingly simplistic thanks to an excellent control scheme that works just as good on the mouse and keyboard as it does with a USB gamepad. Moving your men works very similar to other games where you issue squad orders, only the AI in Ghost Recon is so advanced you only need point in the general direction and your men will instinctively position themselves in locations you might not even have noticed.
The aiming system is flawless in its design with just enough inaccuracy when firing from the hip to force you to use the aim view. Damage is also location-specific and you can target just about any extremity for a realistic results including one-shot kill headshots. Sniping is handled with a new level of reality that includes a breath meter allowing you to hold your breath to steady your shot.
There is a decent selection of weapons when your modular rifle isn’t up to the task. Rocket launchers are particularly devastating and sniper rifles let you eliminate targets from a safe distance. Grenades also pack a punch, but as always they are hard to get to and even harder to aim and throw with any consistent accuracy.
Enemy AI isn’t the absolute best but it provides a decent challenge at the normal skill level and gets a lot tougher on Hard. The enemy is good about taking cover and in the later levels the designers get downright sneaky about where they place the enemy.
Solo gamers can enjoy a substantial campaign that spans about a dozen missions of incredible variety. It’s hard to get a firm count since all the missions blend together seamlessly and you really never know where one ends and the next picks up. You are even rearmed and reequipped in the field with periodic supply drops although the vending machine-style weapon cabinets are a bit odd.
Some missions you act alone and others you have full team support as well as the occasional assist from attack chopper or tank. Nothing is more satisfying than being pinned downed by a sniper and calling in a Blackhawk to take the bastard down. You’ll even get to participate in some aerial action of your own as you man the machine guns on your own chopper and tear up the town on an insanely challenging rail ride.
Unfortunately the computer required to play GRAW probably won't exist until 2013. My 4GHz Pentium 4 with 2GB RAM, X-Fi sound, and dual 7800's running in SLI could only manage about half the special effects details at 1024x768. Crank it back to 800x600 and you can turn on most of the effects but you still can't max them out, and at 800x600 with maybe 70% effects you are barely matching the quality of the Xbox 360 and thats with $900 of video hardware. May as well buy a console and the game.
The quality of this game is unparalleled with potential we may get to appreciate in the years to come. It all starts with the character models that are constructed with more polygons than anyone would care to count. Dress them in authentic textured uniforms and animate them with ultra-realistic motion capture and equip them with detailed 3D weapons and equipment that is independently modeled and animated, and you have CG reality.
Most of the levels take place in urban environments and I’ve never played a game that has recreated a city with this much explosive detail. Everything is interactive in some way, at least in that you can damage or destroy it. Even objects that used to be considered useful cover (like walls) are no longer safe when your powerful sniper rifle can propel a bullet through solid objects.
The level of complexity is astounding. With so much cityscape being rendered I never saw any repeats in textures or architecture, at least within any given city block, and there were plenty of unique locations, often with mission-specific goals taking place once you get there.
The draw distance is out to the horizon, even when you are in the chopper, although the designers cleverly frame your view with the chopper door. But the real visual treats are reserved for the ground missions where you can witness the most impressive lighting and shadow system of any game to date. Again, if you have half of these extra details and effects turned on you'll take a framerate hit or lower your resolution.
Textures are treated with bump and/or normal mapping making them pop off the screen causing the real-time light source to reflect and bounce off everything in the game in a totally realistic manner. This effect is layered and processed multiple times creating photo-realistic levels that match the character animation. Even the HDR pupil dilation effect of walking from darkness into sunlight is recreated flawlessly.
The HUD is cleverly designed to communicate all necessary information without taking you out of the game experience. Video displays are treated with realistic imperfections, lines, static, etc. and the various vision modes are realistic and useful. There is even one mission where a jamming device scrambles your entire display.
Clancy games seem to share that same military-style soundtrack and GRAW is no different. The soundtrack is more apparent in this game with audio cues that enhance the action and create the appropriate mental attitude.
There is almost an endless amount of speech that runs continuously throughout the game. It can be as simple as team acknowledgements to your orders or incoming mission updates from HQ or realistic news broadcasts. There is also a surprising amount of enemy chatter, which is more amusing than informative.
Sound effects are easily the best part of the audio package with realistic sounds for every weapon. There are also subtle sounds that bring the city and surrounding areas to life. The Dolby Digital mix recreates stunning 3D spaces and you really want at least an Audigy or X-Fi and a set of surround speaker to fully realize this presentation.
The GRAW solo campaign is good for about 12-15 hours of intense and strategic combat action. You can replay at a harder skill setting but there is no branching plot or alternate ending so it's not very rewarding and certainly no substitute for the online component.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is easily one of the best multiplayer games currently available for the 360 but the PC audience is getting the proverbial shaft with this hatchet job of a port. The co-op and domination modes have remained intact but several of the options that gave the 360 its spicy variety have been axed and I don't know why. And while the 360 featured a nice online lobby the PC menus are problematic and actually connecting to another player can be more challenging than the gameplay.
Once you do join a game or get somebody to join yours you either play the cooperative campaign mode or a domination style game. With no support for voice chat you have no easy way to coordinate your efforts so playing cooperative just falls apart. Add to that the fact that if your team leader dies you all lose, it gets really frustrating really fast.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is an odd mix of post-dated graphics and antiquated online gameplay. While the solo campaign is certainly worth the effort, only those with the ultimate systems need even try to play this game, and if you are looking to extend your tactical gameplay online you might want to opt for the Xbox 360 version, even if it means buying the console.
With more online modes, functional interface, and voice chat, the 360 is easily the superior version. Even the PS2 and regular Xbox have voice chat. Until a major patch restores everything that is missing on the PC, GRAW is better suited as a tech demo to test next year's line-up of video cards.