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Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 (Xbox 360)

By Alex Petraglia on Thursday, March 15, 2007 at 12:00 PM EST  

GRAW 2
Given today’s real-world political climate, it’s interesting to note Ubisoft’s choice of a backdrop for its latest XBOX 360 title in the Tom Clancy franchise, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. The battle takes you, Captain Scott Mitchell, into Ciudad Juárez and its surrounding countryside and finishes just north of the border at El Paso. Whether Ubi thought setting the game in such locales as Iraq, Afghanistan, or some other current hotbed would hit too closely to home or step on too many toes is anyone’s guess.

What is certain is that GRAW 2 (from here on in) is considerably better and more enjoyable than its prequel. That’s good news if you’re among the majority that loved last year’s Ghost Recon and even better news if you were as frustrated by its shortcomings as I was. While many dissenters may argue that GRAW 2 was rushed out, given its release date’s relative proximity to the first title’s, I counter that it feels even more polished and thought-out than GRAW 1 ever did.

GRAW 2 plays out in third-person perspective, with an emphasis on using cover to your advantage. The game at its core is all about tactics, and the player is granted a variety of supporting units that he can cycle through, select, and order using the controller’s ‘d-pad’ and his HUD’s cross-com. The two most commonly accessible units in the game are the three-man Ghost Squad, highly-skilled riflemen, medics, grenadiers, and marksmen that the player can select and outfit at some checkpoints and the UAV Cypher, a flying recon drone that will hover over an assigned area and mark enemies on the player’s display as red diamonds. New to GRAW 2 is an attached camera on all these units for easy visibility and ordering. The player can hold the ‘right-shoulder button’ at any given point to switch views and then the ‘d-pad’ to designate targets. Other supports include a UH-60 Blackhawk, M1 Abrams Tank, and Hughes MH-6 Littlebird. At certain defined points, the player is also granted air strike support and must mark enemy targets for the pilot to bomb.

Most importantly, the game naturally adapts and lends itself to your play style. At the reloading stations menu, suggestions as to which weapons and squadmates you should pick when advancing to the next area are offered, but the player can choose to completely ignore the given intel and make his own preferred selections. A bit of a pyromaniac? Pick a weapon with a grenade launching attachment like the SCAR-L/EGLM and a collection of satchel charges. Something a little more subtle? The MR-C LW is a camera gun that’ll allow you to shoot accurately from behind cover; use it with smoke grenades coupled with enhanced vision goggles for even stronger protection. Not much for the close-up? The SR25 SD silenced sniper rifle will take out your enemies from 500 yards out with a whisper.

The game’s a visual and auditory wonder to behold, from its variety of environments each with unique lighting (mountains at day-break to a cemetery in the dark of night) to teeth-rattling explosions. The voice-acting is appropriately militaristic, the music selections characteristically epic, and the sound effects fittingly deafening. Character animations are extremely well-done and those noticeable little touches, like when characters take a running slide to get behind cover or turn-away and cover-up slightly when rocked by a nearby explosion, pay off in spades.

While the game’s storyline spans about 72 in-game hours, you’ll have all the Mexican rebels conquered in less than 10 hours. Due to shoddy team and overpowering enemy AI, plus a plentiful supply of glitches, playing through the first GRAW at the hardest difficulty level became a controller-throwing affair. Better balanced enemies and smarter and stronger squadmates means the realistic settings of the ‘elevated risk’ difficulty in GRAW 2 provides for a challenging but not nearly as frustrating experience.

There have already been multiple reports on Ubisoft’s official forums about the game’s tendency to lock-up on certain XBOX 360 consoles. I personally experienced two such lock-ups over the course of the campaign, but only after playing for extended periods of five consecutive hours or more. A well implemented save and checkpoint system minimizes frustration that can occur from sporadic glitches. Other than that, the game is thankfully relatively bug-free.

An updated and improved multiplayer component adds additional value. The player can choose from a variety of character customization and outfitting options. One fun feature: the game can import equipment from Rainbow Six: Vegas and Splinter Cell: Double Agent saves at the multiplayer customization menu. There’s a plethora of multiplayer modes and maps to battle your buddies in, both for teams and solo and competitive and cooperative play.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of the game’s features, customizations, weapons, characters, and gameplay modes. It’s bursting with content, replayability options, and the promise of even more add-ons thanks to XBOX Live. All in all, GRAW 2 is intense, visceral, gritty, loud; everything a great war game should be. You owe it to yourself to heed its battle cry, don your camouflage body armor once again, and take up the fight. Happy hunting, soldier!

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