Get Yourself Some GRAW
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 may have arrived almost as late as this review, but that doesn't mean it's any less awesome (the game, that is).
Published: October 10, 2007
It's rare that we kick up reviews that are this late. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 was already something like six months late in arriving on the PlayStation 3 and with our little delay it's going on two more months. Chances are if you were going to get the game, you already have, and if you were scared off by reviews, then this one probably won't help. So why even write this? Because the game is effin' great, that's why, and until recently we were having some serious issues getting online to play the much-vaunted multiplayer. With those issues resolved, I figured if nothing else, at least throwing together a bunch of words and a score would hopefully do the game justice, because it really is one of the best action experiences on the PlayStation 3.
Part of it comes down to pacing. The full single-player experience probably won't take you much more than about eight hours even if you slog through it fairly slowly or on a higher than normal difficulty, but those eight hours are packed with so many "holy shit, that was awesome!" experiences and the gameplay does such a good job of feeling open-ended and reactive that even dying and reloading can often lead to slightly different outcomes even if you do the same things over again. Coupled with level designs that at least offer the illusion of choice in where to go and teammate AI that does a wonderful job of not seeming like artificial intelligence in that they'll find cover, return fire and move without just walking into enemy fire.
It might be a little much to digest if you didn't actually play through the first GRAW on the 360, seeing as the game essentially drops you right into Mexico with a little pat on the butt and the assumption that you know what the hell is going on. Luckily, you don't really need to know (just like a good little soldier) what the backstory is before you're slamming up against cover and popping out to cap fools like crazy. Suffice it to say there's a nuclear threat happening very, very close to the US/Mexico border and it's up to you to shoot a whoooole lotta bad guys to keep a nuke from hitting US soil.
It's the whole "Advanced Warfighter" part of the title that's the key here, though. You're no mere grunt, you're Captain Scott Mitchell, and you, sir, are loaded up with some of the US Military's latest (okay, technically the game takes place like seven years from now, so it's future) technology, enabling you to wield weapons unseen on the battlefield of today. Guns with cameras that let you fire entirely protected by cover, roving resupply vehicles, unmanned spy drones, and with a constant sat uplink, you can instantly tap into a full-screen view of everything your fellow squadmates and those aforementioned vehicles, even controlling the latter from afar.
This means cover is imperative, but it also means that just because you're pinned down, you're not without options. Ordering your squadmates to other cover or flanking is a fairly simple affair, and this means that you're free to coordinate attacks on the fly using future tech to do stuff like fire right through walls and spy on enemy positions from behind the safety of that big ass slab of concrete. The game throws a handful of shooter segments from a helicopter turret, and occasionally you'll have the aid of a tank or attack chopper to help remove enemy armor and thin troop numbers, but by and large you'll take on enemies by foot, which is just fine by me -- especially since you've often got a fantastic loadout and the game's cover system works so damned well.
Online, the game is a little more simple. Cover is eschewed in favor of a massive number of weapons options, allowing you to mix and match your equipment according to the role you can choose pre-game launch, though you're by no means bound to it. A progressive experience system lets you rank up, but it's not quite as deep as the system seen in Rainbow Six: Vegas. There are plenty of variants, including capture-and-hold, CTF and good ol' deathmatch games, but these days the online community more or less settles into games of Elimination or Territory (think deathmatch and king of the hill), which is a shame, but hey, you're always free to create your own game and there are still enough people playing to get your own game type going fairly quickly. Voice chat is nice and clear, though there's no way to tell who is talking, and as is often the case with online games, the people on the other end may not be the kind of folks you want to chat with, but the option is certainly there.
Part of it comes down to pacing. The full single-player experience probably won't take you much more than about eight hours even if you slog through it fairly slowly or on a higher than normal difficulty, but those eight hours are packed with so many "holy shit, that was awesome!" experiences and the gameplay does such a good job of feeling open-ended and reactive that even dying and reloading can often lead to slightly different outcomes even if you do the same things over again. Coupled with level designs that at least offer the illusion of choice in where to go and teammate AI that does a wonderful job of not seeming like artificial intelligence in that they'll find cover, return fire and move without just walking into enemy fire.
It might be a little much to digest if you didn't actually play through the first GRAW on the 360, seeing as the game essentially drops you right into Mexico with a little pat on the butt and the assumption that you know what the hell is going on. Luckily, you don't really need to know (just like a good little soldier) what the backstory is before you're slamming up against cover and popping out to cap fools like crazy. Suffice it to say there's a nuclear threat happening very, very close to the US/Mexico border and it's up to you to shoot a whoooole lotta bad guys to keep a nuke from hitting US soil.
It's the whole "Advanced Warfighter" part of the title that's the key here, though. You're no mere grunt, you're Captain Scott Mitchell, and you, sir, are loaded up with some of the US Military's latest (okay, technically the game takes place like seven years from now, so it's future) technology, enabling you to wield weapons unseen on the battlefield of today. Guns with cameras that let you fire entirely protected by cover, roving resupply vehicles, unmanned spy drones, and with a constant sat uplink, you can instantly tap into a full-screen view of everything your fellow squadmates and those aforementioned vehicles, even controlling the latter from afar.
This means cover is imperative, but it also means that just because you're pinned down, you're not without options. Ordering your squadmates to other cover or flanking is a fairly simple affair, and this means that you're free to coordinate attacks on the fly using future tech to do stuff like fire right through walls and spy on enemy positions from behind the safety of that big ass slab of concrete. The game throws a handful of shooter segments from a helicopter turret, and occasionally you'll have the aid of a tank or attack chopper to help remove enemy armor and thin troop numbers, but by and large you'll take on enemies by foot, which is just fine by me -- especially since you've often got a fantastic loadout and the game's cover system works so damned well.
Online, the game is a little more simple. Cover is eschewed in favor of a massive number of weapons options, allowing you to mix and match your equipment according to the role you can choose pre-game launch, though you're by no means bound to it. A progressive experience system lets you rank up, but it's not quite as deep as the system seen in Rainbow Six: Vegas. There are plenty of variants, including capture-and-hold, CTF and good ol' deathmatch games, but these days the online community more or less settles into games of Elimination or Territory (think deathmatch and king of the hill), which is a shame, but hey, you're always free to create your own game and there are still enough people playing to get your own game type going fairly quickly. Voice chat is nice and clear, though there's no way to tell who is talking, and as is often the case with online games, the people on the other end may not be the kind of folks you want to chat with, but the option is certainly there.
