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By Mark Adams
Many people who pre-ordered the Xbox 360 did so on the strength of the previews
for this game. It was therefore a great disappointment that the game was not
released for the console’s launch. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely. Is it THE
killer title that says ‘THIS is next-gen gaming’? Not quite. Read on to find out
why…
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GR:AW) is a tactical shooter based in the near
future (2013 to be exact). You are Captain Scott Mitchell, and during the course
of the game you will command your team of three other elite ‘Ghosts’ and also go
it alone for some missions. GR:AW’s plot is pretty much standard fare for Tom
Clancy fans: Mexican Rebels storm a summit held in Mexico City where the Mexican
and American Presidents, and the Canadian Prime Minister are meeting to discuss
a peace treaty. The Canadian Prime Minister is killed during the rebels’ assault
and it’s your job to get the remaining world leaders to safety and help defeat
the rebel forces.
When you first start to play the game you may be quite astonished at how good
the game looks, the character models of Scott Mitchell and the Ghost team are
fantastic; the detail in the textures on their uniforms are superb. It is a
shame then, that the same can not be said for the rest of game world. The
textures on buildings; floors; cars etc. are of a much lower resolution. Also
the detail on the enemy soldiers and friendly US soldiers is no-where near as
good as on your Ghost team. The US flag patch on the US soldiers uniform for
example is just a red and white smudge, and even though it is only noticeable
when up close, you really shouldn’t expect to see such low-res textures in a 360
game.
So if the detail isn’t that great what makes the game look so good? Two things.
First and foremost is the lighting. The way this game is lit is nothing short of
fantastic, you can almost feel the Mexican sun beating down on you. It may be
overly harsh for some players’ tastes, but GR:AW does give a good impression of
what you would see in real life if for example you were trying to shoot a
soldier while facing the sun.
The second reason the game looks so good is the draw distance, and it’s this
that perhaps explains the heavy use of lower resolution textures. You can see
everything, right out to the horizon. The draw distance is huge and it – along
with the incredible lighting effects – creates a really believable city.
Enormous skyscrapers loom in the distance and grow increasingly forbidding as
you get closer. But it’s when you’re riding in a helicopter over the city that
you really appreciate it, the entire city is there to see and it does indeed
look very impressive. But even with the great draw distance it’s unfortunate
that when on the ground you still see some draw-in where closer objects pop into
view.
The game starts off with a training mission to explain the main game mechanics
and also introduce you to the game’s various options open to you during the
course of a mission. It’s very well thought out and early on it impresses upon
you the importance of staying behind cover and only exposing yourself to enemy
forces when you absolutely have to. I did have one problem with the training
mission but more on that later.
The concept of cover is really important in GR:AW, you absolutely can not go
gung-ho in this game as you well get killed almost instantly if you try. One
shower of bullets and it can be game over, and on hard mode? One hit and you’re
dead. Use of cover in the game is handled excellently; you can press yourself up
against almost any flat surface, and peek out from behind the edge of the wall
and then quickly move back into cover; if you are ducking behind a low wall or
crate you can poke your head above to scan the area and pop some shots off at
any enemies you spot.
You command your Ghost team through some simple commands issued via the D-Pad.
You can order your team to move to a certain position; regroup to fall back on
you; and attack any target that you are aiming at. You can also switch between
Assault and Recon status. Assault does ‘exactly what it says on the tin’; your
Ghosts will attack any enemies they spot. In recon status your Ghosts will only
shoot on your order, and they will also make more use of cover, supposedly…
The AI of your Ghost team leaves a lot to be desired. Say you’ve moved ahead to
scan the area; you're peeking around a corner and spot some enemies; you then
order your team to regroup and join you. They should all form up behind you and
stay out of sight of the enemy right? Well sometimes they do, but normally one
will stand out in plain sight and get shot. You really have to baby-sit your
team mates if you want to keep them alive, which is downright silly in game of
this ilk. Even more questionable is the AI of the people that sometimes fall
under your protection. They follow you around like headless chickens, not caring
about staying behind cover at all. This is made worse by the fact that you can
not order them to stay put, they just follow you wherever you go, sometimes
running out into the open at the most inopportune moment, which can be very
frustrating when they get shot and it’s game over.
In stark contrast however, the AI of the enemy soldiers is excellent. They will
run for cover when attacked; they concentrate fire on you to pin you down while
one or two others attempt to flank you; and if there is a mounted M50 machine
gun nearby they will try and get to it to gain the advantage. The many
fire-fights in the game can be quite exhilarating, and when you emerge from a
particularly close encounter unscathed you really do feel a great sense of
achievement.
A new feature in the Ghost Recon series is the UAV. The UAV is essentially a
floating camera that operates over 100 ft above ground. You can direct it to
anywhere via the tactical map available to you, and then command it to lower
it’s altitude to detect the enemy soldiers positions which you can view via your
cross-com (more on the cross-com in a bit). You have to be quite cautious when
lowering the UAV however, as the enemies will attempt to shoot it down if they
spot it. Often you will find yourself lowering it to mark out where the enemy is
and then immediately commanding it back up out of harms way. It’s a very neat
little feature that adds a new and interesting tactical element, though it is
not available on every mission.
Throughout the course of the game you will also be given the command of various
vehicles like the M1 Abrams tank and the Black Hawk helicopter. You can direct
the M1 Abrams to move forward; back; stop; and attack. The Black Hawk is the
most fun to command and operates in much the same way as the UAV, you can direct
the helicopter to anywhere via the tactical map and commanding it to attack a
target is as easy placing your cursor over the target and pushing up on the
D-Pad. The screech of the Black Hawk's missiles streaking down on the target
you've ‘painted’ is awesome.
In fact the sound in the game is excellent throughout; each weapon sounds
different; and the explosions are suitably loud and convincing, especially if
you have a 5.1 surround sound system. Particularly good is the sound of the
chain gun available to you on certain missions when you are in the helicopter.
The whir of the gun spinning up before the bullets pump out of the canon is
awesome. Also the voice acting, while it won’t win any awards, is generally very
good with little to no ‘American cheese’ involved, thankfully.
Another new feature is the Cross-Com. The Cross-Com is a small view-screen
attached to your characters helmet and sits in front of your characters left
eye. It provides tactical information and it is what makes up the HUD on your
screen. The Cross-com is very useful as it has a mini-screen that can display
not only what the UAV sees, but also what your Ghost team and any vehicles under
your command can see. So when you order your Black Hawk to attack an enemy tank,
you see what it sees and you see it firing at the tank. The cross-com is also
very useful in multiplayer as you can select any of your team-mates and
instantly see what they are seeing, which is very handy if one of your team
scouts ahead.
The multiplayer portion of GR:AW is almost a completely different game to the
single player campaign. Your character does not move in the same way as Scott
Mitchell does, and you can not press yourself up against walls and buildings to
peek around corners etc. The graphics have been toned down somewhat but still
look really good. There is one particular map ironically called ‘Dry Dock’ where
rain is absolutely belting it down and the effect is really good. Multiplayer in
GR:AW is indeed great fun… when you can get a game that is. Frequently you will
get booted out from a server and it can take a while to get a good game going,
but once you do the online game plays really well with little to no lag. The
good choice of maps and modes of play make for a really varied multiplayer game
which has something for everyone. It’s arguably the best shooter on Xbox Live,
though some may prefer the more instantly accessible gameplay of Call of Duty 2
and Perfect Dark Zero.
Unfortunately Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter is not without its faults. There
are several bugs and glitches. I mentioned earlier in this review that I had a
problem with the training mission. During the training one of your Ghosts gets
hit and you have to administer first aid to revive him. However as the game does
not incorporate rag doll physics – a glaring omission for a 360 game – my team
mate fell ‘into’ a crate of wooden palettes. I could not get close enough to him
to revive him and therefore could not continue the mission and had to start it
over again.
Sometimes when you are prone and crawling towards a target your character will
‘pop up’ briefly with his arms straight out; it is very, very brief but
absolutely should not happen. Later on in the game there is a glitch involving
tanks under your command where you have to order the tanks ahead of you to
identify targets. If however you run ahead and identify the targets yourself,
you can not continue the level and have to start it over. It is a really glaring
fault and you have to wonder how that got past the beta testers. It’s these
glitches and bugs, along with the extremely poor friendly AI and the sometimes
downright ugly textures on buildings and walls that makes GR:AW fall just short
of true greatness.
Overall, GR:AW offers a brief glimpse of what the 360 is capable of. The good
definitely far outweighs the bad. GR:AW’s single player campaign is an excellent
game to play, the missions are varied enough to keep you interested and the plot
develops well as you make your way through the game. The multiplayer is great
fun but again is not without its quirks. Some might say that I have been harsh
on GR:AW’s graphics, but I know the 360 is definitely capable of better. I
believe that given time, developers will make more efficient use of the
machine’s capabilities. Perhaps Ubisoft will learn from this experience and make
the next Ghost Recon game – and there WILL be one – the be-all and end-all of
tactical shooters, unless of course Rainbow Six Vegas, another Ubisoft title and
due for release later this year, beats it to the punch.
Rating 84%
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