Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
Added March 30th, 2006 by Colin
Introduction:
The primary complaint leveled at the Xbox 360 thus far has been the simple fact that it doesn’t have a killer app such as the original Xbox had Halo. Sure, some of us love Perfect Dark Zero to death, but that can tend to be a “love it or hate it” type of game. For those that hate it, there just isn’t another 360-exclusive title with Live multiplayer functionality. Until now.
Thanks to the exceptional trailer that accompanied its unveiling at E3, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter is the game that sold many people on the 360 to begin with. Most of the other games looked impressive to be sure, but none executed that impressiveness with the sheer pizzazz of Advanced Warfighter. However, fate in the form of release date slippage prevented the game from being a launch title. Well, wait no more, as Ghost Recon 3 has arrived with one of the most complete gaming packages this side of Chaos Theory.
Gameplay:
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president? Ghost Recon opens up with a stunning plot, following a short, but helpful, tutorial. Just as Canada, Mexico, and the United States sign a trilateral defense agreement a Mexican coup de tat is launched against the incumbent Mexican administration. Unfortunately for Canada they decide to launch their opening attack with all three heads of state present. The Canadian president is the only one who dies. Go figure.
The primary complaint leveled at the Xbox 360 thus far has been the simple fact that it doesn’t have a killer app such as the original Xbox had Halo. Sure, some of us love Perfect Dark Zero to death, but that can tend to be a “love it or hate it” type of game. For those that hate it, there just isn’t another 360-exclusive title with Live multiplayer functionality. Until now.
Thanks to the exceptional trailer that accompanied its unveiling at E3, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter is the game that sold many people on the 360 to begin with. Most of the other games looked impressive to be sure, but none executed that impressiveness with the sheer pizzazz of Advanced Warfighter. However, fate in the form of release date slippage prevented the game from being a launch title. Well, wait no more, as Ghost Recon 3 has arrived with one of the most complete gaming packages this side of Chaos Theory.
Gameplay:
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president? Ghost Recon opens up with a stunning plot, following a short, but helpful, tutorial. Just as Canada, Mexico, and the United States sign a trilateral defense agreement a Mexican coup de tat is launched against the incumbent Mexican administration. Unfortunately for Canada they decide to launch their opening attack with all three heads of state present. The Canadian president is the only one who dies. Go figure.
Luckily for the free world, the US President survives the attack, as does the Mexican President. And, fortunately for them, the Ghosts happen to be in town. The Ghosts are a highly trained US military outfit that takes on the toughest assignments in the world, led by you, Captain Scott Mitchel. The story is actually quite good throughout, and it may be the first time the “President being captured” plot element has ever been used in a game without being hokey as hell.
But all of that is just the setup for you to blow stuff up in a variety of ways through the utilization of some rather amazing technology. GRAW takes place in the year 2012. By this time the military is supposed to have upgraded to the latest and greatest infantry technology aimed at giving soldiers on the ground unprecedented intelligence and combat abilities. At your fingertips are UAV drones, the CrossCom, infrared goggles, advanced weaponry, friend/foe identification, and cars that blow up in a big way.
The CrossCom is probably the most important of these technologies- it provides you with a picture in picture display in the top-left of your screen. You use the left and right D-pad buttons to toggle through the different screens, and the up and down D-pad buttons to issue orders. For instance, if you select the UAV drone you will obtain a live top-down view of the battleground over which it is observing, giving you troop movement information. Hit up on the D-pad and the UAV will head to wherever it is you are pointing your gun, hit down on the D-pad and it will head to your location. Say you want to go from the UAV to the rest of your Ghost team. Hit left on the D-pad to select them, then you will get a live feed from their headsets showing you what they are looking, or shooting, at. This is a handy way to see if they are actually following you or not, and quickly checking on their status. Hit up on the d-pad to send them to where you are pointing, or down on the D-pad to have them regroup on your position and start following you. Other selections include Black Hawk helicopters, tanks, and APCs which you may order about at your leisure. The implementation of the CrossCom could have complicated the game to unbearable levels, but instead it improves the game on every level. Truly, the implementation of this feature is flawless.
As is par for the course in FPS titles as of late, the AI does not fair as well. When you have commanded your squad to regroup, occasionally one will see an enemy and charge at him Rambo-style. While it may work for Rambo, it doesn’t work for your soldiers, as they have a rather obnoxious tendency to get cut down by a hail of gunfire when they attempt it. But, when they aren’t running into enemy lines of fire, your squad mates tend to do a good job of helping you out and preventing you from being killed. They will attack enemies when they are attacked, move to whatever position you select and hide behind appropriate cover - generally just act like you want them to. Except when they don’t. Then they get themselves killed. Which sucks.
But all of that is just the setup for you to blow stuff up in a variety of ways through the utilization of some rather amazing technology. GRAW takes place in the year 2012. By this time the military is supposed to have upgraded to the latest and greatest infantry technology aimed at giving soldiers on the ground unprecedented intelligence and combat abilities. At your fingertips are UAV drones, the CrossCom, infrared goggles, advanced weaponry, friend/foe identification, and cars that blow up in a big way.
The CrossCom is probably the most important of these technologies- it provides you with a picture in picture display in the top-left of your screen. You use the left and right D-pad buttons to toggle through the different screens, and the up and down D-pad buttons to issue orders. For instance, if you select the UAV drone you will obtain a live top-down view of the battleground over which it is observing, giving you troop movement information. Hit up on the D-pad and the UAV will head to wherever it is you are pointing your gun, hit down on the D-pad and it will head to your location. Say you want to go from the UAV to the rest of your Ghost team. Hit left on the D-pad to select them, then you will get a live feed from their headsets showing you what they are looking, or shooting, at. This is a handy way to see if they are actually following you or not, and quickly checking on their status. Hit up on the d-pad to send them to where you are pointing, or down on the D-pad to have them regroup on your position and start following you. Other selections include Black Hawk helicopters, tanks, and APCs which you may order about at your leisure. The implementation of the CrossCom could have complicated the game to unbearable levels, but instead it improves the game on every level. Truly, the implementation of this feature is flawless.
As is par for the course in FPS titles as of late, the AI does not fair as well. When you have commanded your squad to regroup, occasionally one will see an enemy and charge at him Rambo-style. While it may work for Rambo, it doesn’t work for your soldiers, as they have a rather obnoxious tendency to get cut down by a hail of gunfire when they attempt it. But, when they aren’t running into enemy lines of fire, your squad mates tend to do a good job of helping you out and preventing you from being killed. They will attack enemies when they are attacked, move to whatever position you select and hide behind appropriate cover - generally just act like you want them to. Except when they don’t. Then they get themselves killed. Which sucks.
Enemy AI also have a tendency to get themselves killed for no apparent reason. Whenever there is no gunfire they do a great job of hiding behind cover. However, the second you start shooting at them they will jump up or look behind the side of whatever it is they are hiding behind. For instance, if they are hiding behind a barrel, fire a few shots over the top of it and they’ll inexplicably stand up, look around, and take a round in the face from your gun. It sure makes the game easier, but it can be annoying at times.
One other problem is that this title suffers heavily from ‘Quake 4 Syndrome’, where a game puts into place great squad gameplay mechanics and then needlessly sends you on solo missions. This happens a few times throughout the game, but it’s most aggravating when you board a helicopter with your squad and then are let off in the pitch black to destroy an enemy position by yourself. There’s no gameplay reason to do it, there’s no story reason to do it, there is no reason to do it. These sections detract from the rest of the single player’s quality, and hopefully Ubisoft will decide not to create Rambo-style missions in the future.
Back to how awesome the game is.
The campaign’s presentation is exceptional and heavily reminiscent of King Kong’s narrative style in that action sequences are oftentimes followed by short expository segments that take place as you travel to the next location. Oftentimes story elements are presented as news clips in your CrossCom, or discussions within transport helicopters and APCs. Action is then interspaced with helicopter gunning segments in which you man a machine gun and mow down hordes of enemy soldiers. Remember, this is a next-gen game, so when I say hordes, I mean hordes. Mexican revolutionaries pour from every side, all the while the helicopter weaves under bridges, along roads, and over buildings.
The entire campaign takes place in and around Mexico City, and one of the best things about GRAW’s single player is just how well it flows. You never finish a mission and magically appear halfway across the country. You finish each mission by extracting through an APC or helicopter, and then begin the next mission by landing and getting out. Everything occurs within two days, game time, so there is a definite progression in lighting as the first mission is in broad daylight, then a few missions later it’s twilight, and then it’s utterly pitch black. And then the next mission is morning time, then the afternoon, and so forth. That, combined with how when you travel over Mexico City you see fires erupting, hear gunfire, and look upon a unending swath of buildings, all add up to create a groundbreaking immersive gameplay experience.
Multiplayer is equally impressive, featuring two different modes of play: co-op and adversarial. In co-op you fight alongside up to sixteen fellow Live members through a series of four levels, each of which takes about 20-45 minutes to complete. In many ways higher player counts make the mode harder, as it is then more difficult to communicate with everyone chattering over each other. In a four player game, on the other hand, you can sweep each street carefully whilst remaining in constant contact. Either way it is a true challenge, as the enemy count is not lessened from the campaign’s at all. The only real issue here is that there are only four missions. Even though they are all difficult and reasonably long, there are still but four levels. However, they are also entitled Chapter 1, so it would not be unreasonable to expect future co-op mission packs. As always, though, the question is just how long it will take for those missions to come out.
Adversarial multiplayer is generally the same as in past Ghost Recon titles, except with more customization options. You can play either free for all or team games, with infinite respawns or without. From there you get to pick from too many options to list here, but, suffice to say, there are a lot. Map selection is varied, and map quality is universally high. Gameplay modes include straight up deathmatch style play, in the form of elimination, capture the flag, or rescue the VIP, in which you capture NPC characters and bring them back to your base while trying to steal any NPCs your opponent has captured. All that pales in comparison, however, to the almighty Co-op gametype in which you can set up an infinite swarm of bad guys to swarm your base. If they capture your home point, you lose. There are literally thirty to forty enemies onscreen and rushing your position most of the time; if that’s not next-gen I don’t know what is.
All of this is great, except for one huge, mind-blowing strange exception. There is no cover system in multiplayer. Nada. Zip. Zero. In single player you simply move up against a piece of cover and you will press yourself against it, allowing you to peek around corners and only expose yourself as much as you have to. It works perfectly there… yet it isn’t in the multiplayer! Whether this was a conscious design decision or the unfortunate byproduct of developing this title in two separate studios I don’t know. Regardless, it brings down the multiplayer gameplay. Despite this the online play is a blast, and I’ve had some of my best co-op moments, ever, playing Advanced Warfighter on Live. But I can’t help but wish that there was cover in multiplayer, so here’s hoping for a patch.
Graphics:
The explosions! Advanced Warfighter truly harnesses the power of the Xbox 360 in ways no other title has thus far in the console’s short history. Player models are impossibly detailed and each street has a gritty, lived in feel to it. Enemies ragdoll as one would expect a corpse to after being blasted with a three shot burst, and the explosions you just have to see for yourself. Blowing up helicopters and watching them explode in a debris flinging fireball has never been this much fun. In addition to all this I experienced no framerate issues whatsoever, no matter the amount of action going on or the dozens of enemies being pelted with helicopter fire. There is some minimal pop-in, however, but none of it occurs in the expository sections (hear that, Halo 2?), and it only occurs on occasion.
One other problem is that this title suffers heavily from ‘Quake 4 Syndrome’, where a game puts into place great squad gameplay mechanics and then needlessly sends you on solo missions. This happens a few times throughout the game, but it’s most aggravating when you board a helicopter with your squad and then are let off in the pitch black to destroy an enemy position by yourself. There’s no gameplay reason to do it, there’s no story reason to do it, there is no reason to do it. These sections detract from the rest of the single player’s quality, and hopefully Ubisoft will decide not to create Rambo-style missions in the future.
Back to how awesome the game is.
The campaign’s presentation is exceptional and heavily reminiscent of King Kong’s narrative style in that action sequences are oftentimes followed by short expository segments that take place as you travel to the next location. Oftentimes story elements are presented as news clips in your CrossCom, or discussions within transport helicopters and APCs. Action is then interspaced with helicopter gunning segments in which you man a machine gun and mow down hordes of enemy soldiers. Remember, this is a next-gen game, so when I say hordes, I mean hordes. Mexican revolutionaries pour from every side, all the while the helicopter weaves under bridges, along roads, and over buildings.
The entire campaign takes place in and around Mexico City, and one of the best things about GRAW’s single player is just how well it flows. You never finish a mission and magically appear halfway across the country. You finish each mission by extracting through an APC or helicopter, and then begin the next mission by landing and getting out. Everything occurs within two days, game time, so there is a definite progression in lighting as the first mission is in broad daylight, then a few missions later it’s twilight, and then it’s utterly pitch black. And then the next mission is morning time, then the afternoon, and so forth. That, combined with how when you travel over Mexico City you see fires erupting, hear gunfire, and look upon a unending swath of buildings, all add up to create a groundbreaking immersive gameplay experience.
Multiplayer is equally impressive, featuring two different modes of play: co-op and adversarial. In co-op you fight alongside up to sixteen fellow Live members through a series of four levels, each of which takes about 20-45 minutes to complete. In many ways higher player counts make the mode harder, as it is then more difficult to communicate with everyone chattering over each other. In a four player game, on the other hand, you can sweep each street carefully whilst remaining in constant contact. Either way it is a true challenge, as the enemy count is not lessened from the campaign’s at all. The only real issue here is that there are only four missions. Even though they are all difficult and reasonably long, there are still but four levels. However, they are also entitled Chapter 1, so it would not be unreasonable to expect future co-op mission packs. As always, though, the question is just how long it will take for those missions to come out.
Adversarial multiplayer is generally the same as in past Ghost Recon titles, except with more customization options. You can play either free for all or team games, with infinite respawns or without. From there you get to pick from too many options to list here, but, suffice to say, there are a lot. Map selection is varied, and map quality is universally high. Gameplay modes include straight up deathmatch style play, in the form of elimination, capture the flag, or rescue the VIP, in which you capture NPC characters and bring them back to your base while trying to steal any NPCs your opponent has captured. All that pales in comparison, however, to the almighty Co-op gametype in which you can set up an infinite swarm of bad guys to swarm your base. If they capture your home point, you lose. There are literally thirty to forty enemies onscreen and rushing your position most of the time; if that’s not next-gen I don’t know what is.
All of this is great, except for one huge, mind-blowing strange exception. There is no cover system in multiplayer. Nada. Zip. Zero. In single player you simply move up against a piece of cover and you will press yourself against it, allowing you to peek around corners and only expose yourself as much as you have to. It works perfectly there… yet it isn’t in the multiplayer! Whether this was a conscious design decision or the unfortunate byproduct of developing this title in two separate studios I don’t know. Regardless, it brings down the multiplayer gameplay. Despite this the online play is a blast, and I’ve had some of my best co-op moments, ever, playing Advanced Warfighter on Live. But I can’t help but wish that there was cover in multiplayer, so here’s hoping for a patch.
Graphics:
The explosions! Advanced Warfighter truly harnesses the power of the Xbox 360 in ways no other title has thus far in the console’s short history. Player models are impossibly detailed and each street has a gritty, lived in feel to it. Enemies ragdoll as one would expect a corpse to after being blasted with a three shot burst, and the explosions you just have to see for yourself. Blowing up helicopters and watching them explode in a debris flinging fireball has never been this much fun. In addition to all this I experienced no framerate issues whatsoever, no matter the amount of action going on or the dozens of enemies being pelted with helicopter fire. There is some minimal pop-in, however, but none of it occurs in the expository sections (hear that, Halo 2?), and it only occurs on occasion.
The multiplayer doesn’t live up to the single player’s graphical quality, though. Whereas the single player engine is new, the multiplayer engine is the Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike engine with added bells and whistles. Player models in multiplayer are equal to those of the single player, but environments are less detailed and there are less physics interactions. For instance, when you shoot a car tire in the single player that tire will deflate, causing the car to tilt downward to the side you just blew out. Not so in the multiplayer. The CrossCom is in full-effect in the multiplayer, thankfully, and there is no lag as long as you have a good host. On the whole Ghost Recon looks amazing, but the multiplayer just doesn’t live up to the single player in some ways.
Audio:
Advanced Warfighter’s sound effects are all spot-on and truly capture a sense of being in the middle of a civil war. Sporadic gunfire can be heard in the distance at all times, sniper shots ring out across the streets, and the music sets the mood with an orchestral score that would feel at home in Advent Rising. Voice acting is generally good, though a few characters sound rather unbelievable. The good far outweighs the bad here, as the voice acting nitpick is really the only thing to complain about in this area.
Replay:
Ghost Recon’s campaign will take approximately 5-8 hours to complete, depending on your skill level, but it is an edge of your seat ride the whole way through. Also, it is one of the few games where it is enough fun the first time around to warrant a second play through on a harder difficulty. Multiplayer, on the other hand, is varied enough and has enough features to keep you playing for months, even years. From the single player to the impossibly customizable adversarial gameplay there is just a whole lotta game here.
Audio:
Advanced Warfighter’s sound effects are all spot-on and truly capture a sense of being in the middle of a civil war. Sporadic gunfire can be heard in the distance at all times, sniper shots ring out across the streets, and the music sets the mood with an orchestral score that would feel at home in Advent Rising. Voice acting is generally good, though a few characters sound rather unbelievable. The good far outweighs the bad here, as the voice acting nitpick is really the only thing to complain about in this area.
Replay:
Ghost Recon’s campaign will take approximately 5-8 hours to complete, depending on your skill level, but it is an edge of your seat ride the whole way through. Also, it is one of the few games where it is enough fun the first time around to warrant a second play through on a harder difficulty. Multiplayer, on the other hand, is varied enough and has enough features to keep you playing for months, even years. From the single player to the impossibly customizable adversarial gameplay there is just a whole lotta game here.
Summary:
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter is an excellent game, to say the least. It sets a new watermark for the series in story quality, and features a vast amount of gameplay features, some groundbreaking, that push the franchise to all new highs. But that’s not to say it’s perfect, as there are some nagging issues such as AI and the lack of a cover system in multiplayer. However, despite these problems, it’s not hard to recommend Ghost Recon to anyone with a pulse and an Xbox 360; its production values are sky high, its graphics are exemplary, and the replay value will keep you coming back for months to come. If you have 60 dollars and even a passing interest in shooter titles, get this game.
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter is an excellent game, to say the least. It sets a new watermark for the series in story quality, and features a vast amount of gameplay features, some groundbreaking, that push the franchise to all new highs. But that’s not to say it’s perfect, as there are some nagging issues such as AI and the lack of a cover system in multiplayer. However, despite these problems, it’s not hard to recommend Ghost Recon to anyone with a pulse and an Xbox 360; its production values are sky high, its graphics are exemplary, and the replay value will keep you coming back for months to come. If you have 60 dollars and even a passing interest in shooter titles, get this game.
