Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5558 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Released on: 2007-07-12
• ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
• Platform: Windows XP

Customer Reviews

Close but so frustrating!
I had high hopes for this game but I have to say I'm disappointed. It's pretty much the same game as last time although the orders system has been slightly improved and now includes the circles that show exactly where your men will go. If they bother to move or don't get stuck in some invisible collision that is. This was always in the 360 version and I don't understand why Grin, the PC developers, decided to remove it in the first place. Another thing the Xbox has and the PC still shockingly lacks is the ability to climb over small walls. If the ledge is more than 6 inches you're going to have to make your elite spec ops guy shuffle around.
Another moan I have is with the map view. You can use it to spot hidden enemies, very useful. But you have no way of communicating that information to your AI team-mates. Even if there's a guy standing on the other side of the wall you can't say "attack him". All you can do his send you man around the corner and hope he fires first when the two meet. Chances are he won't because he'll be walking backwards. And don't bother trying to use his remote cam to see what he can see, it'll be looking off somewhere to the right while he's firing at bad guys!
More AI hilarity...tell your men to fire at an attacking helicopter and sometimes they actually will! But then watch as the chopper circles round behind them while they continue firing at the empty sky in front. And the enemy AI isn't much better. Sometimes you can walk right up to them without a reaction, or shoot the guys standing around them and they won't even flinch. Other times you're dead before you know it because some crack shot who you can't see because he's not within the draw distance has just taken your head off. You'll speed through the early levels but be hitting the reload key 100 times on the later ones as the only way to get through is to learn where the enemy spawn.
Ok other new features. You occasionally get to use air strikes and artillery. Both quite cool but you rarely get the chance to use them. The other thing is the Mule, an unmanned equipment transporter. In real life it's called the Crusher (the Mule is a different vehicle) and can scale 4 foot walls and travel cross rough ground at high speed. In this game it moves at 2 mph and is flummoxed by a slight incline. Most of the time it refuses to move.
So I've written a lot complaining about this game. Some good points? It looks pretty but is still missing a lot of eye candy from the 360 version for no good reason. Also some objects such as trucks have extremely low res textures. Great explosions though and your team is well detailed. And it's still fun which is why it's so annoying that it has these faults! I'm not sure if I'm being harsh giving this just 3 stars. It's one of the best examples of the genre but that's why the faults bother me so much. It was good enough for me to want to play till the end and I haven't tried the Multiplayer yet so perhaps I'll update this afterwards. It could have been amazing. But it's not and that's a shame.

(Edit) After further consideration I've decided this still deserves 4 stars despite all my moaning! The choice of insertion points adds some replay value and multiplayer looks pretty good with some variety!

(Another Edit!) No, i was right the first time. Just restarted the campaign, within seconds one of my men got stuck in the scenery and refused to go to his waypoint. It took 3 attempts to unstick him by making him walk backwards and he set off towards where i'd told him to go. Then instead of turning round the corner he walked straight on for about 50 meteres in the wrong direction towards the enemy roadblock, shouted "i'm hit!" then promptly died. Pathetic! 3 stars is generous. Please don't let Grin do another of these Ubisoft.

Better...
Just a note before we start, I am an existing fan of the Ghost Recon/Rainbow 6 games and have enjoyed all of them (expect Lockdown), so there probably is some bias in this review, however I have tried to objective.

The gameplay is similar to GRAW - Ghosts vs Rebels/Terrorists, first person shooter, but the display is prettier and has an easier command interface. It took a while to get it working with my kit - Vista Home Premium, Core Duo E6600 CPU, BFG 768mb 8800GTX GPU, 2Gb RAM - I encountered issues with antialiasing, however setting the NVidia card to let the game choose its display methods fixed this.

When I installed this game (20/07/2007), I also installed a patch which was available and I would expect a couple more out in the next few months to continue to address AI issues (there are many!). I have not experienced any major crashes or bugs.

From a gaming perspective I agree with the other reviews on the AI, it can be frustrating at times, and the gameplay can be incredibly difficult, however anyone whose played any of the other Ghost Recon/Rainbow 6 series of games will know the one shot, one kill (both you and the enemy) is standard for the Tom Clancy games.

From a hardware position, this game will not make me buy the additional Agiea physics card that enhances the explosions/debris etc as there is still not enough other software support for this card and my existing kit is fast enough to play at a high detail level.

The wide choice of weapon load out, kit selection and alternative insertion points mean you can choose to go in all guns blazing or take a more stealthy route and this results in plenty of replay opportunities. The maps are reasonably open and the detail is very good, and overview tactical 'satellite' type views with zoom are available to spot enemy ahead of enegagement.

Played some of multiplayer options (game utilises the GameSpy logon, you will need an account, but this can be done inside the game), but being a noobie to the game it's still difficult without decent map knowledge. I will be trying the co-operative play when I get used to the game, this type of team play is great fun online with a few friends.

Overall if you are a fan of the series, this is one for the collection; if you are new to the Tom Clancy games and you have a reasonbly specified PC, you may want to try Rainbow 6 Vegas first.

GRAW2 - Back to old school and all the better for it!
Ubisoft made massive error with Ghost Recon 2, transforming the tried, tested and popular stealth and strategy based format for a very arcade-like shooter patronising it's usual patrons by playing for a much larger target audience. Many hoped they wouldn't do the same with the release of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, but hardcore fans were disappointed.

Whilst the PC release of GRAW was fun, it fell far short of the original title in terms of quality gameplay and if you had played the Xbox 360 version you would have felt very hard-done by. PC gamers used to be focus of Ubisoft's efforts, but the PC release of GRAW, like Ghost Recon 2, really did feel like a second consideration on the part of Ubisoft. The decision to write the PC version with a different graphics engine and different maps should have enhanced the PC version but actually left it lagging far behind its console counterparts with unrealistic maps (compared to Xbox 360s almost accurate playable maps of Mexico city) and didn't even share many of the cool features that set them apart (guns with cameras to see around corners, heat-vision, optional third person for firing from cover, using the Helicopters machine gun, etc.).

Maintaining the GR2 theme of arcade style shooter become a touch more forgivable given GRAW's enticing plot and the fact it felt far too fast for a strategy based element (with it all taking place inside one 48 hour battle in and around Mexico city), but for many this was still disappointing.

GRAW2, however, gives the PC gamer hope. Like it's predecessor, GRAW2 also differs vastly from her console variants (and again doesn't share many of their great features) but does at least take back alot of what made the original Ghost Recon so great. There is at least a portion of strategy -based play returned to the game. Whilst you can't plan the missions like many hardcore gamers might prefer most missions do require you, as Mitchell (yes you are still forced to play only as Mitchell) to make vital decisions that will effect the way you play the mission (straight in guns blazing or with stealth) and the way the mission plays out at certain markers. The pace is turned right down on most missions and urgency is replaced by the need to do it right. You can now control more (well, one more) unit in your squad and they aren't as bloody stupid as they are in GRAW, as well as a squad of Mexican loyalists in some missions. Also, Abrams when under your control move and behave like Abrams MBTs rather than a block of metal on wheels that might have squealed across the Somme!

In conclusion GRAW 2 is a good game, much better than the original GRAW and returns the fan to some of the features of the original. But unlike the original GRAW2 will not provide you with hundreds of hours worth of gameplay. Any gamer worth his salt will complete this quickly, there aren't that many missions and they are not that hard (with the notable exception of the finale), and probably won't play it that often subsequently, whereas Ghost Recon kept me at least hooked for years. But is this a feature of modern gaming what with high game output these days in the gaming industry?

Overall - 85%