A solid alternative to all those cloned FPS'...
Ghost Recon is a series that prides its self over realistic and tactical action and, especially in recent years, maintaining a Hollywood style, action packed storyline. As far as realism is concerned, to the average mainstream gamer this latest instalment to the Ghost Recon series (and the sequel to the critically acclaimed Advanced Warfighter), is one of the most realistic games you'll find on the market today. However, if one looks at some slightly less mainstream titles such as Brothers in Arms and the online shooter Red Orchestra or even at the older Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games it is clear that games can be far more realistic but, sadly, these games don't sell particularly well, especially to consol gamers. On the Hollywood side of things, this Ghost Recon manages to have a decent enough storyline that, although it's hardly likely to keep you on the edge of your seat in suspense, is enough of a reason to kill the hoards of poorly trained enemies. In case you were interested, from what I could gather from my poor attention span to mediocre plots, you play as a Captain in a secret US Special Forces unit, codenamed 'Ghost'. Some Mexicans become angry about something and manage to get hold of some nukes from a Middle-Eastern nation and it's up to you to deal with the threat that eventually leads to US soil. Now that's not exactly the best blurb ever but that's pretty much all you need to know about the situation to stop yourself saying "isn't this a bit pointless?" Sadly, GRAW2 is a very short game and can be finished in around five hours which leaves me wondering why everyone was so irritated at the short length of Call of Duty 4 and yet this went so unnoticed.
Graphically, the game is fantastic in parts and lacking in others. The character models and skins of you and of your fellow Ghost soldiers are fairly brilliant and well detailed but the graphics on enemy soldiers and in the environments are quite poor. Also, the lighting can at times be quite good and at other times appear bland and almost nonexistent. Similarly, the sound in the game can at times be great and at other a bit patchy. For example, the rifle and machinegun sounds and the like are as they should be; a mixture of loud but high-pitched to maintain the realism, but the sound effects for explosions are pretty poor. Also, when you're in a helicopter or around other helicopters in-between levels the sound from their engines and rotor-blades is almost inaudible. On the subject of sound, the voice acting is decent enough as is the script, although the main character, as little as he speaks, sounds like he has a razor blade lodged in his throat.
The gameplay itself is rather intuitive, despite the peculiar control scheme. The game is based around a cover system that requires no button presses but simply a push pf the left stick towards the desired cover, this leaves the controller open to useful squad commands that other games don't have. Thanks to this cover system though, sometimes it can be difficult to get 'dug-in' under fire and under pressure which can get annoying, on the whole though it works well. A feature I quite like, which also adds a bit of realistic detail to the game, is the ability to switch shoulder with your weapon to get a better look at the enemy or to remain in cover better while firing. It doesn't sound like much but it can be very useful, you'll probably know what I mean if you've played a 3rd Peron Shooter before and have found yourself unable to see an enemy over the great hulk of your character. The squad commands are easy to use and make sense. With a tap of "up" on the D-Pad your selected unit moves out and with a tap of "down" they regroup on your position, much like Rainbow Six: Vegas or Brother in Arms. What's clever though is that you can order your units around from three different view points: from your own perspective; from the perspective of the unit; or from an overhead map. This can be really useful if you get separated from your squad. Your infantry allies' AI isn't very good however, although they'll automatically take cover if they come under fire without a word from you, they find it very difficult to actually shoot anything and you'll find yourself doing most of the killing. Even if you pick out a particular enemy for your guys to fire at they'll generally respond with a "can't do that sir" or "can't shoot from here" for no good reason, even if you get your men into cover perfectly parallel to the enemy's. Also, the AI of the enemies isn't very good, although most of the time they'll take cover for a slightly longer period of time if you hit them but fail to kill them, they fail to truly understand suppressive fire (come on, if a PS2 game could do it you'd think a high-budget 360 game could manage it) and as such will leave cover to fire on you even if there's a tank pounding the wall next to them.
The worst fault with the gameplay, however, is that if you're in cover you're pretty much invincible to everything but an attack from behind. Now I don't mean if you're 'clipped' to cover and not firing, just hiding, I mean that if you're clipped to cover but stood up spraying your weapon off with no heed for your personal well-being the enemy seem completely unable to hit you at all. In comparison, standing up in almost exactly the same position with the same amount of your body exposed but not being clipped to cover, warrants certain death. Although this provokes good use of the cover system it simply doesn't make any sense to anyone with any common-sense.
Another issue with the gameplay is that aiming and hitting enemies is far too easy and makes you feel like you're doing very little at all. Although there's no auto-aim, first the enemies are highlighted by a red diamond on the screen and yes, this is supposed to be near-future and everything but to me it just ruins the fun of the game (I think a better idea would be to have these red marks only the overhead map that can be accessed in real time rather than have them on the HUD), after finding these targets all you have to do is line up your giant circle of a cross-hair on the red diamond, whether you can actually see the guy doesn't really matter at all, and then so long as your gun is on a semi-automatic (i.e. firing one round for each pull of the trigger and no more) the enemy will die in a couple of shots. Too easy.
In conclusion, these points, although intrusive, can just about be ignored and don't completely ruin the score of the game. As such, GRAW 2 remains the perfect antidote to those bored of all those FPS' of late and is definitely worth a look, especially if you can pick up a cheap copy or borrow it of a friend.
Graphics: 8
Gameplay: 7
Sound: 6
Online: N/A
Longevity: 6