Great flair, but has retarded AI and needs $1600 system to run.
This is the department where GRAW excels in. The grainy texture with the yellow hue filtered throughout the levels truly capture the atmosphere of a counter-terrorist operation in the sandy/dusty conditions of Central America. The loading screens are superb, with fluid translucent displays and HUD-like text boxes. These are the first steps towards preparing the player to an adrenaline-hyped thriller that is in GRAW.
Another great aspect in the graphics department, if your video card and processor and RAM could handle it, is the draw distance of the game. If able, you will be able to see an entire city with towering buildings, shrubs, sidewalks, and low-walls without a cut-off point in your horizon. This is an amazing sight, since most games' short draw distances will result in a sudden disappearance of faraway objects, whereas GRAW lets you see the Central American cities almost as though you were there.
If your system is powerful enough to run GRAW at max video options and with a decent frame-rate, then you'll be in gaming heaven... that is, until you reach the realization of the 10 year old AI.
Sound: 9/10
Without a driving music soundtrack to a suspense thriller, what do you get? An overpriced ad. In GRAW's case, the music is quite fitting; for example, when you're engaging in a firefight, the uptempo music kicks in, accompanying your adrenaline rush. However, a slight drawback to the good soundtrack is the quite limited number of tracks, so after several hours of continued gameplay, each firefight sort of blends into each other in a whirlwind of monotonous action.
The sfx and surround sound is amazing, with the explosions of the grenades and rocket launchers being the highlights. But don't completely ignore the gunfire, especially the whizzing noise of bullets shooting past you. By the way, do bullets actually make such a loud (and distracting) noise? ;)
Gameplay: 5/10
Classics and masterpieces come with smooth graphics, realistic sound, and lastly, enduring and captivating gameplay that simply sucks the player into devoting hours and hours into playing the game. During their sleep the player would be dreaming of shooting monsters or planning their next move in a turn. While eating breakfast, they would be hurrying to finish so they could squeeze in that 15 minutes of gameplay. And at school or work, he'll be so distracted that his colleagues would think he is reminiscing of his first date.
Unfortunately, GRAW completely misses that mark of a masterpiece. As stated above, it may have stunning graphics and exciting sound, but so does a movie, and how many times do you watch a James Bond movie? Quite simply put, GRAW resembles a movie far too much.
First, the missions are quite linear in the sense that the game forces you to choose to go left or right, then having an almost fixed response to either choice. So no matter how many times you go through that arch, even waiting behind it for different lengths of time, there's still going to be that terrorist lurking on the other side of it. Also, the game wasn't designed to take into account the eyesight of the HUMAN eye. I simply don't understand how a terrorist could spot a tiny, camouflaged head peeking out of a bush from 100 meters away and immediately start firing. Since GRAW's supposed to emulate reality, I don't understand how that terrorist could be so sure I'm not a teammate of his or simply a bird.
Second, the AI is downright stupid. For example, you shoot a terrorist at a distance, but his buddy just 20 feet away takes no notice of the fact that his friend just got wiped out. That's the good news. The bad news? Well, look no further than your OWN teammates, who will run straight into enemy fire and 9 times out of 10 won't retreat... until you go to all the effort to "order" him to move. It's as if the game's designed so that your teammates aren't bright enough to realize that they need to MOVE WITH CAUTION through a heavily defended area. Instead, they make a beeline to your first intended target.
Finally, your teammates are actually quite difficult to control, since a "move" command could have them facing a wall or in the opposite direction where the enemies are approaching. And usually, they won't correct their position until they get hit, which is far too late, since in GRAW it takes only about 3 shots to down your teammates.
All in all, these major flaws in the gameplay completely ruins any enjoyment in watching such great graphics and the innovative idea of teamwork in first person shooters at work.
Value: 3/10
The reason that I have specifically detailed out value is because GRAW's stability is downright horrid. Expect crashes or bugs every half and hour or so unless you bought your PC yesterday and it's literally top of the line. I personally used a P4 3.0 Ghz with 1024 Mb of RAM and a Radeon 9600 XT 256 Mb video card and GRAW crashed at least 3 times over a 3 hour period, and 15 minutes was spent on loading times as well. So it comes down to: what is the point of an amazing visual experience for 25 minutes, then rebooting either GRAW or you PC itself, and renewing the cycle again? Especially when there will be plenty of moments where you'll feel like shooting your own teammates or physically hurting the terrorist who was hidden behind a ledge until he shot you in the back as you unknowingly walked by.
The online mode has as many bugs as an Amazonian jungle. However, the number of STABLE servers with players participating in it are as rare as a civilized monkey IN that jungle. Anyways, you get the picture, and it ain't pretty.
Pros: Great visuals, good sound, and excellent array of weaponry.
Cons: Horrible AI, highly unstable, and very very buggy.