Beautiful graphics, lengthly campaign, and addicting online multiplayer add up to make another solid ghost recon title.
Ghost Recon was already quite possibly the best video game series from the Tom Clancy name, and now that Ubisoft has released its next installment, the series has gotten a heck of a lot better. Ubisoft takes full advantage of the 360's power showing us some simply gorgeous visuals and a smooth, highly polished gameplay experience which seems like it could be the best 360 title out yet.
Story
In Advanced Warfighter, you play as Scott Mitchell, a captain of the elite ghosts. This time around, you are sent to Mexico City with tasks such as guarding leaders of areas such as Mexico and the US. Basically, some mexicans came in and attacked the summit, killing the Canadian Prime Minister, causing both the Mexico and the United State's Presidents go to missing. Throughout the campaign, you will be looking for them, guarding them, and taking them to extraction zones. But don't worry, you won't have to worry about the presidents on every mission. Advanced Warfighter features many mission where you and a squad of ghosts are either hunkering down at a specific point defending it, or just clearing out parts of the city in general. The game gives you a really good mix of infantry combat, and smaller, more tactical battles scattered through the campaign.
Gameplay
In the original Ghost Recon, all it featured was the weaponless first person view. Then, in Ghost Recon 2, Ubisoft gave us a whole new view on the game using what is called the OTS (over the shoulder) view. In Advanced Warfighter, it also features this OTS view, as well as the classic first person view. So, this is probably the first thing you'll notice. For you Ghost Recon 2 lovers, you'll be pleased to know they haven't changed that part a bit.
Except for the OTS view, you'll notice a few little details they added in the game, one being the new HUD. The HUD in Advanced Warfighter is incredibly interesting. We now have a useful little tool in the upper right and left hand corners of the screen called the cross-com, which let's us see exactly what our squad mates are doing. So on the upper left hand side, you'll see what's happening through your team-mate's eyes, whereas on the upper right corner, you will see a screen which shows you your captains throwing new objectives at you all over the place. Here's an example of the cross-com: Say you call for a backup chopper to come give you some machine gun cover fire. When that helicopter arrives, the cross com screen will pop up on the left hand side, and you'll see that one big area of the city through the eyes of a soldier manning the minigun from the chopper. You give it the order to shoot, and the soldier shoots the crap out of any soldier he can see from the air. The cross com not only works for this, but it also helps out alot when you can't find enemies. If you're having trouble seeing where some are, call for a chopper, then look on your cross com and you'll notice them right off the bat.
The subject of finding hidden enemies leads to another major addition to the Ghost Recon series, and this one helps out quite a bit. Enemy soldiers are now highlighted in red diamonds, whereas fellow soldiers are highlighted in green diamonds. This will help out alot, as Advanced Warfighter will throw many, many enemies at you at once, and sometimes it can get tough trying to find them all to pick them off with your rifle. This red diamond feature works on the cross com as well. If there is an enemy in the distance, ask for a chopper to hover over the area, and you'll see all the red diamonds scattered throughout the buildings.
A very minor, but still cool improvement was some of the camera movements. Like I said before, the OTS view hasn't changed, but when you are running as fast as you can across the city, your HUD shakes a little bit, giving the game a very immpressive, realistic touch. The HUD also does this kind of static effect when you are getting shot, like it's about to malfunction or something, but it quickly goes back to normal when you get back to cover. Both of these things are really cool additions that just make the game more immersive in general.
Player control is quite easy to handle. A couple of the controls have changed but that's about it. Instead of using the D-Pad to crouch, you now click down the left thumbstick. And now, you can walk into anything you want and your soldier will cover behind it, and you can peek around the corner, shoot, and quickly lean back into cover with ease. This feature works very smoothly as well.
One more minor tweak they came up with was the change of the aiming reticle. It's alot larger than it used to be, but when you start running, the large, yellow circle dissapears, leaving you to aim with your gun alone. Its a little hard to explain, but it's just another thing you'll notice when looking at your HUD. The gun recoil works just fine, so it's nothing to worry about at all. I personally like this aiming reticle better than the original.
As for guns, Ubisoft certainly knows how to make firing one very satisfying. The vibration of the controller goes just perfect with every shot, and the gunshot animations and sounds are fantastic, so you'll really feel like you're firing a gun. Simple as that.
Graphics
The graphical achievements of Advanced Warfighter really amazed me. Put it this way, you won't find a game that looks this good anywhere. Not on your pc, not any other 360 games, nothing. This game looks beautiful and I for sure have never seen anything like it.
The main thing you'll notice about the graphics is how well the city is detailed. You can tell they put so much time into Mexico City because it looks flat out amazing. The draw distance rocks, so you'll see humdreds of buildings and skyscrapers blocks and blocks away, and there is just so much originality in each of the building models and everything. It really does make you feel like you're walking around a massive metropolis. The only kind of strange thing about the city was that it contains no civilians walking around. I mean, there's plenty of random cars around, and as I said, hundreds and hundreds of original building models, but there's just no people walking around at all besides you, your squad, and the enemies. I don't think this much of a big problem at all, but it's just a little thing I noticed while playing. Even still, the city looks incredibly realistic. I've never seen anything like it.
After that, there's still all the character models and let me tell you, they are stunning. All of the ghost's and enemy's outfits are extraordinarily detailed and they just look completely flawless. Even the shadowing and lighting is incredible, and most of the time gamers barely notice stuff like this. All of these jaw dropping visuals really immerse you into a whole new world of gaming like it's never been done before.
Sound
Sound effects in Ghost Recon are pretty decent for sure. Explosions are pretty frickin' loud, as well as the gunshots. I think the best thing in the sound department would be the voice overs and the explosions. The gunshots are good, but just not as good as listening to the embassy exploding and crashing to the ground, or listening to your soldiers bark out orders to you.
Replay Value
Ghost Recon = TONS of replay value. This is true because of its very addicting online multiplayer. It features 16 players over xbox live, and most of the gametypes are team based stuff. Like CTF, Team DeathMatch, and also online co op missions which are really enjoyable as well. If you've played Ghost Recon 2, you'll know how it is. It's pretty tough though if you've been playing games like halo or perfect dark zero. You can't get shot 76 times with a gun in this game. It's like Call of Duty 2 on Veteran, but all the time. 2 shots, and you're gone. It's as quick as that. Victories are earned by being tactical and using strategies with your team, rather than trying to run and gun your way through, because trust me, it won't work one bit.
Say you don't have xbox live? So what. The single player is so freaking enjoyable that you can go back and play over and over and it can't get old. Since the enviroment is so massive and non linear, you can beat missions many different ways using tons of different paths to complete objectives. This also gives you a chance to explore the huge, gorgeous city some more.
Conclusion
In the end, it looks like Ubisoft has released another hard hitting, perhaps the hardest hitting Ghost Recon title yet. All of these awesome new gameplay features like the cross com, added with the revolutionary graphics, then throw in the addicting online multiplayer and you have yourself a solid tactical shooter, which is a must buy for any 360 owner out there. Especially if you're already a Ghost Recon 2 fan.