Single player game is great, but it's over too soon.
The story centers on a meeting of the US, Mexican, and Canadian Presidents in Mexico City. During the summit, Mexican rebels attack the conference. It’s then up to you to rescue the President by commanding a four-man squad of the US Army’s most elite soldiers: the Ghosts.
GAMEPLAY
Ghost Recon has come a long way since its days on the PC. GRAW is the most realistic military shooter I have ever played. The setting is so realistic that I often found myself ducking in real life to avoid bullets. You can really get a feel for how intense modern infantry combat really is.
The controls work very well, and allow you do to a wide variety of moves with your character. My only complaint is that your team members aren’t the brightest soldiers. You can only issue basic commands to them as a group, and you can’t give individual orders for flanking maneuvers. This means that you’ll be doing most of the legwork. But for the most part they are effective at finding cover, and distracting the enemy enough for you to flank them.
Since this is a tactical shooter, it’s not very accessible. There’s a lot of trial-and-error progress through GRAW, and that will mean some controller breaking if you’re easily frustrated. The tutorial is also very basic, and really only gives you the run down on the controls. More advanced techniques will need to be discovered by yourself.
GRAPHICS
Jaw-dropping visuals abound in GRAW. From the moment you start up the first mission, you’re bombarded with stunning visuals that really make you feel like you’re in a war zone. GRAW has outstanding reflections, texture resolution, particle effects, and lighting. Everything about this game screams next-generation. The only downside to the graphics is that they’re so good it’s almost required that you have an HDTV setup to get the most out of it.
SOUND
The music is also top-notch stuff. All the sound effects are very realistic, and make you feel like you’re on the front lines. If you have a good bass system you can actually feel the thump of the explosions, and feel the danger of bullets flying past you. The music also fits very well with a lot of thumping beats, and some rock music when flying in helicopters. The voice acting is very well done, and all the voices have that certain level of stress that you’d expect them to have in a combat zone.
VALUE
The single player campaign is about 10 to 15 hours long. Which is standard for the genre. But it’s only worth playing through once. Maybe twice on hard if you’re a sucker for pain. No joke, the enemy AI is brutal on hard difficulty. The real lasting value in GRAW is the online multiplayer. It’s fun, but like most online games, it’s only as good as the people playing it. If you get people who don’t know how to play, it usually devolves into a zerg-fest that feels more like Halo than Tom Clancy.
My only real complaint about the game is that the single playing campaign is so short, and that there’s no unlockables. Which means that it’s replay value is low. But for the short time I had with playing the game, it was a roller coaster of a ride. GRAW sets a new standard for military shooters, and should be a welcome addition to any action fan’s library.