GRAW has a little bit of everything from the action genre in one package with an innovative way of issuing commands.
In the game you play as Captain Scott Mitchell and command a group of "Ghosts". In 2013 the US president, Mexican president, and Canadian prime minister are at a summit in Mexico City to sign NAJSA (the North American Joint Security Agreement), this would make each country responsible for protecting the borders. Well a group of Mexican revolutionaries have killed the Canadian prime minister are after the US and Mexican presidents. Well now you come in to find and protect the presidents and get the leader of the group who began this coup d'etat. The leader of this group is Carlos Ontiveros who is a son of a famous Mexican general and a student of one of your comrades. It is great to see a war game that isn't set in WWII or the middle east.
The game plays out from the third person point of view, however there is an option for first person, but while in this it is harder to tell if you're in cover all the way. You have to use cover if you want to get anywhere in the game. The cover system is decent but if you've played Gears Of War it will will seem archaic, but doable. You enter cover by just pushing up against it or hit Y near it, to exit push back on the analog stick or hit Y. You can also climb some cover and other barriers by hitting Y. Some things you shouldn't have to hit a button to climb such as a curb, it's anything but fluid as well. Some of the cover you get behind can be shot apart like a stack of barrels which is how it should be. The controls aren't very confusing and the training mission irons out the details. Changing weapons is a bit on the annoying side but you won't need to change that much. To change you have to hold the B button and then select what you want. You can only hold a main weapon, aka a machine gun or sniper, then you also have a M9 handgun, and smoke and frag grenades. Issuing commands to your squad is a breeze. Basically you just aim were you want them to go and just press up on the d-pad, to bring them back to you just hit down on the d-pad. You can also open up the map and send them to a specific location. If your cursor is on an enemy and you press up, this will issue the command to attack, if your aiming at a downed teammate and press up it will issue one of the other teammates to heal. You can hit the LB button and they'll enter an attack mode of sorts, they'll stay ahead of you and shoot at any enemies the see, no questions asked. You can also control vehicles, but not directly. You control them the same way you do your team. If you're in command of a tank or helicopter basically all they can do is attack so you just find enemies and tell them to take them out. You also have this thing called a UAV 3 Cypher. It is a radar type thing that you can send anywhere in the outside levels to find your enemies. To find them you hit the LB button to put it in detect mode which lowers it and it scans the surrounding area, while in this mode though in can be shot down as it's lower to the ground. It is hard to tell when the UAV is getting shot at so you have to pay attention to it when you use it. When it finds any enemies they show up as red diamonds and will show up on your HUD until you take them out. Your teammates show up as blue diamonds, allies as green diamonds, and the objective as a yellow square. This is a great feature of the game and very innovative, just so you know this is the Cross-Com which gets a lot of buzz too. During missions you'll have a screen in your HUD which shows you what your teammates are seeing. When you're in a vehicle between levels you will also get news feeds through the Cross-Com delving more into the story.
The game's levels are varied with most levels taking place in downtown Mexico City or factories and others taking place in the rural areas outside of Mexico City, it is very odd however that in the city you see no civilians. The objectives are also varied, it doesn't feel like you're just being led along by the developer. Sometimes you'll have to take out a roadblock so your tanks can get through, or a mission where you're out to destroy the enemie's equipment, or rescue someone. The city is very open ended in the way you get to your destination. You can go through the streets or take the back alleys. The game offers you all types of action. Like every action game it has a mounted gun shooting sequence however this one is enjoyable as your team also helps. One of the most memorable moments is towards the end of the game. You are manning the machine gun in a helicopter as you fly around a few blocks surrounding a shanty town and factory. Meanwhile there are two enemy helicopters going after you and tons of on foot soldiers and vehicles gunning for you. You're not always commanding and working with a team. On some missions you'll go in alone, usually on infiltration missions.
Your teammates are pretty dumb. Sometimes they just won't get into cover when they're be shot at or won't get into it when you tell them to. When you command them to attack and enemy or vehicle and a building or other obstacle is in the way they'll just give up without trying to get in a different position. Your teammates don't die to often though but usually it is due to their stupidity. The enemies are challenging, especially on the hard difficulty. They stay in cover and shoot at you from there, however it's funny to kill one of them and then another just runs and gets where the dead soldier lays, he's dead so maybe someone is aiming there. Idiot. They will do things like this every now and then but for the most part they aren't stupid. On hard it seems that the enemies only aim for you and not your teammates. The games pacing is great until the last few levels which seem hard just to be hard. I don't know what it is about them that makes it harder, maybe the enemies just shoot faster, more accurately. On hard the game is a expletive, especially in the last five or so levels you'll die countless times trying to perfect your methods. Your team also gets less helpful on hard, as they tend to become more of a liability then being helpful.
Multiplayer is a big part of this game. It supports up to sixteen players in the multiplayer and co-op campaigns. There are a ton of modes all of which can be edited to the smallest detail. You can make any game type and then take it online. There are also a big list of maps available and they contain different types of settings and times of the day which changes the tactics on each map. There are a few different classes to pick from although they don't change it up too much. There are also some great co-op missions thrown in the mix. Also available through Xbox Live Marketplace is a pack which adds four new co-op missions, new multiplayer maps, weapons, and the ability to change the time of the day to the maps.
GRAW has some great graphics to back up it's superb gameplay. The levels are very detailed, especially in the cities. When riding in the helicopter and looking down at the city you realize this is only possible in the next generation. The city is huge and the buildings are all super detailed, and it'll be a hard to find a building that is duplicated. The lighting is superb, the sunlight shimmers of the buildings, you'll be blinded if you look straight into the sun. It is easy to remember the train station because of it's unique lighting. The ceiling is made of glass tiles and the sun shines down and creates shadows of the tiles, the fans on the side of the building leave shadows. The explosions are some of the best in any game. The soundtrack is amazing, it's not noticeable for the most part but when you're in a firefight or the action ramps up so does the orchestral score. In some of the helicopter rides you'll also listen to some modern rock for good measure. The voice overs are good and as they should be, but the mouths don't match up the majority of the time if at all. This isn't a glaring flaw but come on people this is the next generation and you got everything else spot on! On a separate note load times are super short. The longest one is when you load up to the main menu. In the game the cutscenes I don't think ever past ten seconds.
You'll finish GRAW in no time, it took me about six and a half hours to beat the first time, the mulitplayer will keep you enticed longer than most though and there is also the co-op campaign which should keep you busy a while. Going back through the game on hard is definitely challenging and if you love achievements will be worth it. Speaking of achievements most of them are fairly easy to attain. About half of the games achievements are for beating the single player mode on normal and hard, the rest are multiplayer and co-op with most not taking too much time to earn. There are a few though that you'll never get, these being climbing to the top of the multiplayer and single player leader boards.
If you own a 360 you need to own this game. It has set the standard for all tactical shooters and any game with online multiplayer. Thanks for reading and tell me what you thought of it.