Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2

7.0
Good

Gameplay	7.0	"A tactical shooter that does nothing new."
Graphics	7.0
Sound	7.0
Value	6.0

By Morgan Bates

The original Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter on Xbox 360 and PC was a visual masterpiece as far as tactical shooters go. Since then we have seen the release of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas. The oldest series in tactical shooters has blown everything else away with precise aiming. Now Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 is looking to reclaim the top tactical shooter spot, as well as the longest game title ever award.

From the outset things look promising; Grin has developed a PC-specific version instead of releasing a half-baked console port, and the system requirements aren’t too high (anyone with a high end PC can run it). The rest of us will have to put up with frame rate dips, even on the lowest settings. However, anyone who has the high PC specs needed, or has tried it on Xbox 360 and are looking to get the PC version should be aware that this isn’t as easy as its arcade-centric console counterpart. In fact, the AI is much smarter and you will die, a lot.

This is a tactical shooter after all, and as such it only takes a few hits to die. On top of this, there are no means of healing you or your often incompetent team mates. For instance; ordering them to attack usually entails watching them get picked off one by one. Alternatively, you can order them to go on recon (reconnaissance) mode and they will find the enemies for you to take out.

When it comes to guns you’re at no shortage of fire arms to pick up once you run out of ammo, as every enemy drops a gun when taken out. Almost every weapon is armed with a scope and a single-shot firing mode, making it easier to take headshots on unsuspecting hostiles. These also help in fire fights as using rapid fire modes force your gun up, resulting in wasted ammunition.

One thing that helps to relieve the frustration is the save system: it auto-saves every time you complete a mission objective. If you feel you could have done a better job, you can go back to the last save and replay the objective. The down side is you may end up repeating the same mission objective several times.

Fortunately, early missions are based in a town providing plenty of buildings to sneak around and catch hostiles off guard. On the easier difficulty settings it gets very unrealistic; say you’ve got a hostile hiding behind a car so only his legs are visible. No problem: you can bring him down with a couple of shots to his legs. That said, this is still strictly for the hardened tactical-shooter fans.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 doesn’t deviate from the tactical shooter formula, including the bad traits of the genre: bad ally AI and surprise deaths. Casual gamers may want to check out the Xbox 360 version for an easier introduction to the series, while veterans will find a challenging, if sometimes frustrating, game.

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