Customer Reviews

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 [Download]

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm a soldier who returned from Iraq about a year and a half ago and ever since I've been looking for a good TACTICAL shooter to play for the PC. I've had many people tell me that counter strike is about as tactical as it gets. What the heck where they thinking? Counter strike has snipers moving right to left to avoid being shot and suffering no penalty for their movements. You'll see guys running around "bunny hopping" accurately throwing rounds down range its just crazy. In GRAW2 that junk is non-existent.

TACTICAL ASPECT
Graw2 uses a lot of excellent tactical features that I know a lot soldiers, police officers or just gun enthusiasts would like to see in a game. After playing Counter strike I can appreciate things like being able to lay prone in a grassy area and pick people off. You can crouch and even run while in a crouched position! Which is great for doing (MOUT) Military Operations in Urban Terrain or even bounding to assault an enemy position. This game also lets you utilize cover to its fullest advantage. You can peek right or left to take out enemies while not compromising your cover or concealment, whichever you may have. One of the more controversial aspects of this game is the fact that they're is no jumping what so ever. I personally like this features because it keeps players from utilizing the "bunny hopping" strategy. Nothing frustrates me more than being gunned down by a guy with an M4 Carbine thats jumping all over the place. Try that in real life and see how accurate you are :P But I will admit it can be annoying not being able to jump over some of the minor obstacles in the game. What's also awesome is once you take fire with a click of button you can hit the ground and immediately start moving left or right to pop up in a new location and steal the element of surprise from your would be ambusher. This only works on the Multiplayer though, theres no fooling NPC's :P. I've also used a lot of the scopes in the game such as the EOTech and ACOG and I can honestly say they're replication is spot on. While looking through the optics, everything looked exactly like it did in Real Life. I also like the added touch of when you run, you put your weapon away. They're is no running and shooting in this game. Which to me makes sense. Some would argue that running and shooting is great for laying down suppressive fire, but who's gonna keep they're head down when the rounds are landing no where near you. Nice touch GRIN.

GAMEPLAY
This game has been criticized for being to slow, and rightly so. It is a slow game and if your into the run and gun genre like unreal and counter strike it may not be for you. I do enjoy run and gun here and there but this was a nice change to have something a little more realistic. But those who like to form strategy's and be more methodical and calculating will truly appreciate this game. The graphics are pretty good but they are nothing to brag about. I've only played the game on Medium graphics because a glitch in the game will not let you upscale to high settings. But they are aware of this and working on a patch as we speak. The single player game is pretty interesting and difficult. You control a ghost recon team thats fighting a war against Mexican rebels invading American. Your first mission places you in Juarez attacking a militant camp, your mission is to neutralize the rebels and destroy their weapons cache. Too appease the more skilled players you can complete missions with various awards such as "marksman, man of steel" to name a few and they're are four total and they are difficult to accomplish.

MULTIPLAYER
Multiplayer is where the money is at. They have all your typical multiplayer matches such as death match, team death match, hamburger hill, king of the hill, tug of war, complete objective, Siege, and Recon vrs Assault. This makes for a whole lot of multiplayer player content. The recon vrs assault is the most intuitive of them all. The ghosts have the difficult mission of destroying the Rebel Anti-Air vehicles they're are 4 total. The opposing side playing the rebels has an easy mission: Kill the ghosts. The catch is that once a ghost dies he's dead until an Anti-Air vehicle is destroyed than all ghosts re spawn again. The Mexican rebels re spawn during the whole game. Up the ghost sleeves is high tech gadgetry and the ability to "tag" Mexican rebels. This enables all ghosts on your team to see the rebel on the mini map and effectively move to neutralize them. On the Rebels side is the "scrambler" who can de-tag fellow rebels. It's a difficult game of cat and mouse that will challenge both sides and ultimately the side with the best team work will win the day. Always remember when moving as a team in whole or even a squad, all it takes to wipe everyone out is a well placed M203 grenade and you can say goodbye. Another touch that may bother people is the game comes with the team speak server client. Yes, that means you'll be connecting to team speak if you want to talk to others on your team. When I installed the game it told me team speak was a 2 week trial which upon ending it sounded like I'd have to pay if I wanted to continue to talk to team members over team speak. I personally like this once again because after playing Counter Strike for a while, I've seldom ever heard anyone use the mic to coordinate attacks or talk strategy. Yes I'm sure some clans will do it, but I'm talking about just joining up to your standard public server. Most of the time Counter Strike microphone chat turns into a public insult fest with everyone trash talking and making fun of lesser players to feel more important, because they themselves don't amount to much in real life. I can appreciate not having to listen to dumb people hurl insults while yelling and completely ruining the game for me. Especially when in counter strike and GRAW2 being able to hear your opponents approaching is key to survival. It's not that big of a setback, my friends and I use Xfire to chat and I imagine clans and friends will find alternate forms of communication as well. The biggest problem with the multiplayer so far is the community isn't very large yet. Don't get me wrong I've NEVER had a problem finding a game but they're are a lot of empty servers on the list. Hopefully that will change in the following months.

SYNOPSIS
This is a great tactical shooter for the reasons stated above and I give it 5 stars. Some say BF 2142 is similar in the sense that you can lay in the prone and do other things. But that game is so unstable that you might as well be gambling on your entertainment for the evening, will the game crash or will you have several solid hours of gaming? who knows. But its not as tactical as GRAW2. Once again it is a slower paced shooter and for some I think they'll find its just not their cup of tea. I recommend downloading the demo at www.ghostrecon.com its only a single player demo that will have you playing the first mission described above. More importantly however, is if your interested, it will give you a chance to try it out and see if you like the game play and controls. Like I said its not everyones cup of tea :) thanks for your time! See you in game maybe! :P

Winnebago_Man

This game is *much* shorter than the original, with many more bugs. I was very disappointed because I really loved the original and have played it several times. Even though I'm using an "approved" video card, I had several crashes that would knock me completely out of the game, which is very annoying when you're about to finish a level. In the last mission, I found that I couldn't even use the satellite (overhead) view since it would cause a crash. I've actually given up on completing the last level until Ubisoft releases another patch.
That said, the action is very good. The missions are similar to the original and in the same setting. If you enjoyed the first one, you like this one too.

I was a big fan of the Ghost Recon games many years ago. This game is at best a slight evolution, really several years behind the curve. The graphics are decent, with bushes and leaves to try to conceal onself in. But there are no open fields or large hills and long distances or other nice terrain features that GR1 had. The maps here are ok, but there could be more.

The single player mission is passable; but the AI has near perfect aim. Not at all like what terrorists in Mexico would likely have in a real battle with US SF troops.

In multiplayer mode, most servers prohibit grenade launchers, which makes sense; but the soldier is only allowed one grenade. Worse, there is nothing else really in terms of tools or arms except the rifle, a worthless backup gun (except if you are a sniper you need your handgun sometimes), and a smoke grenade. There is otherwise nothing modern about this game - in fact it is more like WW1 with automatic rifles. No mines, sensors, overhead intelligence, communication.... you can type messages, but no automatic messages like in BF (by pressing the function keys, to say need reinforcement, enemy sighted, etc.). No indirect fire either. There is voice communication - if you pay (as far as I could figure out).

This is a fun game, in part because it is a much more deliberate and paced than the BF games and other FPS. Only a few bullets kill, and there is no health to get. But other than some nicer graphics and a few effects, like cars blowing up if hit by grenades, there really is nothing new about this game compared to GR1 from 1999 or whatever.

It's worth five or ten dollars, but not much more.

To be an old one, I have to say that it is still well developped, and it keeps its fun all the way. I love it!

I had passed on the first GRAW so when my buddy and I were looking for a new multiplayer game we figured we would try GRAW2 as it had better reviews and was a cheap buy.
Let me say this game did not disappoint although it is rather short.
The single player experience can be hard or easy depending on how you play. You can save in the single player game almost at any time which is great. If you play allot of COD4 or other FPS games I do not think this will be very difficult, however it does require more stealth and patience than normal FPS's require.
The multiplayer experience so far has been a real challenge, as there are more bots and they change places so they are not in the same spot all the time (In Campaign Mode). It is a very cool idea and adds to the game in a positive way.
We have not forayed into the editor or the mods yet but we are headed there soon and hope it will add to the game, if so then this will have been a real gem of a buy.

I liked GRAW but it still has one problem in single player, Enemies appear out of thin air!

Bad guys who man fixed emplacements, or come rushing out of places only appear when you've reached close enough to see them.

Which kind of negates the power of a Sniper Rifle in spotting targets and sweeping areas. After scanning a building and windows and ledges for enemies I progress only to find a sniper or some other bad guy who suddenly appears because now my team is close enough and they get cut to ribbons.
What is the point in having a .50 BMG rifle if badguys beyond the range of the computer limits as your sight to badguys but not beyond the range of your rifle?

And ofcourse GRAW doesn't put badguys in the same place each time to "keep it real." I wouldn't mind this except for the aforementioned problem.
I've reached all the way to the last stand mission and this glitch is bugging the hell out of me.
So ARMA is still tops in my opinion because it doesn't have this problem all the bad guys are preloaded and don't have to appear out of thin air.

This is a great shooter. A very good game, folks. There a few minor bugs (video glitches), but they don't hurt gameplay or in-game graphics. The missions are engaging and fun. The AI can be a bit weak at times, but overall pretty good. This game now costs $20. You can't go wrong. Works well with Vista Home Premium.

I originally had high hopes for GRAW after seeing what they had initially promised - Next generation gaming or something? I didn't know the next generation looked so poor. I bought the game for 50 bucks and quite frankly, I would have rather paid 20.

Afterwards, having hearing about GRAW 2 I decided to give GRIN one more chance. Except this time I waited for the price to drop to 40 incase it was the same fiasco. Much to my dismay, I was right.

Now I'm kind of a picky gamer admittedly since I only buy games with brands and makers that I trust or have a million people recommend to me. If your review of Rainbow Six Vegas was about a 4.5 out of 5, then we might be viewing through the same scope.


Single Player
If you're looking for some solid SP before you get to MP, it's just horrible. Right off the bat with Mission 1, I had bad guys really, I kid you not, who were right behind me with no cover or concealment blocking their view, who didn't see or hear me shooting just a second ago. This doesn't happen all the time I grant you but still it's kind of annoying to see this. -This is with the latest 1.04 patch at the time of this writing- Better yet though, my team which was following me, also failed to notice the dudes too. So there was just a moment of "is he on my team?" "is he some kind of scripted event?" But no, it was just poor AI and you'll be seeing this a lot in the SP game.

The weapons are pretty cool though. I would say the game survives in SP off of the weapons.


MultiPlayer
MP is pretty decent if you can find a good server. Depends on your style I guess but the MP part is pretty enjoyable around the boards if you can get a decent connection.


Conclusion:
If you like MP, perhaps pick this up now that the price has dropped. But if you're looking for some solid SP as well (I mean SP is included in the money that you pay for this game so if you want your money's worth, you should have a decent SP experience as well), I would wait til the game hits the bargain bin or wait for something else to show up.

Before you buy Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 check the Ubisoft website and make sure you PC meets the minimum requirements.

I have no complaints on the games graphics, story or AI. The interfaces are easy to use and there is plenty of action to keep you interested. I don't think the replay value is much because the enemy seems to respawn in the same area everytime but its only a ten dollar game so if you only play it once you will get your moneys worth.

The deal breaker for GRAW2 is the way in which your teammates interpret their orders based on the game design. How the programmers came up with a basically good method of given orders to your team while in-game was sufficient but then they killed it with a bizarre choice.

Basically, you move the mouse around and give orders to the team or individual team members like Move, Use or Attack and they carry out their orders to the best of their limited AI intelligence will allow. However and this is the kicker; You have to set them on Recon or Assault Mode. In Recon mode they creep around with silenced weapons and dont shoot anyone. In Assault mode, they RUN blindly around and never take cover behind anything. The most absurd command is "Cover that" This would seem usefull, you tell a member to cover a particular direction while the rest of the team moves forward in case an enemy shows up, which does happen from time to time. The problem is the team member will only use silenced weapons or he wont shoot at all unless fired upon. If you have the same team member in Assault mode and tell him to "Cover that", he will empty his weapon into NOTHING!!. He just fires wildly in the general direction you told him until his weapon is dry. The manual claims this is to simulate "suppressive fire" but with the same number of mouse clicks I could have told him to "Attack" and he would actually accomplished something.

For some this might be a small thing but I think it ruins any attempt at playing the game realistically. You cant move by bounding overwatch with the commands used as they are. Of course, its hard to play realistically anyway since your four soldiers are constantly having to run at break neck speeds to bail a much larger force out of trouble.

Its a shame because it really could have been a good game.

I play almost exclusively 1st person shooters on the PC. Currently I'm only 5 missions into the game and I'm absolutely hooked. The gameplay, story, maps and graphics are awesome... The last thing that sticks out in my mind is a level where a siren started going off. I found it a bit annoying so I shot the siren. It stopped. I know, a small detail but it's those things that make the game that much cooler. I've jumped into a few multiplayer games and found that to be just as cool.

All in all this is an awesome game. If you like realistic FPS (1 well placed shot and you're dead) this is a must have! Just make sure you have a decent PC to run it.