Where this game really knocks my socks off is in the presentation department. It’s hard to really begin to describe the extent to which the game sucks you in. Mere words can’t come close to capturing the actual experience. The best advice I can give anyone is to get this game and see it for themselves (in high definition of course…duh).

I will however, still endeavor to meet the status quo, and will make what will most likely present itself as a sore attempt at describing the sheer awe I experienced while playing said game. Here goes:

For those unfamiliar with the series, Ghost Recon is a series of squad-based shooters set in the near future. You lead a squad of three of the most highly trained, technologically advanced soldiers the world has ever seen. These “Ghosts” are few in number but make up for it with incredibly advanced technology that allows them to assault without being seen, employ deadly accuracy and force and survive in an operation too intense for the average soldier.

Advanced Warfighter is the same game with some significant improvements that really make you believe how overpowered and cheap these guys really are. Not that I’m complaining of course, I love taking out insurgents through walls with a high-powered rifle.

With the background out of the way imagine that you aren’t playing a video game. Imagine that you’ve just completed basic training and you’re getting assigned to a special mission requiring a man of your newly developed talents. A Blackhawk picks you up and is meaning to deposit you right into the middle of an escalating war zone, somewhere in Mexico. As you fly towards the LZ, you look out the side of the transport and catch a glimpse of the Mexican sunset lighting up the cityscape in a reddish-orange hue that is

You can hear and feel the main rotor blade making its RPMs and you can hear the pilot’s scratchy radio voice clueing you in to the mission at hand. The buildings start getting larger and you can see an interstate rising up from the ground as the pilot circles around to land. Now you can see trees and cars and even people. It won’t be long now. You jump out of the UH60, but you can’t see for all the dust it’s throwing around. The pilot wishes you luck and takes off. The dust settles and you start receiving a mission briefing from your commander right into your earpiece and on a tiny screen mounted to your helmet. Once briefed you move out to take the objective.

What you have just imagined is the game itself. I’m not talking about full motion videos or pre-rendered junk. There is no disconnection from one sequence of events to another. There is no loading between levels, and everything is rendered in real time. As you are flying to the next mission, you can turn your head and take in the scenery or you can look at the copilot as he fills you in. Every sound and vibration that you’d expect to be there is.

Once you’re on the ground it’s no different. You can see garbage flying around, shoot chunks out of buildings and even affect the sound of the air conditioner units by shooting them. Shadows and lighting are incredibly realistic as are the particle effects like those from smoke grenades or dust clouds. Both add greatly to the visual impact of the game and have to be seen firsthand to be believed. All of these elements come together to form a realistic dramatization of the war zone and set the stage for the game. But it’s the game’s interaction that changes it from a well-generated cinematic experience to an experience bordering on reality; one that puts you on that stage.

Single Player Gameplay

First of all you can play the game in first person or over-the-shoulder view. You might think that first person would be more realistic, but I think it actually works the other way around. With the exception of the Jesus Christ bug, where you fly through the air with your arms in a tee instead of doing the GI crawl (this is issue number one), having the game in third person feels and looks better. This is also critical if the target gamer has a fundamental genetic aversion to first person shooters.

Regardless of what view choice you select, the game controls are wonderfully intuitive and rarely prohibit you from doing what you want. You move and look around like any third person shooter, with a few additions. For example, you can stand, crouch or lie prone. While prone, you can execute a sideways roll to quickly leave or re-enter cover. If you are running and switch to prone or crouching, you’ll skid to a crouch or dive into a prone position. Both are animated very realistically and feel like something you would want to do in the same situation.

Walking up to a wall, crate or burnt out automobile and holding in that direction will put your back up against it. You can slide back and forth, peek around corners and even pop off a couple off shots before returning to your position of cover. This works great in almost all cases, but there were more than one object that you could “stick” to but would prohibit actually peeking out. If you did, you’d become detached and walk out into the open, likely getting shot in the process. Another issue, and I’m unsure whether it’s by design or something they missed, has to do with sliding into cover. In several situations, the need arose to dash to a barricade and crouch down to avoid fire. You might expect to slide into a crouched position behind the cover (maybe even with a solid grunt for emphasis). What may very well happen is you slide past the cover into the open and get shot in the head.

Even with these glitches though, you feel very much in control of the main character and his contribution to the action. But what about those three guys following you around? These fellows can be a great help when they aren’t getting themselves gunned down and blown up. The AI can be considered a little weak here at times. When they aren’t misbehaving, they can take out enemies, provide suppressing fire, or serve as an alternate target, all very important roles by the way.

You control these dudes by looking at something and clicking up on the D-Pad. Result? Off they go or away they blast. You can even change their stance from aggressive (Assault) to passive (Recon) and vice versa. Mostly, you’ll be having them stand back while you personally do all the dirty work. Every once in a while though, one of those men will save your life by waxing a baddie you didn’t see.

It’s a blessing and a curse, but the enemy AI seems much more robust and interesting than that or your squad members. These guys will duck behind cover as well and will take pot shots at you from barricades and built up defensive positions. They’ll even try to flank you if you aren’t careful. The name of the game here is get good at spying out potential enemy locations and not being surprised when an enemy ends up behind you. This is quite easy to do though seeing as you are equipped with some sort of enemy detector in you HUD. If you or a squad mate gets a look at an enemy with Night Vision Goggles or without, that enemy shows up on your 3D map as well as on your heads up display as a red diamond. This makes for easy sniping once you think you’ve found them all.

If that wasn’t enough help, you’ll occasionally be given control of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, an Apache Helicopter, or an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or a combination of all three at the same time.

The Bradley’s move along a preset path (you can move forward or backward) and are very effective against entrenched opposing infantry. The UAVs are great for finding red diamonds for bad guys in places that aren’t safe to traverse yet and the Apache is wonderful at destroying armored vehicles on your command.

Permit me to digress for a moment and explain that the coolest damn thing I’ve seen in this game so far was when I ordered an Apache to attack an enemy Armored Personnel Carrier I had picked up with my Night Vision Goggles. You see a ripple of bright blurry missiles converge on the APC’s location and after a split second, a humongous flash of white light that nearly blinds you while wearing the NVG. It looked exactly like what I remember from nighttime clips of the Iraq war. Unbelievable.

Multiplayer Gameplay

This is the section where I have real trouble deciding if the game is worth anything. First of all let me say this. I know some of you won’t agree with me, but I am sick and damn tired of deathmatch or elimination style play. Spawn campers can kiss my ass. These guys are the reason we have to have an ESRB notice for online games. I did play these modes and had a decent amount of fun, but it was painfully clear that the reason I was having fun was because the cheesiness was so hilarious. Had I been in a true competitive mindset I’d have thrown my controller against the wall. As far as I’m concerned, GRAW’s elimination modes are no different that a typical FPS deathmatch and not worth the frustration. Cooperative is a whole different story though.

There are four mission based maps where you have specific goals to achieve and some regular maps where it’s just humans against the AI. Both of these are exciting, challenging and great fun given a few understandings. It sucks that I have to qualify this, but there are some significant annoyances even in the incredibly fun coop modes. First and foremost is the fact that the online mission or campaign mode is still quite a different game than the single player version.

For example, in the multiplayer game, you are not in command of any AI ghosts or helicopters or fighting vehicles. This may make sense, and it didn’t really irk me but it’s one difference. Your team gets a community UAV to scan areas for bad guys, and it’s actually invincible unlike the single player mode. Up to this point these differences are not really positive or negative. They’re just different. Another oddity, and it’s not a major detractor is that they don’t let you crawl up or down stairs. There’s some invisible barrier there, preventing this oft useful movement technique.

Where they really missed the boat, in my opinion, is in the interactions with obstacles that provide cover. For God knows what reason, they chose not to include that entire mechanic into the online game. There’s no sidling up to walls and peeking around corners at all. Instead, you have to try to finagle your way into a position where you have cover, but can still somewhat see the target. This usually entails you jumping out from cover and hopping back until you find a sweet spot, or worse, running in guns blazing and hoping for the best.

The only other frustration in these otherwise blast and a half cooperative modes is the inability to join a public game where you don’t know anyone. You can join any public game that has room, but if the game has already started (and ALL of them have already started) you end up waiting in the lobby for the average thirty-minute match to end; waiting without the ability to observe the game and decide if it’s worth it. Then there’s my personal favorite of waiting fifteen minutes to get into a game only to have the host say, “good game guys, I’ll see you all later” and torpedo the lobby. After about 45 minutes of trying to get into a good 8-16 player coop mission, I gave up, started my own room and invited a few friends and ran with far less. Once past the ridiculous difficulties of getting into a game, we played for at least a couple hours straight and had a great time.

It’s really a bummer, but the game feels rushed. In spite of its obvious issues and glitches, GRAW is still a fantastic game. The presentation is incredibly realistic, dramatic and intense. The gameplay feels natural and smooth and the controls are very intuitive. The cooperative play is great fun once you can actually get into a room and you can easily spend hours at it. The bottom line for this game is that the good parts far out weigh any of the issues I’ve described. It keeps me from giving the game a near perfect score, but I still love playing it and will consider it a long term addition to my collection.