First of all, I want you to print out this review. I'm not shamelessly self promoting here, I'm trying to make a point. Go ahead, hit the printer icon already.
....Good. Now I'm travelling along with you, so you don't have to drag your computer along. Go outside with a friend and a supply of tennis balls, baseballs, apples whatever. Small hard spheres of any type will do. Now, climb into a tree or a bush. Tell your friend to turn around while you find a little hidey hole. When you have, tell your friend to turn back round. Have him throw the objects at where he thinks you are until one hits. Once he knows where you are, have him start strafing and trying to get you in the head three times in a row, with you moving around as well.
See how hard that is? That's called reality.
If he does it on the first try, that called GRAW.
Let me set the scene, I'm on a rooftop, decked out in the latest of the US Army's finest gear. I'm shooting at a rebel that's around 200 metres away. I can't see him due to a tree except for his little triangle marker. I have full health. Then I die from a headshot.
That's fine. He was shooting alot, so I chalk it up to random chance. Then he does twice more in a row. Now I'm pissed. I managed to get past him and then his identical twin does the same damn thing. I get past said twin, walk into an ambush, and kill every rebel without so much as a scratch.
The point I'm trying to hammer home is that the difficulty and enemy AI is very unbalanced. It got to the point that I had to restrain myself from throwing the controller at the floor. I've only done it twice before now, so this is a rare event for me. I can recall times where I'm in cover, prone, and then get sniped. Or the time I said "Fuck it. Let's Rambo these bitches," and promptly ran the rest of the area gun ablazing, and won, hands down. My sqaud didn't even fire a shot.
Oh yeah, your squad. You think the enemies can be spotty and/or stupid? I had to revive a guy three times because he didn't seem to grasp the fact that nearby grenades missing pins are not in fact good things to within a 5 metre radius of. Five minutes later, the same squad member also had his very own Rambo moment; killing a sniper, three soldiers and a gunner within 15 seconds.
But enough stories, to the other features!
Graphically, this is very excellent. Arguably one of the first games to really take advantage of next-gen graphic capabilites, the level of detail is very nice. Shanty looking houses dot the landscape, complete with battle damage. Fire a sniper rifle point blank into concrete and you'll send chips and dust flying everywhere, leaving a melon sized hole in the rock.
While it has been recently eclipsed by the likes of Gears of War, Halo 3 and Bioshock, for an early 360 game, it's damn good looking.
Turning to the most important factor of any FPS, namely the shooting, you can actually play it 3rd person over the shoulder Gears of War style, or the traditional FPS style. However, in FPS mode, you can't see your gun. At all. I mean it's completely invisible. This can be a little disorienting at first, but the controls are actually very tight. Your 'firing cone' responds beautifully to things such as position, speed, gun and if you've been stunned by an explosion.
The non-gun controls are excellent as well. Switching firing modes, ordering around teammates, sending a UAV to scout an area and dodging are all made very simple by your HUD. A feature that lets you see where your being shot at from, even if you aren't being hit, is very nice, as it saves alot of pissy deaths. A kickass map screen that lets you scout areas in a more big picture kind of ways wraps it all up neatly. Micromanaging isn't the name of the game here, unless your teammates do stupid shit, in which case let the orders (and swear words) fly. Also, it would've been nice to order specific team members to cover various things, rather then just a whole team order. That could have multiplied the amount of fun ways to get through battles immensly.
Looking back at a previous offering, Ghost Recon 2 (multiplatform) it's amazing how far it's come. Namely, the AI still stinks and you die more often then you'd like, but the intelligence and pissy quotients are all an order of magnitude better then GR2. I recall times when I've wasted team members who didn't seem to want to move out of the way of my line of fire. In GRAW, they find cover, move to better positions, and are quite accurate. Hell, they even tell to you to bug out if it gets too heavy. Sadly, off and on common sense and crossed wires dampen the fun.
Case in point: I order my sqaud to a point to flank an enemy. However, to get to the flanking point, they think it smart to go through the outpost to flank said outpost. Needless to say, I had to reload a checkpoint within 30 seconds, 8 F-bombs and a whole lotta gunfire.
A final, admittidly largely irrelevant, point I'd like to say is that the Achivements blow. You get more points for completing the training mission then getting 10,000 kills in Multiplayer. I'm not kidding. Climbing to the top of the leaderboards is dumb as well, as no one in their right mind would go to all that work just for a total of 104 points. (40 for universal leaderboard, 32 each for solo and team) Even if you cheat, which is bad enough simply for a higher number, it takes hours a week. And it takes weeks. Yeah, no.
However, if you don't care about your GamerScore, then ignore the previous paragraph, and pretend I was talking about something more important. Like Pop-Tarts.
All in all though, boasting improved, yet still spotty and pissy, AI, robust missions, stellar graphics, tight controls and an intuitive interface, GRAW is an excellent 1st, or 3rd person shooter.
My Recommendation: Buy it.
Addendum: You may already have it however. When I bought my 360 in Nov. 2006, it came with it free, alongside Xbox Live Arcade. It was one of two Premium Bundle Packs. It was this or a racing game (bleh!) and 3 months free Xbox Live, and I didn't have high speed back then. It may be different now in terms of what you get in the box, but yeah, if you already have it, try it out.
....Good. Now I'm travelling along with you, so you don't have to drag your computer along. Go outside with a friend and a supply of tennis balls, baseballs, apples whatever. Small hard spheres of any type will do. Now, climb into a tree or a bush. Tell your friend to turn around while you find a little hidey hole. When you have, tell your friend to turn back round. Have him throw the objects at where he thinks you are until one hits. Once he knows where you are, have him start strafing and trying to get you in the head three times in a row, with you moving around as well.
See how hard that is? That's called reality.
If he does it on the first try, that called GRAW.
Let me set the scene, I'm on a rooftop, decked out in the latest of the US Army's finest gear. I'm shooting at a rebel that's around 200 metres away. I can't see him due to a tree except for his little triangle marker. I have full health. Then I die from a headshot.
That's fine. He was shooting alot, so I chalk it up to random chance. Then he does twice more in a row. Now I'm pissed. I managed to get past him and then his identical twin does the same damn thing. I get past said twin, walk into an ambush, and kill every rebel without so much as a scratch.
The point I'm trying to hammer home is that the difficulty and enemy AI is very unbalanced. It got to the point that I had to restrain myself from throwing the controller at the floor. I've only done it twice before now, so this is a rare event for me. I can recall times where I'm in cover, prone, and then get sniped. Or the time I said "Fuck it. Let's Rambo these bitches," and promptly ran the rest of the area gun ablazing, and won, hands down. My sqaud didn't even fire a shot.
Oh yeah, your squad. You think the enemies can be spotty and/or stupid? I had to revive a guy three times because he didn't seem to grasp the fact that nearby grenades missing pins are not in fact good things to within a 5 metre radius of. Five minutes later, the same squad member also had his very own Rambo moment; killing a sniper, three soldiers and a gunner within 15 seconds.
But enough stories, to the other features!
Graphically, this is very excellent. Arguably one of the first games to really take advantage of next-gen graphic capabilites, the level of detail is very nice. Shanty looking houses dot the landscape, complete with battle damage. Fire a sniper rifle point blank into concrete and you'll send chips and dust flying everywhere, leaving a melon sized hole in the rock.
While it has been recently eclipsed by the likes of Gears of War, Halo 3 and Bioshock, for an early 360 game, it's damn good looking.
Turning to the most important factor of any FPS, namely the shooting, you can actually play it 3rd person over the shoulder Gears of War style, or the traditional FPS style. However, in FPS mode, you can't see your gun. At all. I mean it's completely invisible. This can be a little disorienting at first, but the controls are actually very tight. Your 'firing cone' responds beautifully to things such as position, speed, gun and if you've been stunned by an explosion.
The non-gun controls are excellent as well. Switching firing modes, ordering around teammates, sending a UAV to scout an area and dodging are all made very simple by your HUD. A feature that lets you see where your being shot at from, even if you aren't being hit, is very nice, as it saves alot of pissy deaths. A kickass map screen that lets you scout areas in a more big picture kind of ways wraps it all up neatly. Micromanaging isn't the name of the game here, unless your teammates do stupid shit, in which case let the orders (and swear words) fly. Also, it would've been nice to order specific team members to cover various things, rather then just a whole team order. That could have multiplied the amount of fun ways to get through battles immensly.
Looking back at a previous offering, Ghost Recon 2 (multiplatform) it's amazing how far it's come. Namely, the AI still stinks and you die more often then you'd like, but the intelligence and pissy quotients are all an order of magnitude better then GR2. I recall times when I've wasted team members who didn't seem to want to move out of the way of my line of fire. In GRAW, they find cover, move to better positions, and are quite accurate. Hell, they even tell to you to bug out if it gets too heavy. Sadly, off and on common sense and crossed wires dampen the fun.
Case in point: I order my sqaud to a point to flank an enemy. However, to get to the flanking point, they think it smart to go through the outpost to flank said outpost. Needless to say, I had to reload a checkpoint within 30 seconds, 8 F-bombs and a whole lotta gunfire.
A final, admittidly largely irrelevant, point I'd like to say is that the Achivements blow. You get more points for completing the training mission then getting 10,000 kills in Multiplayer. I'm not kidding. Climbing to the top of the leaderboards is dumb as well, as no one in their right mind would go to all that work just for a total of 104 points. (40 for universal leaderboard, 32 each for solo and team) Even if you cheat, which is bad enough simply for a higher number, it takes hours a week. And it takes weeks. Yeah, no.
However, if you don't care about your GamerScore, then ignore the previous paragraph, and pretend I was talking about something more important. Like Pop-Tarts.
All in all though, boasting improved, yet still spotty and pissy, AI, robust missions, stellar graphics, tight controls and an intuitive interface, GRAW is an excellent 1st, or 3rd person shooter.
My Recommendation: Buy it.
Addendum: You may already have it however. When I bought my 360 in Nov. 2006, it came with it free, alongside Xbox Live Arcade. It was one of two Premium Bundle Packs. It was this or a racing game (bleh!) and 3 months free Xbox Live, and I didn't have high speed back then. It may be different now in terms of what you get in the box, but yeah, if you already have it, try it out.
