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Video Games : Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (PC DVD)
1 2
Rating: 
- GRAW2 - Back to old school and all the better for it!
Ubisoft made massive error with Ghost Recon 2, transforming the tried, tested and popular stealth and strategy based format for a very arcade-like shooter patronising it's usual patrons by playing for a much larger target audience. Many hoped they wouldn't do the same with the release of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, but hardcore fans were disappointed.
Whilst the PC release of GRAW was fun, it fell far short of the original title in terms of quality gameplay and if you had played the Xbox 360 version you would have felt very hard-done by. PC gamers used to be focus of Ubisoft's efforts, but the PC release of GRAW, like Ghost Recon 2, really did feel like a second consideration on the part of Ubisoft. The decision to write the PC version with a different graphics engine and different maps should have enhanced the PC version but actually left it lagging far behind its console counterparts with unrealistic maps (compared to Xbox 360s almost accurate playable maps of Mexico city) and didn't even share many of the cool features that set them apart (guns with cameras to see around corners, heat-vision, optional third person for firing from cover, using the Helicopters machine gun, etc.).
Maintaining the GR2 theme of arcade style shooter become a touch more forgivable given GRAW's enticing plot and the fact it felt far too fast for a strategy based element (with it all taking place inside one 48 hour battle in and around Mexico city), but for many this was still disappointing.
GRAW2, however, gives the PC gamer hope. Like it's predecessor, GRAW2 also differs vastly from her console variants (and again doesn't share many of their great features) but does at least take back alot of what made the original Ghost Recon so great. There is at least a portion of strategy -based play returned to the game. Whilst you can't plan the missions like many hardcore gamers might prefer most missions do require you, as Mitchell (yes you are still forced to play only as Mitchell) to make vital decisions that will effect the way you play the mission (straight in guns blazing or with stealth) and the way the mission plays out at certain markers. The pace is turned right down on most missions and urgency is replaced by the need to do it right. You can now control more (well, one more) unit in your squad and they aren't as bloody stupid as they are in GRAW, as well as a squad of Mexican loyalists in some missions. Also, Abrams when under your control move and behave like Abrams MBTs rather than a block of metal on wheels that might have squealed across the Somme!
In conclusion GRAW 2 is a good game, much better than the original GRAW and returns the fan to some of the features of the original. But unlike the original GRAW2 will not provide you with hundreds of hours worth of gameplay. Any gamer worth his salt will complete this quickly, there aren't that many missions and they are not that hard (with the notable exception of the finale), and probably won't play it that often subsequently, whereas Ghost Recon kept me at least hooked for years. But is this a feature of modern gaming what with high game output these days in the gaming industry?
Overall - 85%
Rating:
- Mitchell....Come in Mitchell!
Great follow up...had to get this as soon as it came out. If you enjoyed the first one-this one is better! It is a lot harder though! No ammo depots to resupply during missions! The OSD to control your colleagues is very easy to use with a click on the middle mouse button and thankfully colleagues dont get in your way like the first episode.
I'm playing 1280x1024 with overall medium settings with some anti aliasing etc. Graphics look good! no lag with these settings for me. My Gfx card is not the best these days with no SM 3.0. so those with the latest cards will really enjoy some eye candy.
Patched to 1.4 had only one crash so far, since it came out. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes FPS, it is not too tactical so dont let that put you off.
My specs P4 3.6 GHz, 2GB Ram, X850 xt.
Rating: - Tom clancy Ghost Recon 2 rocks
I love the way this game plays. Since the first one was released I was always very pleased with control aspects of odering your group movement and getting them to select targets.
On top of this you have a fab graphic scenery and great background music to set the tense atmosphere. I think so many other games have suffered because both one and two have set a gaming formular others would die for. After this, in this genre, you will be comparing this game using it a bench mark. Have a decent graphics card dx 9.c and shader 3.0 to appreciate the full brilliance of the Tom Clancy experiance.
Rating: - Brilliant
This Game would be serious fun if it worked properly on my laptop. My Toshiba Quasmio G20 is not quite compatible with the game as i do not have a pentium 3 processor, it is good when it works but every 10 - 30 seconds it is quite crackly. it is one of those games where you can slave ofer a level and never get bored. This is my first T.C. game but i was surprised that there were no medikits. Overall it is a very good game and i would really recommend it
Rating: - Better...
Just a note before we start, I am an existing fan of the Ghost Recon/Rainbow 6 games and have enjoyed all of them (expect Lockdown), so there probably is some bias in this review, however I have tried to objective.
The gameplay is similar to GRAW - Ghosts vs Rebels/Terrorists, first person shooter, but the display is prettier and has an easier command interface. It took a while to get it working with my kit - Vista Home Premium, Core Duo E6600 CPU, BFG 768mb 8800GTX GPU, 2Gb RAM - I encountered issues with antialiasing, however setting the NVidia card to let the game choose its display methods fixed this.
When I installed this game (20/07/2007), I also installed a patch which was available and I would expect a couple more out in the next few months to continue to address AI issues (there are many!). I have not experienced any major crashes or bugs.
From a gaming perspective I agree with the other reviews on the AI, it can be frustrating at times, and the gameplay can be incredibly difficult, however anyone whose played any of the other Ghost Recon/Rainbow 6 series of games will know the one shot, one kill (both you and the enemy) is standard for the Tom Clancy games.
From a hardware position, this game will not make me buy the additional Agiea physics card that enhances the explosions/debris etc as there is still not enough other software support for this card and my existing kit is fast enough to play at a high detail level.
The wide choice of weapon load out, kit selection and alternative insertion points mean you can choose to go in all guns blazing or take a more stealthy route and this results in plenty of replay opportunities. The maps are reasonably open and the detail is very good, and overview tactical 'satellite' type views with zoom are available to spot enemy ahead of enegagement.
Played some of multiplayer options (game utilises the GameSpy logon, you will need an account, but this can be done inside the game), but being a noobie to the game it's still difficult without decent map knowledge. I will be trying the co-operative play when I get used to the game, this type of team play is great fun online with a few friends.
Overall if you are a fan of the series, this is one for the collection; if you are new to the Tom Clancy games and you have a reasonbly specified PC, you may want to try Rainbow 6 Vegas first.
- GRAW2 - Back to old school and all the better for it!Ubisoft made massive error with Ghost Recon 2, transforming the tried, tested and popular stealth and strategy based format for a very arcade-like shooter patronising it's usual patrons by playing for a much larger target audience. Many hoped they wouldn't do the same with the release of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, but hardcore fans were disappointed.
Whilst the PC release of GRAW was fun, it fell far short of the original title in terms of quality gameplay and if you had played the Xbox 360 version you would have felt very hard-done by. PC gamers used to be focus of Ubisoft's efforts, but the PC release of GRAW, like Ghost Recon 2, really did feel like a second consideration on the part of Ubisoft. The decision to write the PC version with a different graphics engine and different maps should have enhanced the PC version but actually left it lagging far behind its console counterparts with unrealistic maps (compared to Xbox 360s almost accurate playable maps of Mexico city) and didn't even share many of the cool features that set them apart (guns with cameras to see around corners, heat-vision, optional third person for firing from cover, using the Helicopters machine gun, etc.).
Maintaining the GR2 theme of arcade style shooter become a touch more forgivable given GRAW's enticing plot and the fact it felt far too fast for a strategy based element (with it all taking place inside one 48 hour battle in and around Mexico city), but for many this was still disappointing.
GRAW2, however, gives the PC gamer hope. Like it's predecessor, GRAW2 also differs vastly from her console variants (and again doesn't share many of their great features) but does at least take back alot of what made the original Ghost Recon so great. There is at least a portion of strategy -based play returned to the game. Whilst you can't plan the missions like many hardcore gamers might prefer most missions do require you, as Mitchell (yes you are still forced to play only as Mitchell) to make vital decisions that will effect the way you play the mission (straight in guns blazing or with stealth) and the way the mission plays out at certain markers. The pace is turned right down on most missions and urgency is replaced by the need to do it right. You can now control more (well, one more) unit in your squad and they aren't as bloody stupid as they are in GRAW, as well as a squad of Mexican loyalists in some missions. Also, Abrams when under your control move and behave like Abrams MBTs rather than a block of metal on wheels that might have squealed across the Somme!
In conclusion GRAW 2 is a good game, much better than the original GRAW and returns the fan to some of the features of the original. But unlike the original GRAW2 will not provide you with hundreds of hours worth of gameplay. Any gamer worth his salt will complete this quickly, there aren't that many missions and they are not that hard (with the notable exception of the finale), and probably won't play it that often subsequently, whereas Ghost Recon kept me at least hooked for years. But is this a feature of modern gaming what with high game output these days in the gaming industry?
Overall - 85%
Rating:
- Mitchell....Come in Mitchell!Great follow up...had to get this as soon as it came out. If you enjoyed the first one-this one is better! It is a lot harder though! No ammo depots to resupply during missions! The OSD to control your colleagues is very easy to use with a click on the middle mouse button and thankfully colleagues dont get in your way like the first episode.
I'm playing 1280x1024 with overall medium settings with some anti aliasing etc. Graphics look good! no lag with these settings for me. My Gfx card is not the best these days with no SM 3.0. so those with the latest cards will really enjoy some eye candy.
Patched to 1.4 had only one crash so far, since it came out. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes FPS, it is not too tactical so dont let that put you off.
My specs P4 3.6 GHz, 2GB Ram, X850 xt.
Rating:
- Tom clancy Ghost Recon 2 rocksI love the way this game plays. Since the first one was released I was always very pleased with control aspects of odering your group movement and getting them to select targets.
On top of this you have a fab graphic scenery and great background music to set the tense atmosphere. I think so many other games have suffered because both one and two have set a gaming formular others would die for. After this, in this genre, you will be comparing this game using it a bench mark. Have a decent graphics card dx 9.c and shader 3.0 to appreciate the full brilliance of the Tom Clancy experiance.
Rating:
- BrilliantThis Game would be serious fun if it worked properly on my laptop. My Toshiba Quasmio G20 is not quite compatible with the game as i do not have a pentium 3 processor, it is good when it works but every 10 - 30 seconds it is quite crackly. it is one of those games where you can slave ofer a level and never get bored. This is my first T.C. game but i was surprised that there were no medikits. Overall it is a very good game and i would really recommend it
Rating:
- Better...Just a note before we start, I am an existing fan of the Ghost Recon/Rainbow 6 games and have enjoyed all of them (expect Lockdown), so there probably is some bias in this review, however I have tried to objective.
The gameplay is similar to GRAW - Ghosts vs Rebels/Terrorists, first person shooter, but the display is prettier and has an easier command interface. It took a while to get it working with my kit - Vista Home Premium, Core Duo E6600 CPU, BFG 768mb 8800GTX GPU, 2Gb RAM - I encountered issues with antialiasing, however setting the NVidia card to let the game choose its display methods fixed this.
When I installed this game (20/07/2007), I also installed a patch which was available and I would expect a couple more out in the next few months to continue to address AI issues (there are many!). I have not experienced any major crashes or bugs.
From a gaming perspective I agree with the other reviews on the AI, it can be frustrating at times, and the gameplay can be incredibly difficult, however anyone whose played any of the other Ghost Recon/Rainbow 6 series of games will know the one shot, one kill (both you and the enemy) is standard for the Tom Clancy games.
From a hardware position, this game will not make me buy the additional Agiea physics card that enhances the explosions/debris etc as there is still not enough other software support for this card and my existing kit is fast enough to play at a high detail level.
The wide choice of weapon load out, kit selection and alternative insertion points mean you can choose to go in all guns blazing or take a more stealthy route and this results in plenty of replay opportunities. The maps are reasonably open and the detail is very good, and overview tactical 'satellite' type views with zoom are available to spot enemy ahead of enegagement.
Played some of multiplayer options (game utilises the GameSpy logon, you will need an account, but this can be done inside the game), but being a noobie to the game it's still difficult without decent map knowledge. I will be trying the co-operative play when I get used to the game, this type of team play is great fun online with a few friends.
Overall if you are a fan of the series, this is one for the collection; if you are new to the Tom Clancy games and you have a reasonbly specified PC, you may want to try Rainbow 6 Vegas first.