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In 2013, the U.S. Army will implement the Integrated Warfighter System evolving what we know as the modern soldier. IWS combines advanced weapon systems, satellite communication devices and enhanced survivability into one fully integrated combat system. The IWS program has been developed to meet these new threats head on. Now, it can be tested on the battlefield.

Embody Captain Scott Mitchell as he commands the Ghosts and Special Forces allies equipped with the IWS in the quest to save the president of the United States, recover stolen nuclear codes and eliminate a vicious band of renegade soldiers hell-bent on unleashing catastrophe. Amongst the major features in Advanced Warfighter is the new Cross-Cam eye-piece communication device, utilizing the power of the Xbox 360 to deliver consistent and complete battlefield awareness.

Genre: Shooter

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer/Co-Developer: Ubisoft Paris / Ubisoft Tiwak

Online Play: 16 Versus

Local Play: 4 Versus

March 7, 2006 –
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter has been a long time coming. The game showed poorly at X05 last October, missed the November 2005 launch, then finally re-appeared in February for a March 2006 launch. Since then, we’ve had ample time to play and beat it in every imaginable mode, a rarity in the business, so that its launch is almost an afterthought. Having spent the last weekend playing it non-stop again, I’ve reached many of the same conclusions I arrived at before and a few new ones. GRAW, as we’ve come to call it, is a first-rate game, one that not only looks next gen, but plays like it.

The list of impressive additions is long and detailed, just as the feature list is, but the core elements to this game emerge from the single-player campaign’s integrated presentation and graphics, which tie the game together like few before it. Both are impressive and well-handled and more significantly, they affect and enhance the most important thing, gameplay. GRAW is fundamentally the same methodically paced, squad-based sniper game of yesteryear, but the formula has been enhanced, polished, and realized in ways it’s never been capable of reaching in prior generations. Of course, the online portion is vast, impressive, and deep in replay value, and it may very well be the reason to finally get on and stay on Xbox Live for the first time in this console’s short history.

Clancy’s Ghosts

Let’s start with the storyline. Still a Tom Clancy game at heart, GRAW puts you in command of Captain Scott Mitchell and a trio of ghosts as they enter Mexico City, Mexico, to oversee the implementation of the tri-country trade pact, NASJA. The game commences with a functional training session, but it’s the first in-game, real-time cutscene that gets you pumped. You start in a helicopter and overlook the enormity of Mexico City, one of the highest populated cities in the world. Mitchell perches in the open side of a Blackhawk, hands clasping a heavy caliber machine gun, as it flies over what looks like 20 square miles of finely detailed urban architecture, countryside, and concrete.

The storyline hasn’t changed much as a narrative, but the way in which it’s told and presented is skillfully and artfully handled. When the helicopter lands, there is no rendered cutscene, no cut to load screen, no transition from the ideal graphics to the unfortunate and actual graphics. Nah, when you fly over that beautiful, enormous city and land, you step out right into it and start playing. You’re going to experience this seamless transition again and again, but the feeling just doesn’t get old. The resulting emotion is one of continuity, of unending intensity and spontaneity. Technically, you get a real-world feeling, or at the very least, you’re given very good reasons to believe in the continuity of that world, without technical distractions or limitations snapping the spell.

The helicopter missions are very well handled.A band of rebels, however, spoil the fun, killing the Canadian Prime Minister, seizing heavy weaponry, and causing civil disorder across the huge metropolis. Oh, and they threaten to take over the city. Your ghosts and you must save the Mexican president and vice president, recover vital information, and repel the uprising to restore order. Of course, that’s quite a task for a small group of four, but you’ve got help. GRAW outfits you with modern warfare combat gear, weaponry, advanced electronics and communications gear, and some killer gadgets that make James Bond look like he’s playing with Tonka Toys.

Killing Gear

Your gear consists of a light-weight bullet-proof vest, an extensive set of weapons for riflemen, grenadiers, and marksmen, and a visor-equipped helmet with video and audio transmissions via the Cross-Com and the Nar-Com, two devices that quickly become your best friends. The visor idea sounds similar to Nintendo’s Metroid Prime, but it looks and functions much differently. The Cross-Com, located in the upper-left hand side of your screen, enables you to communicate with your team, to see through their visors in realtime, and yours through theirs, and to command your squad, be it the ghosts, a cypher, helicopter or tank. The Nar-Com is a transmission device enabling communication to executive-level personnel, in addition to receiving local news broadcasts. The broadcasts would be more useful if there was something roughly interesting to say, but this Clancy story is essentially a generic recap of America’s military operations in any number of countries in real-life, so you’ve heard them before. Again, this story isn’t terribly good, but it’s presented in an impressive and deft manner. It’s so good in that respect, in fact, the bland story is easy to overlook and forgive.

Buena vista.This new weaponry comprises nearly the entirety of the game’s most prominent feature list. Instead of cutscenes, we receive continuous streams of info on-screen in real-time. We’re updated with news, fed new objectives, and can check a 3D tactical map that is once again not just a neat little 3D map via the Cross-Com. Just like everything else, the tactical map becomes functional as a real-time tool that serves to take tactical advantage of the enemy. Let’s say you start a mission without a ghost squad, but with an AUV Cypher, a motorized spy drone that can ascend and descend into enemy territory to pick up enemy locations. Using the back button, players call up the tactical map and point the drone to an empty area at a high altitude. When it reaches the spot, press the left bumper and the drone lowers in altitude, picking up any enemies in the area. These enemies appear as red diamonds on the tactical map, indicating your position against theirs. You can change the map angle and positioning to see if there are marksmen in skyscrapers waiting to snipe you, or if there are tanks, anti-armor gunmen or plain old soldiers. Once spotted, the Cypher indicates all this information on the map. This simple tool seems useless, or at least, unnecessary at first, but it proves highly effective when outnumbered in the single-player campaign, and it’s priceless in a multiplayer combat situation.

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