Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (PC)
Manufacturer: Ubisoft Entertainment Part number: 68280
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Gamespot editors' review
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (PC) price range: $17.14
- Reviewed by: Bob Colayco
- Reviewed on: 05/05/2006
- Released on: 05/03/2006
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter finally makes its way over to the PC, and as far as the single-player game goes, this version of the game might be the most overall impressive of all. The massive urban areas you fight in are even larger and more detailed than the already spacious areas in the Xbox 360 version of the game, adding a great deal of tension since this added landmass makes for many times more possible hiding places for bad guys. Also, there's more interactivity to the world and flexibility with the tactical map, which gives you more precise control over your teammates. Unfortunately, all this added immersion comes at a heavy price, as playing the game is sure to put a strain on even the highest-spec machines. Barely make the minimum requirements? Don't even think of picking this game up, unless you're satisfied with big compromises in lighting, texture quality, and frame rate. If you have a machine that can handle the game, though, GRAW delivers a hardcore tactical shooter campaign that hearkens back to the original Ghost Recon games on the PC. It's too bad the multiplayer aspect of the game is so bug-ridden as to render it inconsequential.
Scott Mitchell, are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?
You take the role of Scott Mitchell, a captain in the elite Ghost Recon squad in the US Army. You find yourself in Mexico City as part of the security entourage tasked with guarding a summit between the leaders of Mexico, Canada, and the US. Disaster strikes when Mexican rebels attack the summit, killing the Canadian prime minister and causing both the Mexican and US presidents to go missing. Over the course of the campaign, you'll explore the massive city--fighting rebel infantry, armored vehicles, and helicopters from within the dense, urban areas in the center to the dilapidated shanty towns on the outskirts. You'll do this solo and with the help of three teammates--who you can issue commands to--and supporting vehicles. Major landmarks, such as Chapultepec and the spire at Angel Plaza, are represented fairly accurately in the game's depiction of Mexico City. The story arc in the PC version of the game is the same as all the others, but the way the levels are laid out and structured is noticeably different than any of the other versions of GRAW. The game's campaign should last most players 12 or so hours, counting restarts from death--maybe more depending on your familiarity with hardcore tactical shooters.
The first thing you'll notice about the game is how breathtakingly massive and believable the city looks. You take several helicopter rides throughout the campaign, and the city is literally sprawled out all the way to the horizon with buildings and streets. Fires and smoke curl up into the sky from patches of fighting or factories. As you land, you find yourself engulfed by the metropolis and plying your way through the maze of buildings, streets, and alleys. The amount of area you can explore in each mission in this version of the game is noticeably larger than the corresponding mission in the Xbox 360 version--there's also more detail given to each building, leading to more nooks and doorways that you can take cover in. However, this added detail means more places for possible enemies to be lurking, which necessitates a much more methodical approach to movement in this version than in the Xbox 360 version.
The tactical-map feature gives you a nice tool to manage the bounding over-watch techniques you'll need to use to keep you and your squad alive. While you can still give a variety of simple commands to your squadmates (both singly, and as a group) from the first-person view, such as follow, move, cover, and attack, a nifty overhead tactical map gives you even more options. From this map you can issue waypoints to each of your squadmates and even set the direction they should face as they reach each spot. It's tempting to sometimes use this view to play GRAW like a real-time strategy game, as your soldiers are usually pretty effective at engaging and taking out enemies. The tactical map isn't just a static overlay--it's a real-time, overhead view of the surrounding area that lets you track movement of enemy infantry and vehicles. It's not a god mode, though, as enemies beneath rooftop areas or underneath trees can be obscured. As in other versions of the game, you'll be able to control support vehicles from time to time, such as UAV drones for reconnaissance or heavier vehicles for fire support against enemy armor and other hard targets.
The graphic detail that's so apparent from the city and environment extends to the character models as well, which are some of the best we've seen in a modern shooter. The guns you and your teammates carry are well articulated, and you'll notice folds in clothing and self-shadowing on character models and other models in the game. The animation isn't perfect--you'll see your teammates moonwalk over the ground from time to time--but in general, the human-character movements in the game look nice and realistic. The interactive nature of the environment bears mentioning, as many aspects of the environment are reactive to the battle around you. The game supports the AGEIA PhysX card for more advanced physics effects, which do offer some added particles and other effects to the game. You'll still notice principles of physics being used in the game without that kind of hardware support, though. Wooden fences break apart under heavy fire, for example, and trees and foliage sway as bullets whiz past. Vehicles never seem to come apart the same way twice when you blow them up either, but that nifty visual trick would always send our frame rates plummeting into the single digits any time we blew something up. Using the PhysX card didn't appreciably improve the frame rate or even the detail during high-stress situations either, which was a little disappointing.
The game engine is incredible with the level of detail it uses to render an entire city.
To give you an idea of the kind of stress GRAW can put on your computer, the machine we tested on, a Pentium 4 2.53GHz with 1GB of RAM and a 256MB GeForce 6800 Ultra, is considered mid-spec by the game. You're not allowed to even try to set the texture detail to high with a 256MB card--that's reserved for the pricy 512MB behemoths. The game still looks nice and sharp at medium detail, but as we mentioned, frame rates can drop precipitously when there are explosions or even just lots of enemies in the surrounding area. All of our gameplay was done at a modest resolution of 1024x768-- anything higher than that led to an unacceptable frame rate. We also tried playing with a minimum spec 128MB card--with this type of hardware, the texture resolution is noticeably compromised and frame rates are even worse. Load times can be an issue depending on your system--on our test rig, it took close to a minute to get back into the game. To get the most out of GRAW, you'll want to have a pretty decked-out machine.
User reviews
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STINKS AS A RPG
by duddly on April 20, 2008
Pros: graphics are great
Cons: no 1st aid kits
Summary: As rpg, this graphics are great, but there are no first aid kits to help heal you, and changing weapons reaks. You can't resupply your self so if your ...
Summary: As rpg, this graphics are great, but there are no first aid kits to help heal you, and changing weapons reaks. You can't resupply your self so if your out of stuff; Your out. The worst is the no aid. If your right at the end of a point and die. You start all over again. This also get to the fact there are no abilities to save as you go. It only saves at certian points. Nice as a freebe, but not worth buying.
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great game but difficult game play
by najsnarf on January 4, 2007
Pros: graphics blow you away
Cons: AI is not really accurate at times
Summary: I have had the game now for 2 weeks and played for some 10-15hours in total.. I am still in mission 2 only...! This is a challenging game to play ...
Summary: I have had the game now for 2 weeks and played for some 10-15hours in total.. I am still in mission 2 only...! This is a challenging game to play and requires a lot more than just re-loading and firing weapons.
I think that is what I actually liked about it.. a shooter that requires tact and patience to get to results. Quite a change from my recent BF2142 experience with it continous respawn and brainless action.
The missing quick save is a pain but it forces you to consider your actions ahead of time and move really slowly.( tactical )
Reaching check points creates more cheers though as a result
The demand on your PC are big but with my mid end SLI set up I am not in trouble and frames rates are "o.k." but not spectacular. Graphics ( detailed ) are beyond anything I have seen till now and audio ( voices ) really add 'emotion' to the game. ( alike COD games in some ways )
Multiplayer has not worked till now.. that's a bummer but one would expect that to be resolved shortly through patches.
For 19.99 at Compusa this was a great buy, a great shooter and will keep me occupied for many more hours of great game play. -
Great Game...Why make it so hard
by flamberge on December 8, 2006
Pros: Realistic, Good Graphics,
Cons: Crosscom distracts and gets you killed, Overwhelming Graphic Requirements
Summary: Ok pretty much I had this game for a week before I figured out what in the world was wrong with it. I had never, and i mean never had ...
Summary: Ok pretty much I had this game for a week before I figured out what in the world was wrong with it. I had never, and i mean never had problems with my ATI9600Pro, and so I had to wait until I could sit down and fiddle. I eventually got the game to run smoothly (no small feat), and started in and as soon as I started getting shot at the bloody crosscom pops up and I get blown away...anywho...The game is very realistic, but sometimes I just wish you had more control of teh environment, and that the game would just let you play naturally and be the aggressor instead of having the AI ambush you almost constantly. You can't go around the corner, look up over a wall, walk down the street, without some punk with an AK-47 blow your brains out. With some patience however I eventually got proficient but more or less this game is inherently infuriating. I love it its fun and challenging, but the fact that it took me about ehhh 8 hrs with the game to optimize my settings and learn how not to get killed was a little annoying
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High Hopes, Huge Requirements, Dumb AI!
by glezzery on May 13, 2006
Pros: Advanced Warfighting Tech, Could look great.
Cons: If you don't have a new 500 dollar card, forget it!
Summary: This is my second foray into Tactical shooters. The first, Swat 4, despite some glitches, is wildly fun and exciting. Swat 4 looks great and the control system, level design, ...
Summary: This is my second foray into Tactical shooters. The first, Swat 4, despite some glitches, is wildly fun and exciting. Swat 4 looks great and the control system, level design, open maps, and gunplay are excellent, so it is my benchmark for the new Ghost Recon.
The first problem is big. It is so graphically advanced, if one doesn't have an SLI config or at least the newest top of the line card, this game will kill your PC. If you do not have a 512 mbyte gpu memory, a high graphical setting is not even available.
This game seems to be designed for HDR and supersampling. The problem i ran into is that with my ATI X800XL can NOT perform Anti-Aliasing on this game, AT ALL! None. This is a BIG problem as it is the most jaggie and shimmering game i have ever seen.
Higher resolutions really help this, but unless your GPU is a monster, you will not get smooth gameplay. Since this game takes place entirely in Mexico City, there are jagged lines and glimmer on everything.
If i had a better card, i admit it would look beautiful, but i have just played Sin Episodes through on the highest settings at 12 X 10, and it played smoothly and is THE BEST LOOKING GAME I HAVE EVER SEEN. Even better than HL-2. Being that Mexico City is a very monochromatic (TAN) place and there is alot of jaggedness, Seeing the enemy can be tough. The display helps, but your teamates often don't. This leads to my second big problem. One can use the overhead display to micromanage, which can be a pain. Or, one can point the team into areas. Sometimes they will wander further than you command and get killed. Ir you have them follow, they will keep a reasonable spread and overwatch, but not even get into the fight. In Swat 4, you divide into two teams and click scroll command. In Advanced fighter, the maps are huge and the enemy could be off at any angle and hiding. If you have the patience to polt your teams every individual move, this control system is fine. If you like your team to move and engage and NOT go to far and fight with you at point, the AI can be a problem. Why would a top Recon operator move out around a corner when you point just down an alley. So, you are either babysitting or you are on point and they my or may not respond. The enemy AI is generally good and they will get cover and manuever.
At some point during the game, one may get bored by the awesome but same surroundings.
The insertions and cuts are great. The crosscom and heads up display are very cool, but take some patience. There is NO jumping or climbing in this game, which i think is weird. Having to walk around everything is strange for special ops, who make their money climbing things and jumping to rooftops.
The weapons are very cool and you can outfit with silencers and sights. Sound is good and the effects are nice. You can see your body and slide or headfirst to the deck and it is cool when you see your mates do it.
I still would like to see more interaction with the environment. Geeting the game to play smoothly left me with less than great graphics, so this is the current graphics monster, making Doom 3 and FEAR seem easy on the PC! And they are not!
This is generally well done. Some will love it. If one loves micro-control, slow movement, the advanced display, and have two 7900 gtx's in SLI, this game will be worth
the purchase. I am a little disappointed, especially after the beautiful color, crisp 3D, smooth edges, and awesome gameplay of SIN Episodes. My card can play everything, including COD 2, smoothly i have thrown at it, TILL NOW!Updated
Let me add that with more play and time, and my near future new card, my rating could go up to 8.5 from 6. This game does have a scope and drama that could become addictive. I am not there yet. -
Real & scary feel, quite tough, fun, demanding on hardware.
by UKBananas on May 12, 2006
Pros: Real sense of being there and being scared when the bullets fly
Cons: Very demanding on system resources
Summary: I'm playing on a Dell XPS2 laptop, with 2GB RAM, a 6800go Ultra and a 2.13MHz Pentium M, which is less than a year old and can play ...
Summary: I'm playing on a Dell XPS2 laptop, with 2GB RAM, a 6800go Ultra and a 2.13MHz Pentium M, which is less than a year old and can play most titles at high resolutions without issue. GRAW though is really hardware intensive, I have to run at low resolution which is not great, however due to the 'realism' of the game - it's still very enjoyable. I like the fact there is a steep learning curve, it takes a while to get good, and there are plenty of scary moments.
I recommend this game to anyone like me who likes fairly realistic military games. I haven't tried the multiplayer yet as I've heard of the horror stories there, but I'm sure they will patch that. The single player capaigns are fun. Lot of lovely 'kit' to play with, kid in a candy store?
I plan to upgrade my laptop some time this year, probably to an M1710 or something similar, then hopefully I can run this game in the way it was intended
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Ubisoft Entertainment
- Part number: 68280
Product Basic Spec
- Platform PC
- ESRB rating Teen - Blood,Violence,Language
- Genre Action
- Number of players 1-32 Players
- Connectivity Online
- Difficulty Hard
- Learning curve About a half hour
- DirectX version v9.0c
- Operating system Windows 2000/XP
- Offline modes Cooperative,Team Oriented
- Online modes Cooperative,Team Oriented
Manufacturer info
- Ubisoft Entertainment
- Manufacturer profile
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- Website: http://www.ubisoft.com/
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