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Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2

Norman Chan — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:56:59 -0600

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Grin, the developer of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, took this adage to heart after the original GRAW’s abysmally poor squad AI and mediocre missions failed to woo PC gamers. Thankfully, the developer’s efforts are clearly noticeable in the sequel, which impresses with both its improved AI pathfinding and new tactically sound team controls.

You again fill the boots of Scott Mitchell, who has been sent to Mexico to support loyalist troops defending against a violent rebellion. Your tasks of keeping the peace, rescuing captured pilots, and recovering stolen nuclear weapons are eased by the support of your Ghost squad, which exhibits deft tactical skill. The improved team intelligence is a welcome necessity, as we found enemy soldiers to be proficient sharpshooters able to pick us off if we rushed too eagerly into a firefight. GRAW 2 definitely rewards the patient planner over the fighter with an itchy trigger finger.

To prepare for infiltration missions and engagements at haciendas and hydro-electric power plants, we were given fun new toys with which to manage assaults. An overview map let us plot recon paths and cover positions for individual team members in real time, which was very reminiscent of the effective pre-planning feature in the classic Rainbow Six games. After executing carefully designed attack routes, we could also direct the action from cameras mounted on teammates’ shoulders. This Cross-Com system worked wonders for adjusting tactics on the fly, especially when the team was spread across different points on a map.

But as fun as the action gets, it’s all over a bit too soon. The game’s 10 campaign missions don’t add up to more than six hours of gameplay, and we spent most of that time in the three ultra-difficult levels of the last act. Addictive multiplayer modes are a redeeming factor and round out a very satisfying package that’s indubitably worth your time.

GRAW2 Could Rekindle My Enthusiasm for Ageia's PhysX

Michael Brown — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:00:19 -0500

I’ve been a relatively harsh critic of Ageia and its PhysX technology; not because I don’t believe in the concept of hardware-accelerated physics, but because I think Ageia has done a poor job of making a case for its own product. But a hands-on demo of Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 at this weekend’s Showdown LAN 2007 has rekindled my interest.

I found the recent CellFactor: Revolution demo to be a major disappointment because it didn’t offer a compelling reason as to why you should buy one of these cards. Redirecting lava flows to turn my enemies into crispy critters with my character’s “psi power” was fun, but the graphics were pedestrian at best—and the gameplay was utterly banal. GRAW2 is a different matter. Ageia tells me all the physics in the game were created using its PhysX SDK, but only one level (dubbed Ageia Island, appropriately enough) requires a PhysX card—you can’t unlock the level without it. Could this be just a marketing ploy? I guess it’s possible, but I’ve never seen such detailed physics in a game.

My impressions are based a brief demo with pre-release code in Ageia’s booth, but this is the clearly the direction in which Ageia needs to move. Nearly everything in the game environment is destructible, and objects exhibit realistic properties. If the enemy catches you hiding behind a wooden fence, for instance, they can plink away at the boards until your cover is completely destroyed. The guard tower is even more remarkable. You can act with stealth and take out the enemy soldier with a sniper rifle, or you can launch an RPG, blow the entire structure apart, and watch him tumble down to his death. The first time you try this, you’ll undoubtedly get blown away yourself because you’re too busy watching the destruction unfold before you.

The effects are persistent, too. Blow up a hut or take down a tower, and the debris will be there every time you return to that spot in the game. This should help keep the game fresh and new, especially during multiplayer bouts. And as odd as it might sound, the weather effects in GRAW2 are almost as impressive as the explosions. The wind blows so many leaves and other debris around the environment that it sometimes obscure your vision. These are the types of particle effects that I’ve been waiting to see move from Ageia’s lab demos to real-world games.

I want to see hardware-accelerated physics thrive, and I think a dedicated processor is the way to do it. While one level in one game isn’t going to sell the thousands of PhysX cards Ageia needs to move in order to attain critical mass, GRAW2 looks like it will be a crucial step in the right direction. The PC version of the game is scheduled for a July 2007 release.

Here are some screenshots showing the watchtower being demolished.

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter

Will Smith — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 16:15:34 -0500

Ghost Recon games have always been serious tactical shooters—when they appear on the PC, anyway—but the latest installment requires an even more tactical approach than its predecessors.

Not only do you need to carefully plan your every move in this near-future shooter, you also need a rig from the near future to run the game. Sadly, that’s the case even if you disable some of the eye candy that worked well on the Xbox 360.

We’re usually not averse to insanely high system requirements, but when we fired up Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter on an SLI rig with dual 7800 GTX cards, 2GB of RAM, and an Athlon X2 4800+, and couldn’t run the game at 1280x1024, we figured something was afoot.

After several patches and some heavy tweaking, the game’s performance improved slightly, but we don’t understand why some features remain disabled on the PC. We especially missed the direct video feed from our squad mates’ head-cams—the Xbox 360 displays a full render, while the PC version shows just a wireframe. That’s disappointing.

Performance issues aside, the game looks brilliant, delivering huge, realistic environments through which to stalk your prey, and stalking is exactly what you’ll need to do. Charging into battle with guns blazing is a sure-fire way to a sudden death. Instead, you’ll need to plan each of your moves carefully, using the excellent tactical map, and direct your squad mates with the same care. For them to be effective, you need to place each squad mate carefully, so they can suss out enemy positions and protect your back from the inevitable counterattack.

While we prefer the more hands-on approach that the PC version of GRAW gives squad leaders, your squad mate’s AI leaves a lot to be desired. If you tell a squaddie to wait in the cover of a protective corner, he’s just as likely to casually stroll around the corner into a hail of bullets as he is to wait in the place you specified. It’s natural selection at work, but it’s extremely frustrating when your only sniper is taken out during the first moments of a 30-plus-minute-long mission. Oddly, the enemy AI is quite good; they use cover effectively and make reasonably good decisions about when and how to attack.

Were the AI a little less suicidal, the game’s high-difficulty level wouldn’t be such a problem. But because you can’t rely on your comrades to behave the way any life-loving soldier would, you not only have to contend with an extremely difficult first-person shooter, but you also have to keep your squad alive long enough to keep you covered. It quickly stops being fun and becomes tedious.

The game’s saving grace is the kick-ass multiplayer co-op mode. On the PC version, you can play through the entire single-player campaign with real-life humans taking the place of the drooling AI. (The Xbox 360 version replaced co-op on the single-player missions with a handful of specially designed, but inferior co-op maps.)

Playing co-op with your buddies is fun with a capital F, and it gives you a great opportunity to practice your team-based strategies. Voice comms are a must if you want to succeed, so if you’re not playing on a LAN, make sure you bring your headset—a good time will be had by all.

Month Reviewed: August 2006

+ CASPER THE FRIENDLY: Co-op really kicks ass; the tactical action can be very satisfying.

- JACOB MARLEY: You'll spend more time positioning your squad than you will fighting the enemy.

VERDICT: 8

URL: www.ghostrecon.com

ESRB Rating: T