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Incredibly frustrating, doesn't deserve the Ghost Recon name

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 94 / 102
Date: May 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Pros:
Physics. Graphics.

Cons:
No Quicksaves. Checkpoints are too infrequent. Friendly AI path finding is questionable. Most of the unique Ghost Recon 1 features and gameplay omitted. If you (the squad leader) die in single or multiplayer, GAME OVER and start over! All maps take place in urban Mexico City. None of the outdoor expansive terrains that made the original Ghost Recon so popular.

Comments:
If you are a die hard Ghost Recon fan be warned. This game has omitted most of the features that made Ghost Recon "Game of the Year." No longer can you jump into and control each squad member, no longer can you issue disposition to your commands (such as "recon", "suppress", "assault", "advance at all costs") and no longer are you in control of up to 3 squads (Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie). Nope, now its just you and 3 other ghosts.

The AI path finding in this game is far from Magellan. Your squad mates barely negotiate the complex cityscape, announcing "arrived" when in fact they haven't and are rather two blocks behind you guarding the back of a fence. As a matter of fact, you are constantly micro-managing your squad because they do not automatically follow you -- unless you issue the mislabeled "follow" command which causes them to merely regroup on your current position. There they'll stay until you manage them again.

The omission of quicksaves or some form of spawn capability is absolutely ludicrous. As a matter of fact, there are no manual game saves at all. Not even from the game menu. Just a sparse checkpoint system. One location had me fighting over 30 enemies, 3 tanks, and 4 armored vehicles in an ambushed town center before I was awarded my next checkpoint. That may be no problem in Battlefield 2 or Call or Duty but proves fairly difficult in 1-shot kill Ghost Recon (practically the only attribute they decided to keep from the original game). One should at least be able to spawn into an AI squad position and continue the fight. That would give you at least 3 more tries before receiving the perfunctory "GAME OVER" screen.

This really could be an excellent game if developer GRIN would either add some manual save functionality, increase checkpoint frequency, or add in some original Ghost Recon features. I encourage you to download the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Demo before you buy. Be sure not to kid yourself into thinking that it's merely a demo and more improvements and features have been added to the final game ... because, I assure you, they haven't.

Just like in movies, game sequals are not always better either

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: May 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Biggest aspect I miss in this sequel is any kind of diversity in the maps. You?re in Mexico city and that?s it. It all looks the same. Where did the beautiful sunset prairies go where you could almost smell the grass while lying on the ground and waiting for your enemy to cross your sights? I would obviously like to think that future add-ons will contain different terrains, but, who knows when that will come out. For die-hard embassy-style-mission fans from the previous game, who love the street to street fighting, you may be rather happy with this game.
I also miss not being able to control in first person anyone else in the team but for Captain Mitchell. ...then again, that?s OK-ish since it is after all the most realistic way to play. Speaking of realism, graphics and sound are quite good, and the dynamics engine is a great addition. The manual for the game is minuscule. Personally I would really have appreciated an explanation for how some of the "Advanced Warfighting" technologies work (classified perhaps?!). I mean, is it really going to be so that enemies, especially, will be seen with a bright blue rhombus showing their exact location? ...don?t know, perhaps. Perhaps using infra-red signatures that are computer processed and show up in the Heads Up Display. I did prefer though as one just had to pay really very close attention to who was or was not moving around. Which brings me back to the memories of lying around in the prairies. Sigh. PS: no more OICW rifle!

Stop porting console only games to PC.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 46 / 55
Date: May 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Yup, its a console game alright. It's somewhat pretty and explosions are very cool but thats where it ends. I cant beleive I wasted 50 bucks on this.

- Frustrating
- No manual saves
- AI is horrid. AI sees you before you even turn the corner.
- Squad mates are dumb as stumps. Tell them to follow and they run past you into a crossfire.....
- No jumping or walking over short obsticals.
- Squad commands dumbed down and limited for the twitchers.

Do I need go on?

This game would be ok for an arcade setting. But Ghost Recon it is not. Shame on you Ubi

comon people! its great!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: May 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

hey, whats with the negativity? this is the first time in a many YEARS that I play a military fps that actually makes me scream TAAAAAANK! when I see one coming around a corner and im wounded and my teammates are out of anti-tank ammo and im sweating and I just wanna run home to my mother!

just beacuse its not excactly the game you "oldschool" recon fans excpected, doesnt mean it isnt a really good game!
and to those that think its too arcady or easy or someting, I just say try to beat the game on hard in coop.now thats hardcore.

It's not the original or the 2 expansions. But?!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: May 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First to address some of the below complaints. I too was disappointed with the purely Mexico City setting; what a shame.Team mates show flashes of brilliance but are generally average, but they can shoot like Rambo, and often save your butt by pluggiong a threat from great distances. Limited saves plainly suck and I miss playing as other characters, however I really enjoyed issuing commands on the realtime satalite map, while watching, in an abstract manner, one of my men pop a guy from behind because I directed him there using KeyHole (KH Satalites, or whatever they have up there now) technology. No one has brought this up yet I believe. Isn't this supposed to be 2013! Where is my OICW with mounted camera sites? Why does the sniper use a bolt action 12.7 mil. rifle? Some of the tech seems right out of Yesterday, while other's are state of the art. Very Disappointing not to mention inconsistent. Hell the OICW was unlockable in the first games, are they suggesting that it will be out of date by 2013 and we'll have gone back to using single load and lauch underslung Grenade launchers. Oh!and the one feature the OICW was going to have and may now have is an airburst capability the can be set for distance by the soldier for dealing with gun nests and entrenched enemies.

Now that wasn't all criticizm, but this is pretty much all praise. The game is Beautiful. the charaters look and move great. The action is INTENSE and at the risk of sounding like a marketing Kool aider drinker, the lack of more than 8 to 10 saves per level adds a certain reality, and as I said, intensity to it. How often do the guys in Bagdahd get to save their "games". HERE is a novel thought, and I had a lot of fun with it. Leave the other guys behind (the three other ghosts). You can pick up fallen ammo from dead enemies, and though it is tough with no one at your back it's a hoot to take on all those guys methodically by yourself (always remember the satalite view,check it often and do it zoomed in, it,s absolutely necessary while attempting this). In fact there are 2 missions you have no choice in the mattter, you are solo and lovin it. It's hard as hell even on the easy setting, but what the guy said below about omniscient enemies just isn't true, you can line up a shot on distant enemies and close encounters with the comp. controlled soldiers seem to make them panic and miss worse than most people would. A single soldier working smart, methodically, and tactically sound can wipe out a whole base given patience, luck , and yes reloads galore.

Oh yeah, one last thing about 2013 why doesn't the pc version have thermaql goggles? I think they are present in the Kiddieboxes. why the heck would you send a guy into combat in 013 w/o thermal sights? Hey Sam Fischer's got em and he's just a washed up Marine, He's a badass though. Really WHERE ARE THE THERMAL GOGGLES!

But I have only owned it about a week and am done alredy, while holding down a mid 6 figure job 2 kids and a wife who understandably wants help. In other words I really liked the game, even when I was stuck on a 250 meter stretch for 2 real life days, I'd stay up till 3-4 trying to get by and this was the middle of the week.

Okay I'll give it a rest now, it's not the old GR, it's GRAW, and it can be appreciated as such.

High-End No Joke

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: May 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I agree with the other comments about the AI and the like. I thought life was bad after struggling to get Rainbow Six - Lockdown to even run, no such luck with GRAW.

If you don't have the Geforce 6/7 family or the ATI 9600-9800 or X series, don't buy it until you upgrade. I didn't read the fine print on the minimum specs and when I couldn't get it to run, I broke down and got the NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GSOC and $340+ later, both games now run okay. I've had some crashes to desktop w/GRAW even after loading the 1.06 patch but could find no info on the website about that issue (seems the patch mostly fixed multi-player issues).

I've completed GRAW all the way through and some missions will keep you up trying to figure a way to get to the goal area. I've had good success with the 50 cal. sniper rifle, but good luck finding ammo laying around. I've also found that sending your team to specific points around a hotspot will keep you alive longer (they seem to see the enemy as fast as the enemy sees you) All in all, if you have the machine hardware to run it, it's not a waste of money.

This isn't Ghost Recon

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I wish I'd seen some of the other reviews before acquiring this disappointment. I am quite the fan of the original Ghost Recon and for a while have hoped to see some similar games come out. I jumped on this and had a copy pre-ordered. When it arrived I was very disappointed. This is more like Splinter Cell with rather ignorant robots following you around. If you like Splinter Cell you might like this. If you want another Ghost Recon, just stay away.

The game installed fine for me and has its interesting aspects, but it just isn't the experience I was looking for. It is a far cry from the original Ghost Recon games. Rather than controlling multiple squads with the ability to play as any member of any squad, you are limited to playing a single character who can give orders to other members of your team. The other team members are often less than bright about how they fulfill those orders. The storyline doesn't strike me as being nearly as believable as the original Ghost Recon. The lack of the ability to save when I want is terribly annoying. I was initially impressed with the way the game map worked but quickly became annoyed using it. Graphics are nice but can't make up for the other flaws in the game.

On the whole I'd say stay away. I'm sure there are those who love the game, I'm not one of them. For me this game is a major disappointment.

Maps and Multiplay

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: May 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

On with the multiplayer experience:
I've spent quite a good chunk of playtime trying out all weapons, getting used to them, their recoil, RoF & their Mods. Honestly, all weapons are viable. While some may fit your play style better (I'm in love with the sniper and Scar-H+FG), they're all really good options. You can take down a sniper from a far distance with the "basic" rifle, you just better aim right and duck his shot. Grenades (G-Launcher mod too) and smokes also provides really good support for ambushes and tactical defenses.

While you can go on your own and try to tackle everything solo, I've really enjoyed tagging with other guys, rolling around with squads of 3 to 4 guys and steamrolling enemies while gaining more and more territory. I felt like playing as a team really made a big impact. I've seen squads of 5-6 guys ambushing my team's starting location and literally holding half of our team in the spawning location for quite a while with grenades, smokes, snipers and good cover. It provided them enough time to take over more than 3/4 of the map, with only 5-6 guys... it was amazing what time work can achieve is this game.

Maps:
At the moment, other than for the Co-Op mode, there's only 5 maps available. Ubi said they would implement more maps for multiplayer, which most likely will be implemented in the "mega-june patch" as it has been dubbed. Moving along...... right now there's a few maps that are really sweet, open for sniping, good coverage and sweet CQB zones. Then there's the other maps, like the warehouse. Everybody's camping, nobody wants to go grab the middle zones except the few crazy guys that runs up middle, throwing 'nades left and right and nuking with the nade launcher.

I'm really hoping the new maps from the mega patch will be a mix of everything instead of an open wide area filled with campers. If they don't manage to pull something sweet, well there will always be the map editor that's coming in the upcoming patch or the next. Well actually the map editor is available you just gotta tweak a bit to get to it.

Time to reinstall the original...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: May 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The original Ghost Recon for PC is hands down my favorite squad based 3D shooter. I loved the tactical aspects and the real life feel of being in the battlefield. From the tactical map allowing commands and control of all your men, this game really gave you the feel of being a battlefield commander.

With each new version of Ghost Recon it has become apparent that Ubisoft is no longer concerned with supporting the PC environment or it's users which is a real shame. While I enjoy some console games, primarily sports, I've never enjoyed 3D shooters on console. I like many of my friends prefer the mouse & keyboard as well as the beautifully rendered graphics.

While the 360 and HDTV eliminates one of these, I don't think it's enough to port a console game directly over to the PC.

Most important, I believe that the game play has been dumbed down to the run in, kill, get killed mentality. Gone are the tactical & squad based maneuvering that really defined the original game. That was something original that set this and the SWAT series apart from other 3D shooters.

Might as well go out and buy Quake or Unreal because here is yet another clone...

Game of the Year no more!

GR Classic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: May 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is truly spectacular. Here's what I thought (system specs: 2GHz 2400+, ATI Radeon 9500pro, 768MB RAM).

With my PC I was able to play with everything (minus filtering and shadows) on medium. To enhance MP play I'll probably drop it all down to low. It ran very smooth until there was a massive load of something (large volumes of fire being one, or the initial game save) and then it hung for about a second and then it was good.

I love the guns, and the weapon load-out possibilities. It's so nice to have an SMG as a side arm. The look, feel and sounds of the guns are amazing.

I Like:

* When you launch a grenade at a wall near or across from a baddie (or team mate) the force of the explosion makes them go flying away, it's very entertaining, but can really only be accomplished three times - yes, I'm evil.
* Cross-Com! I love this! It's so stinking cool. In the heat of battle it really does feel useless (for now) but is still very very neat. I can't wait to see how this changes in the full game, and I can't wait to see if it becomes more useful.
* Sounds: Just WOW! I think that since the Original GR, every GR after it wants to win an award for Best Sound. I can hear the bullets zipping or snapping past my head (or hitting it), I hear wind howling through the buildings, I hear Rebels calling me a Gringo. It's all great stuff and very cool.
* The M99: This thing is simply Pimp. There's no other way to describe it. It will puncture vans, trees and cement collumns and still make the kill. It's a great way to take out those darned MGs and pesky kritters hiding behind trees.
* Hand Grenades: I'm having a hard time adjusting to them. Your character will move in such a way that he throws off the aim, but they have awesome explosions and do a lot of damage to the area around them.
* Graphics: I amped some of my settings up for a Medium/High combination. My PC ran horribly, but I could at least get a sense for what they were like. In a word: Beautiful. Definatley worth the videocard upgrade.
* Your Team AI: They're excellent shots, and soak up bullets fairly well.
* Enemy AI: There's a lot of them, and they drop fairly easily.
* SMG Side Arms: Yes! Finally! We have a customizable XM8 and MP5SD to use, not just the M9 and G17.
* Tac Map: You can see enemies around the corner, which is a nice tactical advantage. You can also issue waypoints to help your team move around. We'll also have the ability to get a drone in the first game which will be a big Plus!

I Don't Like:

* M99: Not enough ammo for one lengthy mission. I ran out fairly quickly. Having to reload after each shot. Yeah, it's more realistic, but kindof a pain. Edit: For this mission, the ideal kit for me is the M99 and M8 Compact with extra mags for the M99. The length of the mission dictates I have a sidearm I can grab ammo for, and there are enough enemies for me to need extra mags for the M99. The problem is, we don't have enough capacity for all of those. I understand this is a gameplay issue for MP, and have not tried this yet in SP.
* Grenades: They're explosion is unrealistic, they don't go up and out, they just explode in a half-circle type shape. A lot of fun to watch, but difficult to throw.
* Enemy AI: They're smart, or at least very alert. They're not smart enough to try and flank you however, they would rather stand in one spot and shoot at you.
* Your Team AI: It feels as if their movements aren't very deliberate. They also have a tough time understanding the concept of cover. I put one guy behind a corner to aim down an alley, he instead gets there, finds out he's being shot at, rounds to corner and his mowed down. Not a bright thing to do. I had another in a firefight, I ordered him to move to saftey, and rather than stop fighting and run, he just stayed - didn't kill anyone, and died. Perhaps as I play more I can take better control of my Ghosts. But for now, it's easier to make them cover my 6 (and 3 and 9) and take on the shoot myself, they're too cumbersome.
* SMG Side Arms: Again, not enough ammo. I understand the reasoning, but again I feel we should be told prior to the mission which caliber bullet we're selecting and what the odds are that the OPFOR is carrying that same Caliber.
* Tac Map: Being able to see the enemies from above takes a certaina mount of realism out of the game. Your Ghosts tend to make up their own routes based lossly off of your waypoints. This is especially annoying when they walk into someone's Line of Fire, rather than go the safe route you provided them with.

This game kicks ass. Plain and simple. I'd give the demo a 7/10 which means that: Full Game + Add On = 10/10

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