Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter

Written by Nick Doukas  on March 05, 2006

Final Glimpse: There must be some kind of way out of here, said the joker to the thiefЕ

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When Xbox Live debuted in the fall of 2002, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon was one of the big shooters to grace those early days of online play. Seriously tactical and pretty stripped down, it gathered a huge fanbase who logged hours upon hours of play. Publisher UbiSoft has continued with various iterations of the franchise in the last few years, but Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter is the first next gen entry of the series, and it looks to bring everything shooter fans could ask for to Microsoft's new darlingЕ

The developers appear to have taken the series ever increasing action oriented bits and expanded on them big time, while still maintaining the tactical style of gameplay that GR elitists demand. GR: AW will feature an involved single player campaign that puts you into the combat boots of Ghost Leader Captain Scott Mitchell. On mission in the sweltering urban jungle of Mexico City, a meeting between the U.S. president and his Mexican counterpart to sign a joint security agreement goes terribly wrong when a group of insurgents attempts a violent political coup. At this point it's up to the ghosts to take on a rebel army and rescue the imperiled world leaders Ц and also find УThe FootballФ Ц the suitcase that the president carries with him at all times: the access point for America's nuclear arsenal, which has gone missing during the rebel attack. All in a days work for U.S. Special Forces Group 5, First Battalion, D Company Green Berets Ц they don't call them the Ghosts for nothingЕ

Set in the near future (2013 to be exact) the game features the futuristic УIntegrated Warfighter SystemФ, something that's similar to a real world tool I actually wrote about in an article from a few years back called УOf Splinter Cell, Solid Snake, and Super-spiesФ - Ф The AN/PVS-14 monocular night vision device and a new technology called Land Warrior really begin to feel like a melding of fantasy and reality, but they're 100 % legit. Land Warrior has several sub-systems and strives to fully integrate the weapon, helmet assembly, protective clothing and individual equipment with, among other things, a computer/radio and its appropriate software.Ф Of course, Advanced Warfighter takes this concept into the stratosphere with the cross-cam and HUD that identifies friendly and enemy targets. The ability to see what your team is doing in a real-time window while using your directional pad to send out orders is phenomenal, and the addition of the flying drone adds a huge amount of strategic value to both single and multiplayer games. Essentially a Predator with more sophisticated technology, the drone can be sent out to scout areas of the battlefield and transmit up-to-the-minute images back to your cross-cam (which appears as a small window located in the upper left hand corner of your heads up display). Obviously this is a huge element of gameplay that can help teams gain a significant advantage over their opponents. Of course, it works both ways, and if your enemy spots the drone, they can shoot it out of the air.

The Integrated Warfighter System brings enhanced survivability to the soldier, better ballistics protection and most certainly vastly improved communication. It allows every soldier to have full battlefield awareness Ц of everything from their own position, to that of their allies and enemies alike. Using night vision, infrared, satellite communication, and all of the other aforementioned tools at your disposal looks like it will add an insane amount of depth to not only the single and multiplayer games, but also the co-op mode. A full set of new missions (not just rehashes from the single player campaign) awaits you and your buddies as up to 16 players can go after an AI army in exciting, objective based combat. Adversarial play will support up to 16 people as well. Add to that an exciting story mode that takes you through a highly-charged political thriller and a huge amount of customization for multiplayer gametypes (you can adjust everything from the look of your soldier Ц you can accessorize right down to the Oakley sunglasses Ц to a ton of variants on every type of play-style imaginable) and there's a very good chance that the Xbox 360 will have it's first killer-app less than 4 months into its life-cycle come March 8th.

Visually Advance Warfighter looks fantastic. Near photo-realistic environments and incredibly detailed character models with unbelievable animations really make GR 3 the best game looks-wise for the 360 yet, and are a true testament to the machine's powerful next gen capabilities. As well, you'll be able to do some cool things with your character this time out, such as dive into a prone position or slide on one knee into place behind cover. Everything from simple reloads to chucking grenades looks phenomenal Ц smooth, realistic and natural. The forced perspective over the shoulder shooting view looks stellar, though there is an option for first person, classic GR style if you prefer. Overall, the visuals in Advanced Warfighter should have a seriously jaw-dropping effect on gamers come release day. The game sounds as good as it looks, with meticulous attention to aural detail evident at all times. All of the weapons sound authentic and special multichannel effects such as rain and wind sounds are perfectly crisp and clear across the board, and 5.1 users will definitely have no trouble identifying the signature of specific guns and which direction fire is coming from. With everything it has going for it, Ghost Recon 3 appears poised to immerse the player into the action like never before.