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Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2

For some gamers, the visceral action offered by standard-fare first-person shooters just doesn't feel right. Titles such as Quake and Serious Sam are filled with intense combat and non-stop "kill-or-be-killed" combat, and offer little in terms of reality-based gameplay. If the typical FPS is an immature, over-the-top gore-fest, then its older sibling is the tactical shooter - a nuanced, atmospheric FPS with an emphasis on strategy and planning over speed and wanton destruction. Since the 1999 release of Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy-branded games have dominated the tactical shooter market. Over a dozen titles later, the series is still going strong, and the success of last year's Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter all but guaranteed a sequel. That sequel - the aptly named Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (developed by GRIN and published by Ubisoft) - is here, and it has some big boots to fill to live up to the acclaim of its predecessor.

To be precise, the Ghost Recon series of games are squad-based tactical shooters. Unlike the third-person Splinter Cell series, in which solo stealth is of utmost concern, Ghost Recon rewards those who can effectively manage a unit of AI soldiers and stay off the radar. To that end, missions are based on multiple objectives and take place in environments which lend themselves to teamwork. Facilitating team management is a tactical map, which allows for precise unit management, and an in-game command queuing system for issuing orders.

This story is serious. Real serious. Really.

Gameplay is, of course, wrapped in a Clancy-esque story which begins almost immediately after the events in the original GRAW in 2014. The player is again cast in the role of Captain Scott Mitchell, commander of an elite Ghost team charged with retrieving a cache of pilfered cold-war era Ukrainian nuclear warheads. The game kicks off in Mexico and moves to Texas as the story progresses, but there's no mistaking this for a Cormac McCarthy masterpiece. The narrative is as thin as they come, with a couple of obvious plot diversions and dialogue so contrived you'll wince with shame for having listened. But if you can sit through a contemporary action movie, then you'll have no trouble with the story in GRAW; just take it for what it is – a vehicle for some exciting gameplay.

Newcomers to the GRAW series are advised to complete the training map. It's a fair introduction to the inventory system and weapon use, as well as the squad control that's key to the gameplay. At first, both the tactical map and the in-game command system can be overwhelming for a traditional FPS junkie; it's best to learn the ropes on cardboard targets. Thankfully, squad AI is very functional. AI units' path-finding is realistic and very capable, though soldiers who have been ordered to "Follow" will sometimes follow too closely.

It's a minor complaint, though, because soldiers are adept at finding cover as they follow their assigned routes, and they'll immediately defend when coming under fire. The only AI awkwardness comes with MULE resupply vehicles, which have a tendency to take illogical routes and get hung up on obstacles in relatively open terrain.

The story is neatly sliced into a dozen chapters, or missions. Each one is introduced in a briefing and accompanied by some of the cheesiest dialog to ever grace a video game. The small video clips which play here are laughable. 1990's era-CGI character animations loop repeatedly as dialog is overlaid (and not synced with the animations), and live video clips are interspersed for dramatic effect. Since the bulk of plot exposition takes place here, it's strange that so little time was spent on these videos. The cutscenes which play directly before a mission and after successful completion are very well-done, however.

Page 1: IntroductionPage 2: Missions and reconPage 3: Squad tacticsPage 4: Graphics & Hardware requirementsPage 5: Scores & Extras

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