Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (2007)

GRAW 1 on PC isn't bad, but it's way less noteworthy than its sequel. PC versions of both of the games play nothing like their Xbox 360 / PS3 counterparts: they are hardcore first-person tactical shooters. Both were developed by GRIN, a swedish studio that became defunct in 2009 after shipping Bionic Commando, which I really liked. Some members went on to form Overkill, the Payday developers.

It's clear, that the creators were inspired by the original Ghost Recon but certain elements were still simplified. You only have a 4-man squad at your disposal, with you having direct control over the protagonist. The three AI squad members can be individually given orders to move, attack, suppres, cover and hold position. There's more precision here with how you can give orders, almost like in Rainbow Six. While competent at shooting enemies, the AI friendlies are not autonomous at all and will stand still when fired upon, will take the worst detours to get from A to B and generally very often struggle with pathfinding. Level geometry is often cluttered with debris, ramps and even corners that get friendlies stuck. That way you'll have to babysit the squad members a lot if you want them to make it to the end of the levels.

This is a pre-CoD4 game and moreover, it's a PC-exclusive version which certainly didn't receive the funding of a major AAA title. Still, the character models, effects and environments look great. Sometimes even surpassing Modern Warfare 2, which is a tall order considering how rich the image in MW2 was. Sound design is pretty great as well, especially with EAX and 3D Sound through OpenAl Soft. The game also makes use of PhysX, namely its pre-Nvidia aquisition iteration. I think the effects look amazing, but they do run at a slightly lower framerate than the rest of the game.

The levels do offer plenty of variety and you often get to control tanks, mobile ammo dispensers (M.U.L.E.s, pictured below)

as well as order air strikes. The challenge, like in most tactical shooters, comes from dying to 1-2 shots in a rapid fashion. Your friendlies are just as fragile, but so are enemies. The futuristic aspect of the game is pretty believable, which i really liked. Basically, if you have an enemy in your visor, he gets tagged and all of your friendlies get a marker on their HUD with the enemy's position. Sometimes you are given a small drone that tags enemies from above, sometimes, when starting a level disembarking from a chopper, that said chopper will tag your foes before leaving. The tac-map that allows you to give orders also lets you spot enemies in you vicinity. They probably already have this type of low-altitude drone camera stuff, so props to Ubisoft and the developer GRIN for not going crazy with futurism.

As opposed to the first game on PC, this time around proper stealth mechanics were added. There's an entire night infiltration mission that has you free a prisoner from a small camp. The mission ends with a massive explosion as Battle-Axe by Deftones plays in the background. LFG.

I've enjoyed this a lot, safe for numerous crashes that I experienced during moments where the game wouldn't allow you to save which led me to loosing hours of progress. But still, this is a great tactical shooter that balances challenge and fun. The next Ghost Recon game is rumored to be an FPS which has some fans disappointed but I'm curious what comes out of it. Some people doubt the validity of the leaks however: GR Forums