Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter review

You can’t help but feel sorry for GRIN – the poor developer Ubisoft put in charge of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter PC. Peruse its official forum and you’ll find countless threads bitching and moaning about the game, condemning the developer and some denouncing the franchise entirely.

What went wrong with the PC version of one of the most popular 360 titles?

Everything apparently. GRAW PC is a different game to GRAW 360 - but it’s also different to the previous PC games too. Whether or not you deem that bad is entirely subjective – but what’s unfortunate is the fact that much of the bitching on GRIN’s forum isn’t entirely without merit.

Advancing

Like previous incarnations of GRAW (Xbox/X360), the PC version takes place entirely in Mexico City of the near future. You’re leading a four-man fire team including yourself, Scott Mitchell, on the day the US President visits to sign an agreement over newly co-developed army technology. But a rebel army does not want this agreement met and ambushes the US and Mexico’s plans. It’s the same story as the other games almost verbatim, but it does feature the odd new piece of dialogue or information here or there.

It’s through the story and structure of GRAW PC that you begin to notice how different this is to the 360 version. GRAW 360 had a seamless, consistent structure that never bridges its levels via menu screens. It constantly kept moving forwards and you were always in the game. GRAW PC is rigid in comparison. Every level is now literally that – a level. On the 360 you felt like you were travelling to and through each location, whereas the PC version isolates levels – chopping the game into sections, basically. If you loved the 360 version this could be a little jarring. If you’re playing the PC version only you might not think anything of it.

Warfighting

Unfortunately, GRAW PC falls in the shadow of the 360 version in other key areas too. Ubisoft did such a wonderful job creating a tactical shooter that never actually bogged itself down in how tactical it was. Sending orders, moving your team, altering fire modes and other such actions were simple and easy. GRAW PC is not simple and easy. It’s cumbersome and annoying at times.

Take your fire team for example: even something as small and trivial as triangular indicators being missing affects the game ten fold. Now, the process of ordering your team to move to a specific location is generally a gamble on the player’s behalf. Your team are too autonomous for their own good – and sending them somewhere usually involves waiting several seconds as they move at their own leisure and decide to stand where /they/ choose. You might have a good idea where you want your team to move, but you never truly know where they’ll end up.

To underline how tough GRAW on the PC actually is, GRIN has seen fit to bring back one shot kills. These were absent from the GRAW 360, but have been common in previous PC Ghost Recon games. What’s bizarre is that GRIN has also dropped the ability to revive downed team members from the PC version – something you could do, or order a teammate to do, on the 360.

Ghosting

Trial and error isn’t even the right term for Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter on PC – you /will/ die. Lots of times, even when you aren’t expecting to. That’s because the game has a general sense of aimlessness about it. You have no idea where the enemy is until you or a fire team member sees them, and you move extremely slowly.

Holding the shift button allows you to run but at the expense of not using your weapon. As a result, moving through Mexico City is horribly tense for most of the time. The shooting mechanics aren’t as good as the 360 version – and playing entirely in first person is quite restrictive (you can’t hug up against structures a la 360) – but they work.

That’s because your enemy is generally rather stupid. Don’t mistake that for thinking they can’t shoot – they can. But finding an enemy staring at a wall or facing away from you in a firefight is commonplace. What makes them a bugger to kill isn’t their skill with a weapon, but yours.

Navigating your weaponry is a horrible task amidst a fire fight. You must hold down the F key and cycle via the mouse wheel to the weapon you require, and then select it by clicking the mouse wheel down. When foes are shooting at you its especially annoying – certainly with their almost pinpoint accuracy sometimes. But even the process of throwing a grenade to lure the enemy from behind cover is problematic.

First you hold F, scroll down to Grenade, click it, throw it, press F again, scroll back up, and select your weapon again. Unfortunately you’re likely to be dead by the time you select your weapon. The art of throwing grenades becomes the art of committing suicide, essentially.

Er… Recon-ing...

In case you haven’t guessed thus far, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is a different game to the 360 version. It’s also extremely tough and unforgiving. Your enemy is on the relatively dumb side despite the one shot kills and you have a better chance herding sheep than ordering your fire team to move. It’s also a great looking title that absolutely everybody will have a problem running in some fashion.

Does this justify developer abuse and death threats? Of course it doesn’t. This is one hell of a tough game and it has a number of problems. It’s not as simple as the 360 version and it’s unnecessarily cumbersome in its controls and design. But there are still moments of brilliance amidst the whole package (such as the opening sky diving sequence).

Just make no mistake: it’s the sort of game that even the most ardent tactical shooter fans are going to find frustrating. There’s a great game in GRAW PC – it’s unfortunate GRIN didn’t realise that to its potential. It’s one of those situations where the game is just too hard to recommend.