Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Rocks My Socks

We put up our review of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for the Xbox 360 today. Along with that review by Jason, I have some things I want to get off my chest about this super fun title.

First, I generally dislike shooters. I have played a lot of them and found very few of them that retained my interest for any length of time. I'm not one of those people who liked Halo. I also played some Ghost Recon on the Xbox and didn't care for it much. Rainbow Six 3 I enjoyed more. Chronicles of Riddick is my favorite stealth/shooter to date. I didn't expect to like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, but gave it a chance anyway. Am I glad I did! I am really enjoying this game on so many levels.

One of the problems shooters almost always have is finding an easy to use control scheme. Unlike Jason, I had no troubles at all manipulating my character and squad and using the controls. I found them intuitive and relatively easy. So, from me, Ghost Recon gets a thumbs up for pretty simple controls (considering how much there really is going on with the game).

Second, I generally dislike shooters that I cannot keep track of the action on the screen in. I think this is where the advantages of the graphics on the Xbox 360 come in. With the 360, I never had any trouble figuring out where the gunfire was coming from (although sometimes it would hit me before I could do something about it). The tremendous graphics of this game did away with what is always one of my major complaints -- too much action on the screen. Now, bring it on!

On Saturday night, I was set up with some multiplayer goodness over Xbox Live (thank you Arne!). I had a blast. We initially started out with four and five person co-op elimination matches. We moved onto some missions and finally ended with defend territory campaigns with nine or so people involved. In these quick and dirty skirmishes, I have to report, that I wasn't the first person to die every game! I almost always had the lowest kills though. I attribute this to my play style, which Ghost Recon actually lends itself well to. I choose marksperson for a reason. I like slow, methodical kills chosen from a distance safely away from the major action. During the entire night, I was almost always the only person to choose this profession. I like to be able to zoom in twice and be able to see exactly what is going on and pinpoint that head from a long way away.

This was another first for me, beyond being the first time I've played GRAW in multiplayer. I also have never played a game on Xbox Live over headset, even with our old Xbox. I have to say, is there any other way to play multiplayer online co-op games? Typing over the computer is now an antiquated notion. How I'll ever be able to play an MMO again is beyond me.

To sum up my feelings, GRAW is fun, online and off. If you are like me, and have generally not had much fun with shooters for a variety of reasons, GRAW might be the one to convert you. (If it's not, try Chronicles of Riddick, that games seriously kicks butt).