Ghost Recon 2: Advanced Warfighter
The year is 2014 and elite soldiers are more important than ever before. The U.S. border is being threatened by Mexican rebels and a large-scale attack could endanger millions of civilians. As Captain Mitchell, leader of the U.S. Military Special Forces Ghost Unit, you have 72 hours to lead your team to victory and stop the rebels in their tracks.
Upon first booting up G.R.A.W. 2 and jumping into the game, it may evoke memories of the 8-bit Metal Gears of yesteryear. This is good. Upon actually playing the game, though, it will start channeling memories of Tomb Raider. This is not so good.
You play as Captain Mitchell, charged with quelling a Mexican terrorist insurgency. The plot details are largely nominal and don't really alter the objectives of the core gameplay, namely, wasting as many terrorists as you can. This is where the "strategy" comes in; instead of running through the level frenetically shooting everything that moves, you are required to utilize shadows and cover to protect yourself and achieve your objectives in the most efficient way possible. Granted, 90% of the time, this involves ducking under a barricade, waiting until your enemy wastes his entire clip shooting over you, and then popping out and killing him while he reloads. Nobody said they were particularly smart terrorists.
My biggest grievance (and comparison to Tomb Raider) lies in the trial-and-error gameplay. It is this mechanic that lengthens the game, and though the checkpoint system makes it a little more palatable, it's still exceedingly cheap to walk through an open space only to be abruptly run over by a tank. Of course, you'll know to avoid it next time, but the constant two-steps-forward-one-step-back pacing is frustrating.
The game does look sharp and the sound is competent (the music in the menus is excellent, but gives way to pretty spartan gun effects in the game). It controls just about as well as you could expect a mobile game to control, but it's definitely a two-handed affair, so don't expect to be too effective if you're in a pull out and play mood while standing and holding on to the support on the train.
It can be genuinely entertaining for a while, and it does try to vary gameplay from time to time. All in all, it is a good diversion, but it's a little too ambitious without the matter to flesh it out.
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