Keeping tabs on everything during the chaos of battle is made relatively easy by the Advanced Warfighter system. The d-pad is used to issue move and assault orders to your squad and the order choices are context sensitive to keep things simple to manage. For example, point your reticule at an enemy soldier and you can give fire orders, point it at a wall and you can give your squad orders to move there and take up a defensive position. When you have armor or helicopter support available, the d-pad is used to select the active asset and then used again to issue context sensitive commands. You’ll also often have an unmanned UAV recon vehicle available. You can command this flying drone to move to an area and scan for enemies so that you have an idea of what lies ahead. Since you’ll need to move the UAV to areas outside of your line of site you’ll more often than not give commands to it via the 3D map interface. This screen gives you a look at the area around you including buildings and streets, and you can use it not only to issue move and scan orders to your UAV, squad, and supporting units, but to get the lay of the land as you plan your next move.

Here comes the cavalry

GRAW continues the Tom Clancy games’ tendency towards realism, so it won’t take many hits to punch your ticket and you’ll be in constant danger of falling victim to a one shot kill. This forces you to take a cautious and tactical approach to the game, and rewards a judicious use of cover. You’ll go a lot farther in the game by trying to see the enemy before they see you, and taking them out at larger ranges before things have the chance to devolve into a full firefight. A run and gun approach will not work here, not only because you’ll be killed pretty quickly but also because your weapons’ accuracy is very poor when you fire on the move.

If there’s a downside to the game it’s that the AI sometimes can be a little sketchy. Your squad generally handles themselves very well, but on occasion you can catch them leaving themselves exposed in the open or refusing to make slight adjustments to their position so that they can fire on the enemy. Overall they’ll get their share of kills, but like in most shooters you’ll have to make the vast majority of kills yourself. The enemy AI is also pretty competent overall with enemies seeking cover and moving to try and flank your position. On the flipside, enemy soldiers sometimes remain in place and it is a simple matter of patience to wait for them to pop their head up and oblige you with a headshot kill.

On the multiplayer side of the coin, GRAW comes with so many gameplay options you’re sure to find something that you like. The game supports free for all, team-based, and co-op game types for elimination, territory, and objective game modes. There is even an online-only mini-campaign designed for co-op play. For each of these combinations of game types and modes you can set the respawn level, available kits/weapons, AI enemies, and more. All of this multiplayer action plays really well online, with no noticeable lag or drops in my experience with it. You’ll love making your way through the single player campaign, but the excellent and varied multiplayer modes will keep you coming back to the game for some time to come.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 94%  Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is the most advanced military shooter available on any system, bar none.

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