16 out of 16 people found this review helpful.
Seemed like a bad port...
Date of Review: May 22, 2006
The Bottom Line: Buy for multiplayer experience and that is ALL.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is a military squad based shooter that has been released on many platforms. Unlike the previous editions, Ghost Recon 2 and GR2: Summit Strike, this game (for the Xbox) is played entirely in first person, with the gun in view. I always like Ghost Recon as a first person shooter, like the original game and Island Thunder, so this was a plus for me. A lot of people, however, probably would have loved another GR game with the over the shoulder view, like seen in the Xbox 360 version. Personally, I have not been the biggest fan of the OTS view in GR games, but in terms of GRAW, I find it to work a lot better than the first person gun view seen in the Xbox version. I'm not sure why they chose to have this view, considering the OTS view was in Ghost Recon 2 and Summit Strike, but this was the first of many other mistakes made in the making of this game.
Another very noticeable detail that is far behind compared to the Xbox 360 version is the graphics. I mean, obviously they are going to be worse, we are comparing an Xbox 360 game to one on the Xbox. Even so, they seem pretty bad for the Xbox itself. The game seems like it tries to be as good as the Xbox 360 version, but fails miserably. Instead of trying to use the Xbox to the fullest, this game almost feels like a bad port, even though the gameplay is way different. I mean, there is like a nice haze and lighting effects in the Xbox 360 version of the game, and in this version, they try to create this so hard, but it comes off very strange. There is like this weird orange glow in the Xbox version. Other than that, the textures are off, not horrendous, but nothing special. The environments seem repetitive and graphically speaking are only as good if not worse than GR2. The AI in the game seems very "blah." At some points in the game, they are very good and almost mimic "real like" situations. Most of the time, however, they seem to run into the bullets. One thing that is bad, but kind of good at the same time is that you only have 1 other soldier to help you along the way, instead of the 3 you get in the Xbox 360 version. I like this in the sense that it's easier to control only one, but at the same time it makes for a weaker "ghost recon" experience.
There is also a multiplayer portion of the game to keep players busy months into the future. There is a wide variety of maps and weapons to choose from while playing over Xbox Live and makes for an enjoyable experience. You can have 12 people in a game together at once which is a good number for this type of game. There is also a co-op mode for yourself and one other player to play the campaign mission together online.
Overall, this game is good and bad at the same time, with a higher portion leaning on the bad side. There are things I liked, things I didn't like, and it was just an "ok" gaming experience. Obviously the Xbox 360 version of the game is better, and because of this it makes this game even worse. Because of this, if you are only looking for a single player experience, I would not recommend this game. If you have Xbox Live and have liked Ghost Recon online in the past, you may want to look into picking this up. If you have the choice between this and the Xbox 360 version, however
you know which one to buy! :)