GRAW 2

GRAW 2 - PC version

The number of different games Tom Clancy is sticking his name on these days are almost starting to look like mass production. Either its just one guy with weird green lights on his head, or its just a group of guys who will get their kicks out of breaking down doors, it always was fresh and new and kept the regular and hardcore gamer very happy. The Tom Clancy games are known for a good portion of tactical content and realistic action with high quality, but will this still be as high now that the games are rolling out the factory like sweet rolls?


Simplicity and clarity

So Tom is back with his fancy Ghosts to kick ass along the borders of Mexico. The terrorists (who else) are back with more cunning plans and there is only one team that can stop these naughty people and you’re the leader of this team, but that isn’t much of a surprise to the regular Ghost Recon player. The story of it all is told in a CNN like short intro before every mission. It’s all great for those who are really interested in the story line, but thankfully you are able to skip all the chit chat and get right to business. At the start of every mission, you are able to pick the team members you will take along and what weapons you (and they) will use. The whole interface of this all is very clean and right to the point, instead of the usual clutter, complicated buttons and technical slang only real soldiers could understand. However it doesn’t provide a lot of choice. There are not really that many members to pick from, and the weapon arsenal is pretty small compared to other Clancy games. At least every team member has his own function so it will add to the tactical plan of choice. So its still sufficient to make different tactical approaches and try out various of settings and weapons each time. When you’re done with the team and the weapons of choice, its time to start the mission and slide down from a chopper.


More simplicity and swiftness

The dry wind scours your ears while dead bushes roll down the dusty old road. The world looks hot and dry and the soft music doesn’t predict much good. The maps look and feel great and the music really adds to the tension when it should. The music really pumps it up when a fire fight starts or when you are spotted by an enemy which gives that ‘I’m in an action movie’ feeling while you fall on your belly to take cover.
Some of the weapons produce really soft sounds without a silencer when you are expecting some really hard noises in a fire fight. At least the sniper gun made a noise that made my desk tremble at every shot, which made it all okay again.
The controls are pretty standard and easy to play with. This goes even more for the people that played Ghost Recon before, so the manual can be tossed away without ever having to really need it. The game takes some good use of some keyboard buttons together with the mouse buttons. The standard settings are pretty logic, even though it does take a little practise to give orders to the team and shoot some bullets to the enemy at the same time. But just the fact that you CAN shoot and give orders at the same time is proof it all works quite well.
You could also use the tactical map that gives a live feed from the surroundings and it enables you to give detailed orders to your team, with waypoints and various actions in a very simple and clear way. This gives the chance to really plan out an attack in detail, without getting too confused in menu’s and buttons. Because of all the ongoing simplicity, you are always focused on the action in the game so it really pulls you in the action.
The movement itself is pretty smooth and, to my surprise, quite fast too. Especially sprinting makes you able to move really fast around the map and speeds up the gameplay. The sprinting makes you want to try out the ‘Rambo’ tactic (for those unknown to this tactic: Run in and kill everything that moves on your own) but trying it makes you realise that this is still a realistic shooter and one bullet can still kill you.


Half Brained

So, everything looks quite spiffy for the Ghosts at the start. Too bad the goodness of the game gets killed after a few hours of playing it. Because after a while you will start to really need your team mates and their skills. You will really need them to be able to follow you around the map without you holding their hands, but unfortunately they can’t. You will start to doubt the honesty of your team mates when someone starts complimenting you on a very good shot while he is still standing at the starting point hugging some wall. You really start to get annoyed that when you give the order to give cover so you can run safely to some cover a few feet further they just start shooting against the nearest brick while you are fitted with some new orifices.
Your team mates will whine every half minute when you haven’t given them any order yet, congratulate you on every kill you make and won’t leave any room for you when you need to take cover. The only sniper in your team isn’t even able to make a kill on a stationary target from 10 feet without having to miss 2 shots first. The biggest problem is that they wont be able to follow you when you start to sprint a few feet to move a bit faster along the mission. I even had to use an older savegame because I couldn’t be bothered to have to walk all the way back to retrieve my team. Thankfully you can save anytime you want now (as long as you are not in some scripted event) so I started saving a lot of times, just I case I lost my team again. The only team member with an excuse to not have a brain is the Mule. This is some sort of mobile supply unit where you can grab more ammo or even swap weapons.
Also the enemy isn’t blessed with more then half a brain. Most are stationary and blind as a bat and won’t notice how you killed his fellow half-brainer with a snipergun standing right in front of him.


Good, but not that good

On the surface the game is pretty good. The gameplay is nice and smooth and it’s easy to make tactical manouvres. But when you open the hood you will notice how awefull the A.I. actually is and the story line itself is just really predicable. I have seen how terrorist steal bombs and threaten to blow stuff up so many times, that if it would actually happen for real it wouldn’t even make breakfast news. You will be skipping the CNN news like intro’s every time and just want to get into the action. The A.I. will make you cry from time to time and you will try to finish some missions solo, just because it’s too much effort to make the team actually follow you. Still the graphics are good and the music and atmosphere makes the game fun to play. But it will never be able to compare itself with the big FPS games with these flaws.


Gameplay 81
Graphics 83
Sound 85
Total 82

Any chance we could have that in English!

Hm.

I kind of forgot that this was an international forum. I made this review for some local thing here, but it wasnt used. So i figured, hey just post it on the forum where i usually read user reviews.

cut and paste and woops. its in dutch.
Ill rewrite it all in english (good god, that 'll cost me some time) and ill repost.

sigh.

sometimes i think i really need some more sleep in a week.

So there, i rewritten the whole review in english. Good thing i had this afternoon off so i could do it right away.

Hope its a good read for other people now.

Well done!

You are right about the Team AI. This was this way in GRAW1 already, which, to be honest, I did never finish because after that night mission, it got really repetitive and annoyingly hard because the save locations were unfair at times. So I refrained from buying GRAW2 because it doesn't really add anything new.

Nice review though, good job!

Very nice review, well written and a good read.

Yes, even tho it seems like you are able to save whenever you want, its always at points where it is useless to save. During the scripted events (like running through some streets filled with snipers and scum) you wont be able to save, while its really needed from time to time to save during these events. I cant count ho wmany times i had to start the whole thing over because i lost my team again and i couldnt get any further without them.

Its a shame that the AI didnt work out, because the rest is pretty good. Even tho some parts are pretty repetitive, but most games are in general.

great review ..was one that i actually read through without getting bored and skipping it:P i think the only thing that beats that review is flaming_afros avatar..man that thing pulls my attention away from everything

Right now I am stuck in chapter 3 at the dam with no saves. Replayed it 5 times so far to no avail Good review..