Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (Xbox 360, 2006)

This game is great. You start in Mexico City at the beginning and wow!!! The visuals are very good. The best looking game made to date. You have to rescue the Mexican president and…. Well I cannot tell you.

First, the graphics, because they are just so gorgeous in high definition. The character movements are smooth and realistic. Characters tumble down stairs. Smoke billows. Leaves wave. The different types of area - beach, city, snow - all have their own look and feel.

The sound is fantastic. The ambient noise around you really adds to the feeling that you are there - from people talking, to wind noises, to the various noises made by the weaponry used. I do not even have a good stereo and it sounds good.

The regular single player campaign is a ton of fun, involving, and very fun to play through. The real challenge, of course, is going Live and facing off against other real players. If you don't have Live yet, then this is a game that might entice you to take that step. It really does make this game one you could play for years and still have fun.

I've had non-war-gamers come over and pick up the basics of game play within minutes. It's not super-challenging or technical in that sense. It does take patience, though. This isn't a game about plowing Rambo-like into the middle of a pack of enemies and blasting away. It requires you to look over the situation, find the angle that gives you the best protection and to pick away at the enemies while staying safe. You're not a super-human here. You are a well equipped soldier who can stay alive with a combination of weaponry skill and strategic intelligence.

This game is highly recommended for anyone if they want a fun game to play!!!!

Pros:Fun Xbox Live Single Player

Cons:Very Difficult Multiplayer I mean actually split screen

Tom Clancy has a very good genre of games. Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, and Ghost Recon. Ubisoft just launched G.R.A.W. This game has more strategy than any game I know. First you start off in 2013. Stolen military equipment has gotten into the hands off Nicaraguan rebels. They are attempting to sell it to Mexican parliamentary forces. Guess what you have to stop them.

First like always theres a helpful training program. If you don't command you team to the right place the get hurt or die or your command score goes down. Then heres you Scott Mitchell leading a small squad fighting of mexican rebels in guerilla warfare. Then you command tanks, helicopters, enen a camera that detects enemies in the sky. You have a medium size category to pick weapons from pistols to R.P.G.s. That is what trainings for. Commanding, taking cover, and shooting.

Second you have I think seven mission but they are very long and difficult. This game will let some of your temper loose so becareful. You fight in destroyed town, evacuated city's and the wilderness (rarely).

This game is gorgeous. The graphics are the best on the 360. The gameplay is great. Well, the A.I. lacks a little bit. Split Screen is horrible. Sorry Ubisoft. Gunfire sounds real. Voice work is okay. All in all this is the best Ubisoft game yet. Highly recommended for 14 years of age and up.
-Cole Price

When Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter was first announced for the Xbox 360, it looked like a pretty ambitious project. Ubisoft was asking a lot out of the engine to have the game set entirely within a sprawling metropolis, complete with advanced lighting and particle effects, as well as lots of picture-in-picture video screens on the heads-up display. The early video and screenshots looked fabulous, so it was disappointing when the game didn't quite make the release of the system late last year. The wait was definitely worth it, though, as Advanced Warfighter isn't just the best-looking game on the Xbox 360, but also, arguably, the best game in the series.
You take the role of Scott Mitchell, a captain in the elite Ghosts--the light-infantry unit whose members are renowned for their skill and heroism in the face of long odds. You find yourself in Mexico City as part of the security entourage tasked with guarding a summit between the leaders of Mexico, Canada, and the US. Disaster strikes when Mexican rebels attack the summit, killing the Canadian prime minister and causing both the Mexican and US presidents to go missing. Over the course of the campaign, you'll explore the massive city--fighting rebel infantry, armored vehicles, and helicopters from within the dense, high-rise areas in the center to the dilapidated shanty towns on the outskirts. You'll do this solo and with the help of three teammates--who you can issue simple commands to--and supporting vehicles. Major landmarks, such as Chapultepec and the spire at Angel Plaza, are represented fairly accurately in the game's depiction of Mexico City.

The first thing you'll notice about the game is how breathtakingly massive and believable the city looks. You take several helicopter rides throughout the campaign, and the city is literally sprawled out all the way to the horizon with buildings and streets. Fires and smoke curl up into the sky from patches of fighting or factories. As you land, you find yourself engulfed by the metropolis and plying your way through the maze of buildings, streets, and alleys. The graphic detail extends not only to the character models, which are some of the best we've seen in a modern shooter, but also to the unique lighting and shadows. The sunlight is so bright and intense that it's almost oppressive at times, with the way the glare affects your vision, particularly when you're squinting through a scope. Some people may find this annoying, as the high-contrast lighting makes certain areas very hard to see. But, presumably, this overbearing light is pretty realistic of how daylight can be in a near-equatorial area.

Our only major complaint about the graphics is that for a city that looks so believable, it's as empty as a ghost town. Apparently, all 9 million residents of Mexico City either vanished or are hiding indoors with all the unrest going on. Still, it's a little eerie to see no cars moving around the streets and highways or people trying to go about their daily business. To be fair, though, it's only the stark realism of the environment that gets you to notice a flaw like this in the first place. The good news for those playing on standard-definition televisions is that the graphic quality of the game is plainly obvious no matter what type of television you use. HDTVs make it all the better of course, but even using just an S-Video connection, it's clear that a game that looks this good couldn't be done on a regular Xbox or PlayStation 2.

I decided to buy this game in the two weeks before the second one was coming out. I had just bought my Xbox 360 and i had never heard of the new series. I played the old ghost recons when i was a kid so i was kind of excited to see what they had evolved into. What i got was the most realistic game i'd ever seen and looks to go along with it. The games storyline was action packed. Chasing Mexican rebel terrorists, commands large armored vehicles and ordering your team to throw smoke grenades while you turn on thermal vision and destroy a tank. The graphics looked as real as possible on the xbox 360. the game takes place in 2013 which is only a few years from now but then it was about 8. You take the place of a u.s. armed forces elite commander named Scott Mitchell. You are in charge of leading the ghosts, an esteemed group of warriors. When the game starts you get a full on training session. You have a HUD device on your helmet's visor that lets you talk to the people piloting the vehicles that you can command, talk to your 3 other team members, talk to generals on the outside and see live video feeds. It shows you your weapon selection, weapon rate of fire, team rules of engagement, grenade type, ammo, health and your teams health. It it something that is mostly realistic for the future besides the whole health thing and maybe the ammo amount but who knows. What i mean by realistic is that all of the technology could possibly be around by 2013. Also the fighting and combat mechanics are very realistic. It's an over the shoulder game and you can switch the camera view from left to right if you like. You can also opt to play the game in first person which i wouldn't recommend. You have to take cover when fighting because on the hard mode it is a 1 shot kill. To make long range shots you can aim down the scope and then hold your breathe to keep the gun steady. You can tell your team to engage in recon mode which is the stealthier option or in assault. In recon, your teamates will not fire until fired upon and in assault, they kill what they see. Over all the things i liked about the game were the realism, the story and the action. The 2 complaints I do have are more personal. There is an achievement that you automatically get when you beat a level that i received on my first play through on normal. I played a second time on hard and i didn't receive it for some reason which made me kind of mad. The other is that the achievements are given odd numbers of points like 3 and 18 which is a little OCD annoying but not really a big deal. Other than those 2 i have no more complaints and i recommend this game to everybody.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (G.R.A.W) is the fifth installment in the long running Ghost Recon series. This is the best game of the series. They introduce the cross com system in which you can see what is going on through your teammates eyes, this is the best and most noticeable new feature. The story mode also sticks out to be the best in the series also.

Graphics
The graphics look so real, everything looks and moves like the real thing. You can see every bullet, see the sweat gush out of your soldiers faces. The smoke and Fog are blinding like the real thing. The lighting effects are great, the reflections off of windows is amazing and the overall style and design of this game is just unparalleled to any other game out now.
Final Verdict: 10/10

Controls
The controls do take a little while to get used to, they do feel quite clunky and cumbersome at times but once you get used to the mechanics it is a breeze to play. Everything is responsive and their is not a button that does not have a feature.
Final Verdict: 10/10

Gameplay
What can be better than a tactical war shooter set in the near future that plays better than probably any other game in this genre yet. Absolutely nothing, thats what. In this game you play as a captain of the U.S Ghost team as you protect and escort presidents and fight a war in Mexico City. The amount of things to do is amazing. Each level is long and has a lot of replay value. The A.I. is probably the best ever seen in a game to date. Their is nothing wrong with this game in the gameplay department what so ever.
Final Verdict: 10/10

Sound
The sound is one of the biggest helpers in this game, you can hear people creeping up behind you, you can hear where gunfire is coming from, in this game YOU use the sound to your advantage. Everything else in this department is great too, the songs are fitting and fit with the mood of the game and you can hear bullets scraping against metal and groans of your teammates as they get hit.
Final Verdict: 10/10

Multiplayer
So much stuff to do! With over 1000 possible types of setups online their is always something new to do. The servers always have a good amount of people on them and their is always someone willing to play. Their is almost no lag so every game is 100 percent enjoyable from start to finish, this is the major selling point in this game.
Final Verdict: 10/10

To Rent or to Buy
This is a no brainier, buy this game. This will be the best $60 you have ever spent, With some great new features, great live, best graphics for a game yet and so much more their is no reason not to buy it! You can also get it cheaper on ebay if you do not want to pay a full $60.