Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2

We’ll forgive you if you’re experiencing a bit of déjà vu. When you read about a tactical squad-based shooter starring Captain Scott Mitchell and his squad of Ghosts that sparkles with a robust multiplayer component, it sounds exactly like last winter, when we celebrated the release of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, the first true Xbox 360 killer app. For better or worse, the same description fits as snugly around its quick-to-market sequel, GRAW 2, as a bulletproof vest.

Scott Mitchell? Check. Ghosts? Check. Mexico? Check. Rebels with bad intentions? Check. Standard-setting multiplayer? Check.

Oh, and Editors’ Choice award? Check. By ironing out the wrinkles that put a few folds in the original GRAW’s otherwise silky-smooth cloth and by also raising the bar for what we should expect from a multiplayer action game, GRAW 2 keeps the Clancy train rollin’ with another can’t-miss experience. Even if it feels like we were just here yesterday.

NOT MUCH TORQUE

It turns out, in fact, that Scott Mitchell was just here yesterday. Though it’s been a year for us, a mere 24 hours have passed for our fearless Ghost captain. The events of GRAW 2 pick up almost immediately where its predecessor left off, with the fallout of GRAW’s rebel beatdown provoking another insurgent incursion, this time in the Mexican city of Juarez near the United States border.

Regrettably, GRAW 2 is a slow starter on nearly all fronts. It begins in the desert, where the drab, plain-brown color palette and dull textures might momentarily fool you into thinking you’ve booted up an original- Xbox game if it weren’t for the detailed- as-ever Scott Mitchell character model.

Worse, before you can even start the game proper, you’re forced into an inescapable combat simulator — a series of training exercises designed to teach you the basics of GRAW’s gameplay. The problem here is twofold. First, there’s really very little new in GRAW 2 that merits a required educational course (more on this later): the updates and changes to the gameplay are mostly intuitive bits and pieces that should’ve been in the first GRAW. And second, do the designers not remember that we just finished playing the original game? The play mechanics and controls are still fresh in our minds. So while we hardly fault the inclusion of a training section for first-timers, it should’ve at least been optional.

Sadly, the story shares the same faults as its recent forebear — i.e., it’s paper-thin (stolen nukes heading for U.S. soil? Ya don’t say!) and features grating dialogue, particularly in the first few missions. In the third chapter, a grateful Mexican ally thanks Mitchell for his assistance and asks for his name. “I have no name,” Mitchell replies. “I’m a GHOST!” Commence eye-rolling.

BUT PLENTY OF HORSEPOWER

Fortunately, our complaining ends there. Give GRAW 2 a little time, and the fun and excitement pick up to a level that peaks and never tails off for the remaining 8 to 10 hours of the mostly urban, mostly gorgeous campaign.

Take the third mission, for example. After watching a group of allied Mexican infantry near the Juarez market get firebombed off the same bridge you were supposed to help them secure (treating you to a glorious display of fireworks-like explosions in the process), you’ll have to fight your way out of the half-moon–shaped market area, fielding fire from three sides — one of which is a series of tanks. But before you can finish uttering the words “Oh sh—” under your breath, you’re granted air support in the form of friendly jets, which happily drop missiles that vaporize the targets you designate.

Later, you’ll have to fight your way deeper into Juarez, alone and in near–pitch darkness through a cemetery. Your trusty companion: the MR-C Guncam from Ghost Recon 2 and GRAW, which lets you shoot around corners and from behind cover. In one of the game’s more memorable shootouts, you’ll activate the X-ray–esque night vision (which, oddly enough, seems to boost the framerate from the standard and serviceable 30 frames per second to a buttery 60fps) and use headstones as cover while bad guys swarm at you from all angles.

The final mission is also a thriller. We won’t spoil anything other than to say it involves heavy damn-you-all-to-hell gunfire on your part that’s countered by massive enemy resistance. The action reaches impressive levels of awesome when you’re granted simultaneous tank and combat-chopper support — though regrettably, the game’s formal climax is disappointingly uneventful, just as GRAW’s was. At least here you’re spared a cheesy speech by a final “big bad” boss dude.

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