Well our friends over at UbiSoft have bought us the next chapter of the ever popular Ghost Recon series with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 just a mere year after the first game which knocked our socks off on the Xbox 360. Ghost Recon 2 or “GRAW 2” improves on just about every category over the original. The graphics are better,the squad commands are more in depth and better,the missions in my opinion are better and the sound is great,ok maybe the sound isn’t better but it is just as good. So what was my full impression of this shooter you ask ? read on and enjoy my new review format.

GRAPHICS

Now when the first GRAW came out it wowed gamers with its unbelievably lifelike environments and explosions. Nothing at the time looked as good as it did. Well in GRAW 2 it does use the same graphics engine (YETI) but it has been heavily refined. In my honest opinion this game takes the crown in lighting effects. The lighting effects in GRAW 2 are absolutely gorgeous!. I remember when I first started off in the tutorial I stopped and looked around at the environments in awe with the real time lighting effects. Ubi has also taken the graphics in GRAW one step further in part 2 by adding life to the environments such as birds that will scatter when you fire you gun,awesome effects such as dust blowing up in the wind etc. Character models have been beefed up a bit too with a lot more detail to their outfits, in one mission you will even have to play with no head gear and you will get a lot of good looks at your guys bald head,which has been given a lot of detail as well! Overall I put GRAW 2 in the top 5 best looking Xbox 360 games to date,especially in HD this game is hard to beat in the visuals department.

CONTROLS

The developer has gone the extra mile this time around with the controls of the squad commands. Remember in part 1 you could point your squad in a direction and wish them luck in a heated gun battle? Well now you can switch your camera view and look out their camera while they are fighting. Yes,you can send your men across the entire battlefield while you stay put and still be able to watch them and issue them orders. This new feature alone added a whole new level of fun for me personally as it makes a lot of different ways to complete your mission possible. The same goes for vehicles,like in one mission you can look out the eyes of a chopper as you are telling it where to shoot and take out the bad guys from above. Aside from this awesome new feature everything else is as you remember it from GRAW 1,which definitely wasn’t broken so why fix it?

FEATURES

The online features is another area where GRAW 2 shines. There is a plethora of game modes as follows,TERRITORY,which is all about seizing and holding positions.OBJECTIVE,where the goal is to achieve the objective to win.ELIMINATION,kill everyone who is not on your side.CO-OP CAMPAIGN,you and a friend can play through the campaign together. TEAM BATTLE,zone based gameplay featuring AI support and TEAM MISSION where your team must achieve objectives as you progress through the map. So do not fret when you finish the single player campaign,because you will definitely not be getting bored with this game.

OVERALL

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 is not GRAW 1.5 as I have been seeing it called in various forums across the internet. It has improved graphics,controls,missions and that is what is expected in a full sequel. I highly recommend this title to fans of the original and even gamers who enjoy shooters of any kind. It truly is a top notch well produced game!