Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Review (Xbox 360)

Difficulty

With the immense firepower at your disposal, the only challenge is the initial learning curve you'll face getting accustomed to the control scheme and learning to command your allies. Even the hardest difficulty level allowed me to complete the first mission of the game by running around, blindly firing my sniper rifle, and not once taking cover or needing a medic.

Only the last stage will come close to challenging anyone who has honed their reflexes on Halo or Gears of War, but the gamers who are at this level and are left craving a challenge by the campaign can easily find a worthy opponent on Xbox Live - and probably already have a Gold account ready to go.

Of course not everyone is a shooting game veteran, and this mob might be surprised how accessible this game is for beginners - so if your Xbox 360 collection hasn't yet ventured outside Sport/Racing games, this is a great title to learn the genre with.

Graphics

Xbox 360 owners have been spoilt with great graphics recently and GRAW 2 doesn't disappoint. I'd mention the incredibly impressive explosions and smoke effects, clean textures and detailed models - but it's fast becoming redundant in Xbox 360 reviews.

Indeed the only fault I found with the visual experience is the facial animation, or lack thereof. Given the impressive work in other areas of the presentation, a wobbling mouth with no visible attempt at synching with the audio stands out as decidedly last generation. A much older title, The Godfather (Playstation 2) showed that accurate in-game facial animation could be achieved on last-gen hardware, and how it adds significant realism in the face of an otherwise lackluster presentation - needless to say it would have been the icing on the cake with GRAW 2, but there's always GRAW 3, right?

Multiplayer

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