Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (PS2) - Part 2

Channel:

Louis B

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Published on May 28, 2020 11:00:15 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzDzM-luhCw

Game:

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (2006)

Duration: 50:17

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4

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (or GRAW) is arguably one of the greatest tactical shooters ever made. It makes efficient use of the hardware it is featured on, has an engrossing combat system that rewards original thinking and immersive sound design. On Playstation 2, Advanced Warfighter is anything but this.

While I am no stranger to playing “bad” computer games, I have to put forward that there are normally aspects to them that are at the very least fascinating or maybe curious as to what keeps me going throughout the ordeal. Army Men: Green Rogue for instance has many fatal flaws which make it an undertaking to complete but its eighties inspired arcade action helps keep it from being absolutely abominable. Unfortunately Advanced Warfighter on PS2 does not inspire me in any manner as, without beating around the bush any longer, it is utter tripe, a harrowing and unpleasant release that Ubisoft, a company often careful about the quality of its output, had the gall to release despite the state it is in.

The real matter at hand is where to begin. Where Advanced Warfighter is properly fine-tuned and optimised around Xbox 360 hardware, on Playstation 2 everything falls apart within the first ten minutes of loading it up. Menus are flat and lifeless, the opening itself only a teaser trailer of the real experience on other platforms. You find that once gameplay begins that navigation is plodding and slow, aiming is unresponsive and shots fired do not register no matter how well lined up or accurately placed they may be. Furthermore, hitboxes are broken, invisible walls often eating dispensed rounds fired from guns, there is no aim-assist and zero smoothing on analogue aiming to help make life any easier with a controller.

On Xbox 360, weapon load outs can be altered to change your style of play. While initially you are restricted to what Advanced Warfighter gives you, it is possible to pick-up enemy weapons, or altogether alter what you and your team are using in order to suit the approach needed for a situation. On Playstation 2 however, you are always stuck with the load outs each level starts you with, there is no way of changing what is given, and on later levels this can lead to infuriating consequences. Near the end of Advanced Warfighter’s campaign, you face off against dozens upon dozens of Mexican soldiers, with the additional threat of an enemy helicopter, and all you have to face off against these threats is an MR-C with nine clips of 5.56 ammo, no side-arm, no grenades and no explosive weaponry to counter the armoured threat in the skies.

It does not help either that team commands are incredibly limited, with most missions only having a single squad mate to support you, there are scripted sequences where you receive support from tanks or friendly aircraft, but they are useful in only breaking down walls or bridges that block your path. Your single squad mate can be issued orders, such as commandeering gun emplacements and guarding selected areas of the screen, but giving mandates can be very clunky and it is easy to mistarget, or altogether have your orders be ignored as they decide to aggressively attack enemies instead. In many cases your squad mate can become a liability, often running into your line of fire or ultimately leaving themselves exposed from cover and getting killed in the process. It is such lazy design, betraying the tactical element that makes Advanced Warfighter so engrossing on other systems.

Curiously some of the bigger problems with the Gamecube version of Ghost Recon 2 also resurface in Advanced Warfighter, namely in the linearity of levels besides the on-rails manner in which enemies would spawn and present themselves as a threat to you and your two-man team. It was bad enough how challenges were scripted in such a manner in Ghost Recon 2 because it made fighting the spawned-in enemies predictable and monotonous, and yet, somehow Ubisoft made this worse in Advanced Warfighter. If you are the patient sort of player, you can wait out encounters with the Mexican soldiers as they are triggered, killing all the possible spontaneity of a firefight.

I could go on at length about the technical shortcomings of Advanced Warfighter: Bad Frame-rates, janky animation and muddy visuals, but the point has been made, this is an awful Playstation 2 release and must be avoided. Do not play this.

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A LEGAL NOTICE:
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Any copyrighted footage I use is covered under fair use laws, or more specifically those listed under Section 30(1) of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1989 and under section 107 of US Copyright Act 1976. This video exists purely for the purpose of research and criticism. I do not make a profit from any uploaded content, nor do I intend to. Thank you for watching.

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