Ghost Recon on 360 Outstrips all Expectations

Frighteningly real future urban warfare.

Posted by Staff
SPOnG attended another swanky London town game launch event last Friday – this time courtesy of our friends at Ubisoft. The event, which bizarrely enough took place in an empty swimming pool at Microsoft’s Soho HQ, was a first in-depth look at Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) on Xbox 360.

SPOnG’s first overall impression was that GRAW is one of the finest 360 titles we have seen to date, and one that starts to show off what the hard-to-get hardware is really capable of. Suffice to say, even though we are namby-pamby pacifists by day, we are very excited about becoming futuristic urban-killing-machine warriors in GRAW when it releases next month.

In GRAW, the focus is on the deployment of the Soldier of the Future (the "warfighter” in military parlance) as he is dropped into the middle of full-on, chaotic urban warfare in a beautifully rendered future Mexico City. The feel of the gameplay is tense, hot, humid and frighteningly real. SPOnG's never seen a war game like it. The game has been built totally from the ground up and really is shaping up to be something very special indeed.

The story goes like this. It's 2013 and there’s work to be done. Players assume the role of Captain Scott Mitchell as he commands the Ghosts and Special Forces allies equipped with the IWS (the ‘integrated warfighter system’ – which is an evolution in what we know as the modern soldier) in the quest to save the President of the United States, recover stolen nuclear codes and eliminate a vicious band of renegade soldiers hellbent on unleashing catastrophe. Pah! All in a day's work for any self-respecting urban warrior.

One of the most interesting new features in the game is the Cross-Com - a communication device attached to the soldier's monocle and powered by satellite technology, which delivers constant and complete battlefield awareness. The multiplayer and co-operative gameplay elements were also well received by all the journos present who took part in a short multiplayer GRAW blastathon. And while the single player game is set exclusively in Mexico City, the multiplayer game boasts a whole host of other battleground environs.

The game is scheduled to ship sometime in March and we will bring you a full preview as soon as we get hold of the code. In the meantime, just feast your eyes on these screens, and yes, they are in-game.

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