Tom Clancy's Ghosts have returned to haunt another battlefield, this time on the Xbox 360. Originally slated as a launch title, Ubisoft made the unpopular but ultimately wise decision to push the release of Advanced Warfighter back a few months to ensure that the finished product delivered a truly next-generation combat experience. That added time has allowed Ubisoft to transform a game that had a fairly weak showing at X05 into a finely tuned and expertly polished realization of the squad-based shooter formula. With brilliantly paced tactical gameplay, incredible sound design, and amazing visuals, the latest Ghost Recon stands out not only as one of the best games in the Xbox 360 lineup, also as the single best reason to give in and buy that Xbox Live Gold Membership.

Background

Advanced Warfighter presents players with a gritty vision of the immediate future as inspired by real-world current events, political issues and international tensions. These clear ties to the present supply something of a safety line, preventing the game from spiraling off into the depths of science fiction, and allowing the player to easily grasp or estimate how the world they know transformed into the world they are fighting in. The result of this connection is an incredibly immersive atmosphere that lends a tangible feeling of feasibility to the action that unfolds.

The year is 2013, and the leaders of the Canadian, Mexican and United States governments are meeting in Mexico City to sign to sign the North American Joint Security Agreement (NAJSA). Before pen can be put to paper however, an army of Mexican rebels condemning the treaty storms the affair, kills the Canadian Prime Minister, and relocates the two other VIPs to an unknown location. Obviously, this situation is deemed a national emergency, and the United States government assigns the Ghost unit to track down the missing representatives, recover vital information and dismantle the rebellion.

Players take the role of Captain Scott Mitchell, leader of the Advanced Warfighter squad, an elite group of light infantry soldiers equipped with the latest in military technology, most notably the Integrated Warfighter System. At the heart of this system is the cross-com, a visor-mounted video-enabled communication device that allows troops on the ground to effectively see through each others eyes in real-time, via a picture-in-picture display in the top-left corner of the HUD. Troops can also receive real-time footage from remote recon cyphers, as well as attack vehicles and choppers, allowing for precise positioning and attacks. A secondary feature of the cross com also allows commanders off the field to issue orders and provide updated objectives via a second screen in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Out side of those two peripheral video feeds, the IWS visor highlights hostiles with a bright red signature, while denoting teammates in blue and friendly units in green, in addition to monitoring the ammo count and heart rate of the soldier and providing a three-dimensional map through which orders can be issued. Not only does this system of information delivery and resource management factor directly into the gameplay experience, but the overall presentation of the game benefits from it as well.



As in games such as Metroid Prime, the convincing visor HUD essentially transforms what would otherwise be an artificial assembly of obtrusive stats and indicators into an immersive gameplay and storytelling device. All of the sleek-yet-functional visual cues of the IWS visor come together with effects such as signal disruption and various light refraction effects to form a tight, cohesive package that serves to pull the player even further into the role of a next-generation super-soldier. Likewise, the narrative pushing the single-player campaign forward is primarily expressed through the use of news broadcasts and military debriefings played via the cross come video-feed windows; players are only given the information that a soldier on the ground would receive, and are left to put the picture together for themselves. Between missions, players are privy to briefings as they cross vast expanses of Mexico City via helicopter, throughout the entirety of which players are never removed from the controllable third-person perspective of Scott Mitchell - a fairly minor element that does wonders to enhance the sense of continuity inherent to the game world, not to mention the connection between players and the central character.

It's unfortunate then, that Scott Mitchell's character isn't more interesting or developed. Indeed, none of the characters presented in Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter are particularly interesting, nor the is the narrative which they contribute toward. While the events depicted may certainly be believable, that is essentially all the story has going for it, as the enemy force is little more than a mass of faceless Mexican rebels, while your friends are similarly faceless American troops. Granted, the idea that a solider on a battlefield would find direct, personal ties to the conflict at hand is something of a Hollywood cliché, but the reality is that without some sort of deeper investment in the events at hand, it's difficult not to feel somewhat detached from the conflict at the center of the campaign. That said, the content of the story may be thin (and the conclusion woefully anti-climactic), but the means by which it is expressed is incredibly well done - and more importantly, the actual gameplay that the storyline is built around is nothing short of spectacular.

Gameplay

The Ghost Recon franchise began in 2001 as something of an spin-off of the influential Rainbow Six franchise on the PC, the game distinguished itself from its forbearer by featuring more streamlined squad mechanics, wide open battlefields, a significantly increased level of action – particularly sniping, and far cooler toys to play with. For the most part, the franchise has remained true to that winning formula over the course of subsequent sequels and expansion packs, making Advanced Warfighter the first major deviation from the accepted Ghost Recon gameplay template.

The backdrop of a fully realized Mexico City has a significant impact on the pace and tone of the gameplay. The wide open expanses of wilderness have been replaced by a more complex metropolitan layout comprised primarily of tall buildings grouped together and divided by combinations of wide streets and tight alleys. Missions are long, multifaceted affairs that span large sections of the city, and players are given a great deal of freedom with which to navigate the numerous pathways afforded by the immense array of interconnected urban corridors that Ubisoft has created. The availability of alternate routes grants players the ability to out flank the opposition and re-engage from a more advantageous position. Moreover, most of the streets are filled with an assortment of structures, parked cars and debris that, combined with the expertly modeled wear-and-tear of the environment, serve to enhance the feeling that this city has not only been lived in, but is in chaos. Almost any physical object – from the tallest building to the lowest pile of rubble - can be used as cover simply by pushing the left analog stick towards it, and in many cases the availability and position of such cover will determine the nature of any battle that ensues in the area. As a result of both these elements, battles in Advanced Warfighter are incredibly dynamic, as both the player and the opposition have the ability to dramatically change the complexion of an engagement through intelligent use of the environment.



Once the fecal matter hits the fan and the city becomes a war ground, the Ghosts are confronted with a diverse range of combat scenarios and constantly changing mission objectives that seamlessly transition into and out of one another as events transpire and action spontaneously erupts. Players will find themselves completing a number of different tasks over the course of the game, from taking out enemy fortresses and bunkers with C4, to clearing rooftops of snipers, destroy jamming equipment that plays havoc with he IWS cross-com, escort a number of VIPs, protect various locations from onslaughts of foes, and make your way from one objective to the next through hostile territory, among others. The game also has a wonderful habit of throwing monkey wrenches in the proceedings, and forcing players to adapt to unexpected situations and mission objectives.

In one particularly memorable sequence of events toward the beginning of the campaign, Mitchell's Ghost unit is tasked with ambushing an enemy convoy before regrouping at the US embassy to proceed with the extraction of the Mexican president. After destroying the enemy vehicles along with their escort and surviving the methodical, tension-filled trek through hostile territory littered with enemy assault teams and snipers, players finally find themselves approaching the security of the US embassy – right in time to see it explode! At that point, any careful planning and reconnaissance work is a non-option, and the the Advanced Warfighters are ordered to keep the Mexican president alive while holding off wave after wave of enemy soldiers and turret-mounted armored vehicles until reinforcements can arrive. After minutes of the most intense shooting action you'll ever experience, reinforcements do come in the form of a gunship that can be ordered to take out the most dangerous targets (hint: Go for the armored death-mobiles). This is just one example out of a game full of missions that cross the gamut from hyper-tense, methodical gameplay that demands tactics before trigger-fingers, to balls-out action with a realistic edge.