Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter was released for the PC in May 2006. I remember playing the demo way back in the day, and my computer could barely keep up with it. The big marketing point at the time was the advanced physics capabilities of the game on PC. This title was supposed to take advantage of Ageia’s PhysX card. This was of course before Nvidia incorporated PhysX into GPUs, which I am glad they did. Imagine having to install a GPU and PPU to get the full experience.
I got this game as a part of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Pack on Steam in May 2012 for $7.49. This included the original Ghost Recon games as well as G.R.A.W and G.R.A.W 2. However, these two games are no longer available for purchase on Steam or on UbiSoft Connect. I am not sure why this is the case, but there are forum posts that suggest that this is because of a licensing issue between Grin (the Swedish software company that made the PC version) and UbiSoft. Unfortunate. It appears that UbiSoft has this habit of abandoning games. Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X games were also met with the same fate.
Apparently it is possible to download this game because its in copyright limbo, having been abandoned by UbiSoft, and Grin has gone bankrupt. There is a link to be found here, but I have not tested this.
Playing this game 17 years later, on an i7 6700k with a 1080Ti, I have to say it does not look great, and that is not necessarily a slight against the fidelity of graphics, but its the art style that is rather poor. It is after all a product of its time. On the console, it was very much like a generic third person shooter from the mid 2000s complete with a brown color pallette, and obnoxious UI. While the game plays very differently on the PC, i.e., as a tactical shooter, it still retains the brown aesthetic, which is not something I consider anything remotely beautiful. That said, the runs very well, when its not getting bogged down by visual glitches. The UI fairly minimal on the PC. The hud is very clean looking, and modern titles should learn a thing or two about designing a clean UI.
The levels are very well designed. Often times there are multiple ways of approaching an objective. This can be useful in the later missions where the most obvious approach may not be the most ideal. Its always beneficial to look for an alternative route. The gameplay is very slow. Typically, it takes about one or two shots to kill an enemy. the physics in the game pale in comparison to anything a modern title has to offer, that said, I can see how it was revolutionary for its time. There were part of the game, where I used the physics in the game to gain advantage over the enemies. For example, I shot at the wheels of a vehicle, which caused it to dip lower, revealing the enemy. Little details like this really elevate the game.
This brings me to weapon selection. It is underwhelming to say the least. Since enemies die so quickly, there is no reason to try different weapons. I played most of the game with Scar-L. I tried Scar-H, but there is no notable advantage to this weapon because of the damage model. I played a little bit with the M249, and it was not great. Side arm selection is equally anaemic. There is an automatic Glock which is very powerful, and there are a couple of SMGs. I went with M8 Compact. Equipping this with a suppressor made it very handy at hip fire.
The overhead map is very useful. It can used to set waypoints and issue orders to your team, which can include tanks at times. Of course, this highlights the AI path finding, which is not very good. There are many instances where the teammates would not obey the orders given, they stop short of where I instructed them to go, and at other times, their AI is extremely competent, and will quick scope enemies. Its very inconsistent. The good thing is, even if your teammate gets killed in a mission, they are available again in the following mission, provided the mission designed for it. Some missions are solo mission, but you are given the command of a drone, which is very useful for spotting enemies.
The last two missions are particularly brutal with how the checkpoints are located. In the 10th mission, it felt as if they forgot to include a checkpoint towards the end, which resulted in a section that I had to repeat about 10 times. Extremely frustrating. This did however result in one of the most tense encounters in a game that I had in a very long time.
Playing this game now is a little bit challenging because of the technical issues. The two main game breaking issues that everyone is going to encounter are:
- The middle mouse button, which is supposed to issue orders on the fly, does not work.
- Ready To Bear mission will immediately start to glitch up on starting.
In addition to this there are texture flickering issues which would cause the visuals to completely glitch revealing a wire frame of the level, and this has been useful at times because I could see enemy location behind walls, and as far as I know, there is no fix for this.
It seems to me that the only way to buy this game now, if you don't already own it on any digital distribution platform is to buy the CD version. Do I think its worth the trouble? Not particularly. There are enough technical issues here for me to not recommend this game. I will write my opinion on G.R.A.W 2 when I get around to it. Maybe in 2024.
+ Level design+ Physics
- Technical issues
- Inconsistent checkpoints
- De-listed everywhere
- Poor weapon selection
- Frustrating Teammate AI
Verdict - Not recommended.
