More Ghost Recon
Because it's just that good, here're some notes about GRAW after completing the single player on Normal difficulty:
AI
Shoot at an enemy and about 50% of the time they'll react and try to find new cover; the remaining time they'll either (a) stay exactly where they are and take a ream of bullets or (b) run further out into the open. Walk up to an enemy from behind and about 60-70% of the time they'll hear you and turn around/drop to the ground/run for cover; the remaining time they'll stare blissfully off into the distance like they're pining about Mary Jane Rottencrotch (5pts to whoever catches that reference). The times that the enemy AI really work well, though, I've come away impressed. I've walked into a courtyard with enemies above and all around, and watched as they tried to flank and get better angles at me while I hid behind cover.
As for your good old teammates, well, they're much more spotty than the enemies. For the first 5 or so missions, they do just fine finding cover, shooting enemies, not shooting you, etc. Round about the last three missions, however, they apparently start sniffing glue. I've seen them clump together in the middle of a street, completely heedless of the fact that a fusillade of bullets is raining down upon them from an entrenched M50 gunner. They've blown me up with rockets, shot me in the back, hit me with grenades, and run directly in front of me while I'm shooting. I've watched as they shot $1500 worth of ammunition down the street and hit absolutely nothing. I've set my grenadier to take down an armored APC, and watched as he missed for over a minute and would not listen to me when I told him to stop.
This is not to say that the teammates really get in your way a lot, it's just that those few instances where they do they seem to do it at the worst possible moment. For much of the game, and often during retries after getting gunned down, the teammate AI performs admirably. This is no Full Spectrum Warrior, mind you, so you can't really control much of what they do, so for nearly-autonomous AI it wasn't bad at all.
Pacing
The thing that really kept GRAW engaging was the fact that they did a great job keeping the pace up. Usually in games of this ilk, and its sister genre the FPS, I hit a period where my interest wanes and I really don't want to play it for a good while. This is usually due to reaching a point where the game slows and what they have me doing doesn't seem to fit with the overall picture -- filler missions, if you will. Trying to fatten out the amount of gametime it takes to complete. GRAW has no filler; every mission is set up in a way that makes it fit in with what you'd expect would happen given the events you are presented with.
Purdy Pictures
The draw distance in this game approaches all I could imagine needing in a videogame. Looking out across rooftops really gives a sense that you are in the middle of a large, sprawling city; a city that is not (a) in the middle of a record for foggy weather or (b) more smoggy than downtown Los Angeles. Shadows and lighting react realistically to your movements. The lens flare that was so prevalent in the last generation has been replaced with more of a diffuse glow reminiscent of the tech demos the Half Life 2 people put out for HDR (High Dynamic Range) lighting technology last year.
The people all animate very well, and for the most part react realistically to being shot. The game makes use of a shaky-cam when running around that makes everything feel much more like a movie, and alternatively more realistic for some reason. Specifically, I was often reminded of Black Hawk Down, which is a pretty nice reference when you're going for intense shooting and gritty realism. It also didn't hurt that bullets react with the environment -- dirt kicks up from shots hitting the ground, chunks of concrete can pop off of walls, things that you may want to use as cover can be blown away, and cars will explode if you shoot the gas tank. All of those things help make the experience feel more real, and thus much more engaging.
Overall, I have only two gripes with the graphics. First, the main character's face looks pretty poor when you put your back against the wall -- kind of like a plastic turkey. After playing Fight Night Round 3 I realize what is possible in terms of realistic facial representation, and GRAW leaves much to be desired. Second, there is not much mouth synch to speak of, and if anything reminds me of an episode of Terrance and Philip on South Park -- mouths open and shut like a mouse trap with little to no relation to what the character is saying. Finally, the character models for enemies and allies riding in the machine gunner seat of a tank are very low poly and look like Xbox 1 models with better anti-aliasing. All minor gripes, really, but putting down the good without the bad would be disingenuous, no?
Now on to the multiplayer...
AI
Shoot at an enemy and about 50% of the time they'll react and try to find new cover; the remaining time they'll either (a) stay exactly where they are and take a ream of bullets or (b) run further out into the open. Walk up to an enemy from behind and about 60-70% of the time they'll hear you and turn around/drop to the ground/run for cover; the remaining time they'll stare blissfully off into the distance like they're pining about Mary Jane Rottencrotch (5pts to whoever catches that reference). The times that the enemy AI really work well, though, I've come away impressed. I've walked into a courtyard with enemies above and all around, and watched as they tried to flank and get better angles at me while I hid behind cover.
As for your good old teammates, well, they're much more spotty than the enemies. For the first 5 or so missions, they do just fine finding cover, shooting enemies, not shooting you, etc. Round about the last three missions, however, they apparently start sniffing glue. I've seen them clump together in the middle of a street, completely heedless of the fact that a fusillade of bullets is raining down upon them from an entrenched M50 gunner. They've blown me up with rockets, shot me in the back, hit me with grenades, and run directly in front of me while I'm shooting. I've watched as they shot $1500 worth of ammunition down the street and hit absolutely nothing. I've set my grenadier to take down an armored APC, and watched as he missed for over a minute and would not listen to me when I told him to stop.
This is not to say that the teammates really get in your way a lot, it's just that those few instances where they do they seem to do it at the worst possible moment. For much of the game, and often during retries after getting gunned down, the teammate AI performs admirably. This is no Full Spectrum Warrior, mind you, so you can't really control much of what they do, so for nearly-autonomous AI it wasn't bad at all.
Pacing
The thing that really kept GRAW engaging was the fact that they did a great job keeping the pace up. Usually in games of this ilk, and its sister genre the FPS, I hit a period where my interest wanes and I really don't want to play it for a good while. This is usually due to reaching a point where the game slows and what they have me doing doesn't seem to fit with the overall picture -- filler missions, if you will. Trying to fatten out the amount of gametime it takes to complete. GRAW has no filler; every mission is set up in a way that makes it fit in with what you'd expect would happen given the events you are presented with.
Purdy Pictures
The draw distance in this game approaches all I could imagine needing in a videogame. Looking out across rooftops really gives a sense that you are in the middle of a large, sprawling city; a city that is not (a) in the middle of a record for foggy weather or (b) more smoggy than downtown Los Angeles. Shadows and lighting react realistically to your movements. The lens flare that was so prevalent in the last generation has been replaced with more of a diffuse glow reminiscent of the tech demos the Half Life 2 people put out for HDR (High Dynamic Range) lighting technology last year.
The people all animate very well, and for the most part react realistically to being shot. The game makes use of a shaky-cam when running around that makes everything feel much more like a movie, and alternatively more realistic for some reason. Specifically, I was often reminded of Black Hawk Down, which is a pretty nice reference when you're going for intense shooting and gritty realism. It also didn't hurt that bullets react with the environment -- dirt kicks up from shots hitting the ground, chunks of concrete can pop off of walls, things that you may want to use as cover can be blown away, and cars will explode if you shoot the gas tank. All of those things help make the experience feel more real, and thus much more engaging.
Overall, I have only two gripes with the graphics. First, the main character's face looks pretty poor when you put your back against the wall -- kind of like a plastic turkey. After playing Fight Night Round 3 I realize what is possible in terms of realistic facial representation, and GRAW leaves much to be desired. Second, there is not much mouth synch to speak of, and if anything reminds me of an episode of Terrance and Philip on South Park -- mouths open and shut like a mouse trap with little to no relation to what the character is saying. Finally, the character models for enemies and allies riding in the machine gunner seat of a tank are very low poly and look like Xbox 1 models with better anti-aliasing. All minor gripes, really, but putting down the good without the bad would be disingenuous, no?
Now on to the multiplayer...
posted by Paul at
9:04 AM
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