A great third-person shooter that has aged a lot. I loved it when Ubisoft was in its golden age of tactical/stealth games. From Ghost Recon, to Splinter Cell, to Rainbow Six Vegas, these games required you to assess the situation before you rushed in, and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1 and 2 were some of the best games of their kind.

Sadly, the AI struggles, and on consoles it's so dark there are times you can't see shit. The UI is messy and it feels like you are controlling a tank with the way the aiming works.

But it's still highly satisfying to command a squad around and find the best position to engage the enemy. You can get taken out fast if you just rush out, so taking cover and making sure the coast is clear is important.

This sort of tactical third-person approach is not that common to see in games anymore, so I have an appreciation for these types of games.

Back in the early days of the 360, the draw of a good multiplayer game really excited people. Xbox live was getting more popular and improving each year and the number of decent online games couldn't keep up with the demand. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare dropped in early 2006 and was a huge hit. The online coop and versus modes were polished and better than most of the competition. It was lauded for it's smart AI and beautiful graphics but most people stuck around for the online play. Reviewers loved the game and it ended up with a score of 91% on Metacritic. 20 years later, with the multiplayer no longer really playable, does this hold up? No absolutely not. GRAW is a 3rd or 1st person shooter, with most of your time spent in a team of 4 soldiers. The story focuses around saving politicians and something called the football? To be honest I wasn't paying much attention, but its very much your standard mid 2000s anti terrorism type of story. Levels take place in fairly realistic environments and the you do get a good sense of urgency and danger as you play through the levels. The enemy AI does hold up and gives you a fairly hard time at parts, and the feeling of being pinned down by enemies, with the now common cover system works well. I think that is the issue with this game, anything it did well has become pretty commonplace nowadays. The cover system, enemy AI, online coop, teamwork aspects, all of it is not so impressive in 2023. I found myself having fun through the 8ish hours of the campaign, but it wasn't particularly memorable. One of the bigger frustrations is the tactical nature of the game. Previous advanced warfare games in the series were very tactical affairs, requiring planning and skill to get through missions. GRAW 1 has dumbed things down for the 360 generation and a lot of the fun has been taken out because of it. It's pretty easy to run and gun through the campaign without the help of your teammates. Your AI teammates also make the game too easy in some parts. Acting as meat shields, they draw the fire of enemies while you pick them off from afar. It takes away from the tension of the game, and I found myself enjoying the single player sections a lot more due to this tension. Its hard to imagine anyone giving this a score of 90% nowadays and it really doesn't hold up to this score. There is fun to be had here, but don't get your expectations up.