This is a third-person military shooter with squad-based tactical combat which seems to be presented as realistic in style, in terms of capabilities, deadliness, the importance of cover, etc. I do find it odd that so many games of this kind are Teen-rated, however. It creates an oddly sanitized reality, of a very clean variety of wartime effort, as though a referee had stepped in and said, “Okay boys, keep it light on the swearing, easy on the blood and gore too, let’s have a nice clean firefight.” Ever notice how so many movies these days are rated PG-13 as well, even when they really should have gone for an R given the subject matter? Same sort of thing, I think. Can you imagine watching a PG-13 version of Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, or others of that genre? That’s the direction we seem to be headed in.

The presentation is very appropriate to the genre, having a clean, military-style appearance to the menus and opening screens, with a touch of the futuristic, which makes sense considering the near-future setting. I did find it a bit annoying to have a loading screen just to get to the single-player campaign menu, however.

The menus are where I noted the first deviations from the manual (a trait which seems increasingly common in games). Another was that the training mission is no longer selectable from the campaign menu (it’s simply the first mission now), and some control differences. I suppose that’s to be expected, and it’s better to trust the ingame help anyway, although that is sometimes incomplete—for example, they don’t really cover the alternate vision mode in the training mission, but it’s easy enough to experiment with on your own.

They do have a few nice control schemes to choose from, and I decided on the one which moves the majority of the in-combat commands to the shoulder buttons, leaving the face buttons for the tactical orders and interaction, things of that nature. There is a lot that you can do, and everything button is used. I do wish it were faster to switch firing modes, instead of having to hold down a button until the menu comes up, then selecting the mode you want. It’s not easy to do when you’re being shot at, so make sure you get under cover first.

If you want to play online, you can make your own character in a basic way, choosing from the game’s three classes of soldier: Rifleman—the standard all-rounder, good with standard guns, Grenadier-- good with explosive weaponry, or Gunner—good with machine guns, especially when crouching/prone. You can also modify your appearance somewhat, starting with a basic look given your class, which can then be changed in areas such as headgear, face, and some other options as well. From there you have various options on where to go next, such as Quickmatch, Custom Match, Public or Private options, etc. A given match can also be Solo, Team, or Co-op, and some available modes are Territory (zone-based control), Objective, Elimination, or Campaign (Co-op only). I’m afraid I can’t go into much more detail than that regarding the online experience, as I tend to focus mainly on the single-player campaign when playing these games, though having good multiplayer options certainly adds to the replayability if you like a given game enough to keep at it.

The learning curve seems a bit higher on this kind of shooter than on the less realism-focused ones that I usually play, particularly since you’re at the head of a squad. You play Captain Scott Mitchell in the campaign, and you can have three squad-mates at a given time, though some may get taken out over the course of a mission. If this happens, you’ll have to wait to replace them at appropriate times. You can delay this occurrence by either administering first aid yourself or ordering another trooper to do so, but you have a limited amount of time in which to do so, and in some cases it’s not immediately evident where they’ve fallen. In cases like this, I’ll usually access the minimap and order another trooper to heal them, since they have an easier time locating the body.

The screen real estate is pretty crowded, since you have your own character in third-person (unless you’re zoomed in using a scope or something), health displays for you and your squad, active squad indicators, ammo displays, incoming transmissions w/video displays, position indicator (standing, kneeling, prone), interaction indicator (context-sensitive, for taking or leaving cover, climbing over something, refilling ammo, etc.), and others. This gets annoying.

Another thing that cuts down visibility is the indistinct nature of things at a distance. The graphics are quite realistic, but things get uncertain farther out, and enemies in the distance just about always spot me before I see them, even when I’m being careful, stealthy, and commanding my squad to do the same. It robs me of some of the incentive to bother being careful, since they seem to have an almost supernatural awareness of me regardless.

You can cut down on enemy vision somewhat by using smoke grenades, which seem to be standard equipment along with a supply of the regular frag variety. They know you’re out there, but will have trouble firing at you accurately while you’re hidden by the smoke, and you can use your alternate vision mode to see through it yourself, which is a rather cool tactic at times.

You can also use a variety of cover, as many objects in the game are designed to be used this way, popping up and firing when needed, then ducking back down automatically. It can be a little inconsistent though; some things that seem like they should be usable as cover or interactive in some way, turn out not to be.

The squad AI seems all right for the most part, with the occasional minor problem. Sometimes it can be a little annoying to try and get them to follow you, other times they’ll do so automatically. You can command them to be aggressive or stealthy, and they’ll act accordingly, though they’ll always fight back if they’re getting hit, which is handy. You can also order them to different locations, to help a wounded comrade, etc., though not individually. I like the voiced commands and confirmations, it adds to the feeling of being there with them.

Side note: One squad member I worked with had an odd little glitch. KC Kirkland’s mouth was always moving, though he didn’t seem to have much to say. It gave him something of a “crazy old man” feel as a result.

The campaign is mission-based, and you can choose a primary gun at the start, which can then be swapped out for an enemy’s firearm if you feel like it, or if you’re out of ammo. These range from a variety of rifles, some with grenade launcher attachments, to light machine guns. I’m not entirely sure why a player would choose a rifle without a grenade launcher over one that does, since there seems to be no significant disadvantage other than the grenade mode replacing single-shot fire mode, but the option is there for those who want it. You also get a standard load of frag and smoke grenades, and a pistol. You have a PDA where you can access your map, give orders, and view objectives.

I have to say, I don’t like the chopper-gunner style of mission in any game of this type. They always end up being too easy or too hard. Given the choice, I’d prefer easy; this one is hard, though inconsistently so. Sometimes the enemy will simply hit you more often within the same space of time, even if you’re doing just as well as you did on a previous attempt in terms of gunning them down. You can’t get out of the way or anything, all you can do is keep firing, taking breaks to prevent the gun from overheating or the recoil getting too hard to control. It’s hard to control from the start, I found, and I just had to keep wrestling with it. Realistic? Probably. Fun? No. Deaths on this type of mission felt entirely too quick and arbitrary, though death can be quick in this game in general.

Some cool bits: damage shows up in the environment to an extent, with bullet holes and shattered windows. It doesn’t really seem to be a good way to remove barriers or anything, it just seemed to scorch them when I tried. The thermal vision mode is cool, if a bit indistinct; sometimes I found myself firing at opponents that were already dead, since they still showed up just as brightly, and were hard to distinguish between prone or crouched living opponents. Ragdoll death poses were pretty funny sometimes, though the lack of bloodiness made it look a little odd. Commanding your grenadier to blow up enemy vehicles can be quite satisfying as well (you actually command the entire squad to attack, but it’s that class that will do the most damage to the target). I also thought the breath meter while using aim mode was an interesting feature, and it wasn’t overly intrusive; it just provides something of a time limit while you’re lining up that perfect sniper shot, and rewards the skill of someone who can do that within the limit.

I’m not a huge fan of the squad element overall, since I prefer to be responsible for my character alone, and let the others do their best on their own, but it’s not too hard to deal with, and fun for those who like that sort of thing. Most aspects of this game have things about them that could be better, but it does a lot, and does it fairly well. A volume control with separate sliders for FX and voice would have been nice, for example, since the effects were much louder than the voices. I still think this type of game would be better at an M rating with content to match, if they really want to go for a more realism-based experience, as the developers do seem to have been going for in many ways, but that mass-market cash is hard to turn down no doubt. I don’t think developers realize how many adult gamers there are now, however; they might be pleasantly surprised if they took the risk of an M more often. The movies I go to see in theatres are all PG-13 now…please don’t make every game I buy the same equivalent rating as well. I’m getting too old for that.

Still, if you’re a fan of the military shooter genre, and you are looking to play one on a console, you can do a lot worse than to get Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for your Xbox 360. It’s on the regular Xbox as well, but I hear it’s a significantly different game, so bear that in mind if you go that route.