Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (Xbox 360)

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The multiplayer maps are quite diverse

Fans of Ghost Recon 2 will be familiar with the off-the-shoulder camera position. Love it or hate it, it has become GR staple. I found that the first-person view (which doesn't have a weapon model) to be more effective, but it's really down to preference. Player movement is a little slow, but after a while you barely notice it. The targeting reticule also moves slowly, and there seemed to be no facility to speed up the sensitivity in the options menu. Hopefully this will be addressed in the final release.

A couple of new tricks can be used to help you survive. A new dive move allows you to jump forwards and take to the floor in double quick time, and once behind cover you can peek out for a sneaky look while still being protected from bullets. A useful technique I discovered fairly early on is crawling, which makes you harder to spot and harder to shoot. For accuracy, you can slow down your soldier's movement to a stalk, which focuses the targeting reticule. This seems to be the best way of taking out enemies, especially when equipped with inaccurate automatics.

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The feel of the weapons is impressive. They have substance, which is essential in any weapon-based game, and vibrate the 360 pad convincingly. As you would expect, each weapon feels different too. Automatic rifles are best sprayed at mid-distance rapidly moving targets, while you can whip out the sniper rifle for headshot satisfaction.

Thumbs appropriately warmed up, it was time for some territory action (pretty much your standard King of the Hill game type), again on Hamburger Hill. By this time, after grasping the control system, GRAW actually became a lot of fun. The main base was the territory, and it - as it tends to in these games - became a death trap, but yours truly lobbed a few grenades in and hit the deck, picking off anyone silly enough to chance their arm with a few well aimed shots from an automatic rifle.

Talking of grenades, GRAW forces players to stand still when lobbing them. In an already slow-paced game, this 'enforced sitting duck' proves annoying. An appropriately skilled enemy has no trouble unloading a clip in your face before the pin hits the ground.

The advanced HUD will be extra useful in night time maps

But none of this macho stuff is the way Ghost Recon is meant to be played, and certainly not what hardcore fans enjoy. GRAW isn't a stop-gap to Halo 3 online after all. The next map we tried showed Ghost Recon for what it truly is - chess with automatic rifles.

Team territory on Wharf was the most fun I had during the play test. All ten players were divided up into two teams. Red Storm, as the game host, set up three territories, A, B and C in various parts of the map, which acted as controllable territory. With each second a territory is controlled, the team scores points, and the team with most points at the end wins.

Red Storm told us intelligence is the key to team-based success on Live and so it proved. On team territory the drone came into its own. Territory B was under a wooden pier, which yours truly controlled with such skill that the performance will be etched into the annals of play test history.

For pure suspense, the next game proved king. A grudge match between the assortment of game journos and Ubisoft's resident team of female gamers, The Frag Dolls (for £20 HMV vouchers!) bordered on the epic. Red Storm only gave each player three lives, which did nothing for sanity. Four vs. four, team elimination - and sweet it was too. Yes Frag Dolls lost, but it came down to the last player on each team. Yours truly would have helped in the end game if it hadn't been for an ill-advised team-kill. It was in this match that the Cross-Comm proved its worth, primarily for scouting enemies.

Scouring the dusty tracks of Mexico, hiding behind grating, chancing a rush for higher ground, all the while hoping an enemy sniper doesn't prize away your final respawn, is adrenaline pumping stuff.

Can it replace Call of Duty 2 as the most popular online 360 game?

There are, however, disappointments. Ubisoft told us they will not be offering clan support. This seems strange. Why devote an entire development team to the online multiplayer and not facilitate clan support? Long-term online gaming is driven by hardcore clans and guilds. Without adequate support, GRAW might start well on Live but then fall away.

Although it doesn't compensate for this omission, Red Storm is looking to support the multiplayer experience through Xbox Live Marketplace, which suggests downloadable content. Whether it will prove enough of a draw to keep players online remains to be seen.

GRAW online is shaping up to be a polished, tactical experience. Certainly the potential is there for it to be the most popular game played on Xbox Live this year. Nothing immediately strikes as being revolutionary. The Cross-Comm is clever, but doesn't push the boundaries of what online shooters are about. Where GRAW excels is in often nerve-shatteringly tense stand-offs. Compare this to Halo 2 for example, which often descends into a mindless bloodbath, and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter offers an extremely attractive change of pace.

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