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With Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter making quite a name for itself on the Xbox 360, PS3 owners can justifiably feel a little left out. Well, they needn’t for too much longer as GRAW 2 (released on Xbox 360 in March this year) is set to land on the PS3 later this month. I took a squad of soldiers through the first few levels to see how well this port is shaping up.
You once again play as Mitchell, the hero from the first game. Being a hero isn’t easy though, so even before you’ve managed to get a bite to eat you’re whisked off back into battle. This time the rebel forces are causing trouble on the Mexican border and it’s up to you and your squad of Ghosts to put an end to the continuing hostilities, and the terrorist threat. The three-act campaign spans three days and covers barren desert locations, run-down villages and fully built-up developed cities on both sides of the border. It’s diverse, action packed and never boring.
The get straight to the point, GRAW 2 on the PlayStation 3 is shaping up pretty well. Without installing another TV and running the 360 game side by side to the PS3 version, it appears to look like GRAW 2 on the Xbox 360, which is a good thing. Lighting effects are subtle yet impressive, character models are detailed, animation is fluid and the frame rate seems fairly stable even in this preview build.
First and third-person shooters often feel a little less responsive on the PS3’s Sixaxis than on the 360’s controller, but it seems Ubisoft has tweaked the controls very well. Despite logging upwards of twenty hours with the Xbox 360 game, I found no issues with the Sixaxis controls. The motion control additions are another matter, but they’re best saved for the review later this month. Hopefully they will have been tightened up a little by then as at the moment they’re best ignored.
Single-player content wise the game seems to be as it was. This means PS3 owners can expect 6-8 hours of intense modern combat, with plenty of tense shoot outs, explosions and slick squad controls. Something I wasn’t able to test is the game’s multiplayer. According the Ubisoft the game will ship with 14 additional maps not seen in the original 360 release, as well as two new co-op game modes.
While a little early to say for certain, GRAW 2 on the PS3 appears to be every bit as good as the 9/10 awarded 360 original. Given that the PS3 isn’t swamped with triple-A releases at the moment, Ubisoft’s tactical combat game should fit the bill very nicely.
