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Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Preview
Written by Anthony Gallegos on Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Online play undoubtedly made GRAW a hit on the Xbox 360; can it do the same on the PSP?
Tom Clancy franchises are hit and miss, especially for handheld systems. Some of the Splinter Cell games that hit the GBA, for example, were so atrocious that it made you wish your system would be knocked out of your hands and broken forever. Like a train wreck, you just couldn't turn away.
After the Tom Clancy games that have to date been seen on handhelds it is no wonder that your hair raises when you hear about a new release from Ubisoft. This August Ubisoft seeks to set things right, releasing a proper Tom Clancy game in the form of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (GRAW 2) PSP.
GRAW 2 is an ambitious PSP game that seeks to take all the action of the 360 version, and downsize it onto Sony's little-machine-that-could. The game keeps the over-the-shoulder camera, as well as the squad command system that defines the series. Players fight in intense third-person battles, but have to rely extensively on their team, in order to finish missions. Players also utilize unmanned vehicles to scout ahead and find enemies. GRAW games are all about squad tactics, not being a one-man army, and this one appears to be staying true to the formula.
The only way that this game seems to be departing from its 360 counter part is in its graphics. And though the PSP GRAW 2 does not look as good as the 360 version-of course-it does look really good. The real task for the developers is going to be making a version of this game that has little to no slow down in frame rate. If one had to put money on it, it would be a safe bet to assume that this game will be utilizing the PSP firmware update that unlocked the full 333 MHz the system has to offer.
The most ambitious part of GRAW 2 PSP is that it aims to keep the online co-op and multiplayer of its home console brother. If they pull this off-and man would that be amazing-then this could make this game go from good to great. Not many PSP games offer co-op play over infrastructure. Let's hope that GRAW 2 inspires more games to do the same.
GRAW 2 PSP could very well be this summer's best action title for the system. It has a big shadow to live up to-after all it's brother was amazing-but also has a lot of the important and fun game play mechanics already figured out. Now the question is how well the developer can reproduce a console experience on Sony's handheld.
posted August 15, 2007