GRAW2 Multiplayer Review

I played Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2's multiplayer for a while last night. What GRAW2 lacks in a single player campaign it makes up for in multiplayer and co-op options. There are 9 different verses game modes and 3 co-op modes. Under each of these modes there are multiple game types which can be further customized. There are also 19 different maps to play on. All of this combines to have one of the most extensive multiplayer offerings for a first person shooter on the Xbox 360. The multiplayer gameplay takes some getting use to. It is much slower and more tactical than any other shooter I've played, even Rainbow Six: Vegas. Unlike most first person shooters it does not take a lot of bullets to kill your opponents (or your teammates if you are not careful). Most of the time a single bullet or two will do the trick. The key is to be accurate with your shots because once you shoot a few bullets you give away your position. So, if you do not kill your opponent, they will have found your hiding spot and can take you out with just a bullet or two. After spawning in a match there is a quick rush to get to cover, but after that there is very little movement occurring in most game modes. A lot of the matches come down to which team can get a tactical advantage by flanking the other without exposing themselves to fire in the process. I started off getting slaughtered the first round, but I quickly learned to switch my weapon to single shot mode to make it more accurate and to methodically move around the maps. Once I did this I as getting my share of kills.

In addition to playing some normal verses multiplayer last night I played a few rounds of the co-op missions. The co-op missions in GRAW2 allow for up to 16 people to play the same mission against computer controlled opponents. It is a nice break to work with the whole room of players. It helps build teamwork and is a lot of fun. The addition of clan support in GRAW2 makes it one of the few games on the Xbox 360 to allow for true clan vs clan matches.

One of th things I really like about GRAW2's multiplayer is that the achievements don't require me to play ranked matches. Unlike Gears of War, I can get the achievements playing with my friends. Additionally, Ubisoft recognized the some of the achievements would take some time and would be hard to keep track of manually. For example, the achievement for 100 sniper kills would be hard to keep track of because you're not going to stop each time you get a sniper kill and keep track of it. To assist those of us who are Achievement Whores they have added a section to see how close you are to each of the multiplayer based achievements. It is a great addition for a game like this and one I hope to see copied on many games in the future.

I'm still not a big fan of the loss of a cover system in such a tactical game, but since the cover system in the single player is not that great I can live without it in the multiplayer. Overall GRAW2 is a great multiplayer game. Don't go into it expecting to be able to play it likes Halo 2 or Gears of War and you will find that Ubisoft has made a great first person shooter.