As most of my gameplay for this title has been in online multiplayer, I am going to focus on that for this review, but let me say a few words about the basics of the game first. Overall, I give this game a 9.5 out of ten for both singleplayer and online multiplayer, with just a wee bit taken off for the occasional online glitches. (but you can just blame that on microsoft, why not?)

Ghost recon advanced warfighter II (GRAW II) from ubisoft is an excellent revision of the award winning original launch, with the brand new crosscom version 2, simplified and more effective gameplay, realism, and much better scaling of ability levels. (I remember playing the original GRAW on easy and getting skoooled!). If you’ve played any of the other ghost recon titles, you’ll find that single player gameplay in GRAW II is entirely enjoyable and simple, but not too overly simplified or easy to lose your interest. For someone new to the game, it’s also perfect, as the easy option is forgiving enough to help you learn the ropes.

I haven’t yet played the game all the way through yet, but have enjoyed playing it, until Dave suckered me into an xbox live subscription with (what else ) a bribe! I started out with Gears of war and my rude introduction to Xbox live with this game almost turned me off to the whole experience (again). I had played once on live for all of about 3 minutes on the original xbox and kept getting sniped in rainbox six III. much profanity was uttered and i abandoned the live experience. Also keep in mind I the only other online play I had done was Quake II (baaack in the DAY), and i sucked at that equally as badly. The reason i go into all this illustrious history, is b/c I will forever owe GRAW II a debt of gratitude for being the game that really got me into online gameplay. But let’s finish up this thought with one last humiliating experience! My very first match on GRAW II? killed about 10 times in about 3 seconds… the host screemed out ‘NOOB!’ and kicked me off the server. (hey guys, comon… ya dont have to be rude about it, how about a little encouragement? heh). So i came close to saying forget it again… but once i started playing with cooler people (dave?), the experience immediately got much more rewarding. I think i got my first kill in the very next match. And once i had a taste, there was no going back!

Before I knew it a few weeks had gone by and I’d probably logged about 30 hours of online gameplay, and had reached the 500 kills achievement, among many others. (team veteran, team allstar, executioner, combat medic, etc). There are also quite a few really nice people who play GRAW II online in both ranked and unranked matches, so you’re sure to find plenty of different skill levels and personalities out there. It seems to be a fairly popular game (though perhaps not as much so as GEARS, or the very soon to arrive Halo III), and here’s why I enjoy this game much more than any other online / multiplayer i’ve tried. for reference, I have tried Halo II multiplayer, GEARS of war online mp, call of duty II online mp, far cry instincts online mp, the darkness online mp, and to date, counterstrike online mp on the pc. The only game that comes close to touching GRAW II online mp is counterstrike, but it’s in a completely different class. I vastly appreciate the simplicity, and sheer beauty of the graphics in GRAW II. I am also incredibly impressed by ubisofts ability to make a stellar game for the 360 that obviously uses alot of resources on the box, w/o as much freezing and crashing as many other games with such rich graphics and gameplay experience.

Granted, the game has had it’s flaws in the online environment, with dropped host sessions among them, but the last few patches that have come out seem to have alleviated most of that for me. Also the two additional map packs being free now definitely add more to the experience, and I look forward to them adding more!

If you like a military grade online mp shooter, this game is for you. I think (at least until call of duty 4 arrives) that this is the best online 360 game right now, even after Halo III comes out. The reason I say that is b/c halo III is a sci fi style shooter, this game is engineered to be much more military in style, and is much more realistic than an all eye-candy game like Gears of war.