bryonrogers

That's funny...I tried to comment on the XBox update, and they locked my post.

First of all, notice that I did NOT say GRIN. I said Ubi. The XBox360 version, aside from already having many more features than the PC one (Again, not GRIN's fault. I don't doubt they gave 110% and did their best with the time and money Ubi allowed them.) is now getting a killer downloadable expansion: I wish the corporate monkeys at Ubi took the time to stop by this forum. If Ubi would match with supplies and time the amount of energy GRIN put into the game and into working with it's customers (us), then GRAW PC would be an experience better than playing Rogue Spear or the original GR for the first time. Real tactical gamers don't play GR on the XBox.

yes if you dont count countless nights and weekends, working our butts off to satisfy you guys, as an effort, I guess you are right... ..sorry im laying trying to lay off the nicotine and its making me grumpy I was talking about on the part of Ubi, meaning you guys at GRIN probably didn't get enough money or time to make it all that you wanted to. I'm not implying that GRIN didn't work hard. Sorry for not making that clear. I'm also not saying the 360 version is better really. I've only played it a few times for the eye-candy, and wouldn't buy a 360 to play it. I hate tactical FPS on consoles. The PC version is a great game, but obviously incomplete. Again, that's not GRIN's fault. It's most certainly Ubi's.

If you've played the XBox 360 version, it's pretty clear that is where 99.99% of the effort went as far as making GRAW. To be honest, it's a completely different game from the PC version--truly groundbreaking. The PC game is still a great game, but I would have to agree that there is a lot of untapped potential and things that seem unfinished. I definately seems rushed. ...I miss the days where GR was primarily for the PC.

I'll try to get some screens up when I have more time, and if someone will tell me how to record in-game video, I'll get that up too. I'm not saying that the Mexican Army doesn't use HK21Es. I'm saying that almost every other soldier in the game has one. I'm betting at least 1 in 3. That is not very realistic and doesn't seem very logistically sound, even for the US Army. I should've been more clear with that point. That's a good point. Maybe if the squad AI was a little more on par with the enemy, the enemy wouldn't seem so unrealistic.

I'm talking about single player missions, and it's not that I think the enemy AI are too good. I think they have some super-human abilities that greatly reduce the game's realism and create situations that are difficult in a frustrating way, not a challenging one. These abilities could be fixed and the difficulty made up for by adding more enemy and/or increasing the way they use their realistic abilities such as cover and flanking.

Listen, I understand that the Mexican soldiers in this game have to be more skilled than the real thing in order to make it challenging, but some of their abilities (especially considering some of the AI ghost's abilities) are pretty ridiculous for any soldier. I don't think there's any reason to reduce their tactical ability or the way they skillfully use cover (which the AI ghost's do not); I just think there are a few things that are completely unrealistic and quite frustrating. Here is a list (in no particular order): 1. They are capable of spotting me, doing a 180 degree turn and accurately shooting my head barely peaking from behind a wall at about 300 yds away in maybe 1 second (if that), when I can barely see them and my team can't hit them without unloading 1 or more entire mags. 2. They can see perfectly through trees or bushes that completely obstruct my view...oh, and most wooden fences. 3. Since when did every other Mexican soldier have an HK21E or HK23E general purpose machine gun? 4. How does the armor on the .50s in machine gun nests protect the soldiers from tank rounds...you know, the rounds that blow up...other tanks! 5. Speaking of the .50 cal. nests...it's nice how they can immediately spot you coming from any direction behind any cover unless you're directly behind them and then turn a .50 cal. machine gun more quickly than I can turn my rifle in the game. And they never have to reload. You have to reload a gun sometime, no matter what it is. 6. I can't see 3 feet in front of me in the night missions and in dark places during some day missions without night vision; however, the paramilitaries armed with nothing more than flashlights can see me 200 yards away even before I've fired on them and still maintain their near perfect accuracy. 7. Flanking is a joke...they tell us to flank in this game (which really is only needed for machine gun and grenade launcher nests), but my team is mostly worthless against fixed machine guns (unless you call standing out in the open and yelling "taking fire!" to be good tactics) and all of the Mexican soldiers seem to know that I am the Captain and place priority of fire on me over everyone else so I have a hard time sneaking up on machine guns. (Ok, the rant against the paramilitaries in the game is the Captain-spotting, I guess. The rest is just a general AI ghost team rant.) 8. Their tanks have perfect 360 degree view, but ours don't. And they're the same kind of tanks. 9. Their helos fire anti-tank rockets at one soldier (me). Not really SOP for most helicopters to miss repeatedly with their machine guns and then fire a couple rockets at one human target. I wouldn't even mind the helos being more accurate with their guns instead of using 1-hit kill-all rockets, considering their soldier counterparts are regular Annie Oakleys. Well, that's all I can think of right now. Have a good one.

Yeah...until they fix the wonderful AI where your team will stand in front of machine guns continuously getting shot or out in the open and where the enemy can shoot you from 200 yds away with perfect accuracy when you're mostly covered by a wall, these guys need all the help they can get. Of course, they could change it where they don't survive a rifle round directly in the face.

The first two missions none of them died, granted I had to start over a couple times when I died. The third mission, I had at least one die every time I had to restart. They either stand right in front of a fixed .50 cal. machine gun yelling, "I'm taking fire!" or they get to close to me at the embassy and get blasted by the tanks...which only seem to be shooting at me. After that it's pretty much the same thing. Running out into the open. Failing to prioritize the enemy 5 feet away shooting them repeatedly in the back over the one 50 yards away shooting at me, running into the open in front of .50 cal mgs, etc. In the the first GR for PC and all it's expansions I'd always finish with every guy. Of course, you had quicksaves in that one, and--dare I say it--the AI even seemed to be a little better. At least, it kept up with me and had accuracy better than the enemy.

1. Better AI teammates that follow you more closely and mimic your stance and speed instead of remaing in a group almost always standing out in the open 50 to 100 yards behind you and then running 10 yards in front of you when they finally do catch up, don't walk out into the open, work as a group in follow mode instead of 100% self-preserving, actually cover the area you assign them to, that will attack the target you give them even if they may have to move a little to see it, automatically cover fire zones so that you don't have to be shot in the back before they start covering it, take cover when being fired upon, etc. 2. The ability to group two AI teammates into a fire team for quicker movement and to take first-person control of AI teammates. Maybe even adding 2 or 4 more teammates since one rarely encounters enemies unless they're in groups of 15-20 with armored transports and heavy machine guns (this could also be fixed by doing something to get rid of the reticle lag, which renders you almost useless unless your enemy is still). 3. The ability to change team modes: stealth, assault, suppress, take cover, not-standing-in-front-of-a-.50-cal-machine-gun-until-you-die-mode, etc. 4. Mexican soldiers who fight like Mexican soldiers, instead of like Navy SEALs with perfect accuracy from any distance through trees and car windows and any other object that would normally obstruct one's aim, the ability to spot your head peaking out from a corner at 200 yards when you can barely make out their entire body, and an amazing skill to determine that you are an officer and to concentrate fire on you, the first "silent" tanks known to man that often make little to no noise when firing at you, etc. 5. Maybe I haven't made it to the mission where you get these yet, but (if otherwise) smoke grenades, flashbangs, and the ability to order your AI team to use them as well as regular grenades and 40mm. Oh...and the ability to throw/roll grenades where the reticle is pointing and not into the wall beside you. 6. More awareness of your player's body relative to the environment. 7. The ability to toggle leaning so you don't step halfway into the open only to snap back to pointing at the wall...and then have your left or right arm pumped full of lead. And the ability to roll left and right using the lean keys while you are prone. 8. Better weapons and weapon mods: the ability to choose what kind of scope you want on your rifle, a semi-auto sniper rifle (Mk 11 anyone?) or at least one that's more than single shot, optional bipods that function in prone mode. the ability to mod the Mk 48 and add other versions of the M249, the ability to mod the M8 into the LMG, compact (as primary), and marksman versions, and better pistols (the Glock 18? I mean come on. US SF is more likely to use a number of pistols over the Glock: Mk 23 SOCOM, P226, P228). Oh, by the way, they scrapped the XM8 program in favor of reworking the M4. HK has entries called the HK 416 (5.56x45mm) and HK 417 (7.62x51mm). Maybe we could see those. The ability to use fixed machine guns already in place. You could also consider changing the silencers up a bit instead of having the same silencer for every weapon despite caliber. 9. Thermal vision, more cross-com interface integrated into the hud, the option to see AI team fire zones without switching to the tactical mode, or something else cool besides the little video feed in the upper right that reminds us we're playing a more futuristic game instead of Ghost Recon 2: Assault on Mexico. 10. Fixing all of the horrible graphics problems that slow you down even with the lowest possible settings and even if you upgrade.