devilsgrin_6

It amazes me that I looked over the names list and three people listed are on my Friends List already just from playing Xbox Live a lot!

Thanks for the kind words, people! You've encouraged me to do more of these in the future! (Oblivion comes out this week... *shudders at that review*)

I think the delay really helped the game even more since 360 owners have been starving for another A+ title since Call of Duty 2 at launch. That's a HUGE deal for Ubi too considering the small number of 360's out there. Hopefully they will see the sales and quality that went into the game and do the same with Rainbow Six: Vegas so it's not another Rainbow Six: Letdown.

I watched this the other day, I thought the quality of the video in the review was superb.

I wrote up a review this morning and I thought I'd share with you guys: Click This Link

I'm not even sure if the 'Map Pack' is real yet, but that leaked list had it listed. I'm guessing they will do something along the lines of how Halo 2 had an added Map Pack to add on to the original game and sell it for around $20-30?

Nice pics, makes me REALLY wish I had a vibrant HDTV. I'm stuck on a really old Sony Trinitron with S-Video. It's still not too bad, but nothing like 720p Widescreen of course!

I've had a lot of connection issues as well. As much as people bash Halo 2, UbiSoft could learn a lesson from them about online coding. I can almost always play in 12-16 player rooms in Halo 2, but any UbiSoft game it seems like once you get past 6-8 players in a room, there is always some connection issues for me... (especially on Missions in the past)

I wish there were more enemies on the Firefight type of games too. I always like GR2 the best in that area because there were about 120-140 enemies on a lot of the maps, it was WAY more fun since most of the time you're in a room with at least 4 people in it. With so few enemies, it's like you're only killing about 10 a piece. That's an absolute joke to me and so easy...I mean, I used to do "The Dam" level on GR2 with 145 enemies by myself with no explosives on Firefight.

Cool posts. I'm only up to Mission 5 single-player wise as I've spent most of my time online in Co-Op modes. I'm starting to feel really bad about the single-player honestly and I know a lot of people will disagree with me. It's hard for me right now as I'm having mixed feelings about this actually being a "game" from what I've played. Maybe it's because you're so immersed in the world, but a lot of the game feels to me more like an interactive full motion video sequence to me. It's like for the most part, you go through and area and kill a couple of enemies, go through a large empty area, then hit a couple more button presses to kill an enemy? I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like one of those games to me so far like those old games where you go through a scene with no control then you just push whatever button they tell you to when it pops up on the screen. (like those old Shenmue sequences) I don't know why it feels that way to me. Another thing that made me take another look at the game was just how flooring the graphics were. In a way, I wish they just had the game control well instead of worrying about graphics so much. I mean, the game does control well, don't get me wrong. For instance though, in Mission 4 I believe, you're up on a hill where you can snipe down on enemies and when you're zoomed in to either the first stage or second stage of zoom on a sniper rifle, the enemies actually outrun your reticle because you can't turn fast enough. I feel this was an issue because if they let you turn faster, there might have been framerate issues. Developers make that sacrifice once in awhile. It's very frustrating for me when you actually can't target an enemy because your reticle is too slow and you're forced to take a sniper rifle? It's never been like this in the past with any other of the GR series games. I think that is what is adding to making it feel more like a button-pressing interactive movie for me as well...because everything is just SO slow to me. Well anyways, this whole post wasn't a bash, I love the game and I plan on reviewing it on my website when I'm finished with single-player and I'm pretty sure the game will score at least an 8.8 from or a decent bit higher. I was just stating some of the stuff I ran into that was disappointing.

Yeah, I can totally see it being more of a helicopter type of game.

Does anybody know why I did all of the Treasury co-op level online by myself (60 kills, 500 points), but it only gave me 2 Gamerscore points instead of the 8 it's supposed to give you? All the other levels seem to be giving me 8...is it just because I did it all alone?

UbiSoft ALWAYS releases early release dates, then delays their games. That early 2007 GR4 will turn into Fall 2007 for sure. Also, that map pack better have a LOAD of maps. Only having 4 co-op maps and about 8 multiplayer maps in GRAW kills me, especially only having the 4 co-op, it sucks!

I think the trigger always lags with a gun like the MR-C in single player? I brought this up all the time at TeamXbox Forums. I thought it was something they did on purpose for that gun to make it more realistic for some reason, I'm not sure, but it drives me crazy too. The other bug I ran into was on the first level there was a part were full auto fire from an enemy gun was coming out of a hill? Like the enemy was stuck way down in the ground? I couldn't figure out why I was getting hit or from where, then I walked up and saw it just streaming out of the hill and it would hurt you when you walked in it. It was right after you cross under the bridge in the first level...

So...wait...this is your review and you said in the review that you've only played two maps? Did I misunderstand that? I don't know how anybody could ever review a game after only playing two levels. Granted, you do get the overall feel for the game early on and what to expect and I agree with you that it will probably never feel like Ghost Recon 1 again...I guess that is what happens when companies get bigger and want to make more money going more run-and-gun action orientated to sell to the male audience.

Great find, much appreciated!

That's the very first thing that really stood out for me too...I thought they always said for Firefight now you could set the number of enemies per map? I hope that's the case, if it's only around 20 on easy and scaled up for difficulties to 30-40 for Hard, I'm going to be HIGHLY disappointed yet again.

I'd just like to point out that I wasn't being "sexist" when I made the comments about UbiSoft marketing to males. I was stating they marketed that angle just like companies always use hot girls or violence to appeal to guys. I had somebody PM me over that (which seems kinda ridiculous to me), but nevertheless, I thought I should at least clear that up so there was no hard feelings. lol.

Other people have already answered, but yes of course I've played SS in-depth. I haven't spent as much time with the single-player in either GR2 or GR2:SS because they didn't sit well with me. I've played countless hours online in both titles though. We're talking 8 hours at a time, 4-5 days a week when they both came out. I practically live on Xbox Live. I could usually do GR2 levels like The Dam on Hard on Firefight with 140 enemies with just a gun and no explosives, no enemies on radar etc by myself. People leave the sessions because I'm the last one alive, usually I'd always have to blow myself up or make them wait 15 minutes as I finished the level alone. Not like I'm talking myself up, but I'm just describing what type of gamer I am. I'm hardcore and tactical when it comes to missions, always using cover and progressing slowly. I didn't enjoy SS as much online because I didn't enjoy how most maps only had around 24 enemies in Firefight mode, my favorite mode. For me that was like nothing. You have to take into account that I'm pretty much strictly a co-op gamer. (Firefight, Missions, etc...) They also made it a bit weird as far as difficulty. The enemies in SS were unrealistic (or maybe more realistic?) I dunno...but the fun factor was diminished when you're in a room with six other people and you only get to kill about 4 enemies a piece in Firefight and the round is over? I wished there could have been a balance more? I didn't mind the enemies spawning in GR2, I actually loved the number of enemies per map, it was more fun. As long as they don't spawn right infront of you where you see them appear. I wished SS was more like GR2 in that regard, but maybe with around 80-90 enemies per map instead of the 120 that GR2 would regularly feature. I also disliked SS in those modes because on Hard it was unrealistic as far as being fun. The enemies spot you way too early and it's like they can shoot through any type of cover? They are behind five trees, across the map, and I'm moving from cover to cover and behind a huge rock and still I'm pinned down or taking hits through massive amounts of foliage? That aspect really hurt it for me as a tactical player. At least reward me with correct gameplay when I take my time. It was almost pointless to play correctly in some ways?

I signed up for this forum just to reply! I'll definately be visiting this site a lot now and I've seen it a couple of times in the past... The thing that always got me about GR2 and onward was that Ghost Recon came over from PC and it sold better on Xbox. It seemed like with GR2 they tried to analyze why Ghost Recon sold better on Xbox and they figured it was the action crowd, it's like they never realized it was because GR was a great game to begin with? (even PC Gamer pointed this out) My problem with the series lately and this speaks for UbiSoft on a whole is their marketing to the casual gamer. I think all of us can see overall which direction they are going while trying to keep the hardcore fans moderately happy. Look at any of their series: GR, Rainbow Six, etc... they've all been dumbed down, but of course they call it "streamlining." Rainbow Six: Lockdown was a joke compared to previous games in the series. What I'm getting at is, as your news is very exciting (I've been in the camp too that found GR1 the most enjoyable as a hardcore tactical game), it's very easy to look at the multiplayer aspect and see it more directly related to GR1. I didn't have tons of problems with GR2/Summit Strike as far as multiplayer. It honestly was VERY acceptable online and even those game modes were comparable to GR1 in a way. Actually, I found it to be the game I played on Xbox Live more than any other game in my life besides Halo 2. There's tons of modes, even if it's not the most user friendly and you can still get a remotely "GR1 Feel" to it if you have a good group of guys playing with you. I think my overall displeasure with the series is the direction single-player has taken. GR got transformed from a very tactical, military based game where you would slowly progress, sometimes crawling for areas at a time for each rewarding kill...into a game that was all based on feeding off the power trips of the male ego and turning into some casual almost "from the movies" action sequences in single-player. As much as I want to believe what you're saying, I think most of it again will pertain to the multiplayer aspect and not single-player. You can once again see how they are marketing this whole action game with hollywood aspects in the single player and going off that "you're the most advanced warrior ever with all these futuristic weapons, you're the ultimate unstoppable male machine..." Sure it's going to sell tons of copies, but that's never what GR1 was about to me and what made it so great. Likewise, I've followed every game totally in-depth since GR1 and I'm excited about the overall scope of options they are implementing. It's about time they let you pick the number of enemies for Firefights, etc. (especially after GR2 had a bit too many in Firefight that wouldn't spawn correctly, then in Summit Strike they had way too few enemies...24 on some maps? C'mon!) The game looks decent so far overall, but until I play the single player campaign, the only thing that I can say is comparable to how great GR1 was is the multiplayer aspect in GR:AW. (only after seeing the X05 vids really as well) "I want to believe you." lol. We'll see... Thanks for listening.