GRAW2 SP demo on Live

By Tom Bramwell Published 31 January, 2007

Breach some Mexican walls.

Good news for those of you whinging about the absence of a new Xbox Live Arcade game: the promised single-player demo of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 has turned up on Xbox Live Marketplace instead.

It's 625MB and sees Scott Mitchell and his ghost team back in Mexico cleaning up a rebel camp just outside Juarez - the idea being to destroy a number of objectives and allow the loyalist Mexican army in through the resulting holes. We've all been there.

It's the second mission in the full game's campaign, apparently - there will be 12 in all, along with 14 multiplayer maps and a six-mission co-operative campaign suitable for playing with those of your friends who enjoy motor function sufficient not to die doing the same mine cart section 28 times in a row naming no names Kristan.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, the full game is due out on Xbox 360 from 9th March. Others will follow shortly after, with PSP and PC on 30th March and the PS3 version - originally mooted for the console's 23rd March launch - due out sometime this spring.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (32) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • dr_shambles #1 5 years ago

    Cool. It'll have to go some to beat Crackdown demo though.

    Wonder if Mexico City will have any civilians in it this time around?

  • skillian #2 5 years ago

    Anyone got news on a PC demo?

    Can't believe this is nearly out - I like Ghost Recon but I hadn't even got round to playing GRAW 1 yet.

  • hidden_asbestos #3 5 years ago

    skillian: I'm pretty sure this "sequel" was originally going to be another DLC mission pack for Graw1, but I guess they decided to make it stand alone for 4x the price and PS3 opportunities...

  • peterfll #4 5 years ago

    Oooh!

    I'll download that tonight.

  • JayPee #5 5 years ago

    That mine cart section was a bitch. T'is true.

  • IAmBatman #6 5 years ago

    Oh great, more Mexico.

  • Scurrminator #7 5 years ago

    i thought the demo was shite, horrible controls and cover system. give me R6 Vegas over this please!

  • sharpfish #8 5 years ago

    R6 Vegas looked awful.

    will d/l this later though and see if it's any better than the original demo.

  • Darren #9 5 years ago

    Nice that Ubisoft are charging £50 RRP for what is really a mission pack using the same engine as the last game. I mean look at other sequels that have been released over the years on the Xbox and there are clear differences between them and their predecessors plus they've taken two years or more to make not a year, e.g. Halo 2/Halo, PGR 2/PGR, Ghost Recon 2/Ghost Recon and so on.

    It looks too similar to the last game and is too expensive for my liking so I won't be buying it.

  • stevencole7 #10 5 years ago

    Some shite demo does not make up for NO Xbox Live Arcade game, for the second week running. I bet they don't have a two week gap when the PS3 comes out. SORT IT OUT!

  • Rambaldi #11 5 years ago

    I thought it was a bit samey to GRAW...and then I was attacked by mortar fire and leapt of the couch trying to evade it!

    Sold.

  • BadBoyBonner #12 5 years ago

    My mates can not understand why I like Gears (solo - multiplayer grenade tagging does my head in) and not this. Perhaps multiplayer is where it is at with this game and the solo is not, which for me is so-so. Did like following the mortar traces through the sky though at the mine. What happened to all the games that were meant to have voice control of AI chracters?
    Edited by 1 at 31/01/07 @ 14:39

  • riz23 #13 5 years ago

    Yup, this comes too soon on the heels of GRAW. I haven't finished playing with that yet, the multiplayer is so good. This seems very similar and a rip-off

  • CordableTuna #14 5 years ago

    Can we have the co-op campaign back, please? Like in the good old days of GR. Also, this time I'd reeeally like to use the same cover system as the single player game.

  • asphaltcowboy #15 5 years ago

    "R6 Vegas looked awful."

    "Looked" as in, you didn't play it? (in which case, you're wrong)
    or "looked" as in, you thought it was ugly? (in which case, you're still wrong)

  • dbeamish #16 5 years ago

    like the look of this so far, bar the stupid spaghetti action when people fire their guns.

    Looks a bit like GRAW 1.5 really.. which is no bad thing as it was good in the first place.

  • Rambaldi #17 5 years ago

    GRAW 1.5 it is, but hey, I'm still playing PGR 2.5 :)

  • SomaticSense #18 5 years ago

    Quite liked the demo, but then I liked the first as well so that was to be expected really.

    But Ubisoft can get fucked if they think I or many others will pay around 40 to 50 quid for it. There are no two ways about it, with the pitiful number of missions, very very minor gameplay improvements (only one difference in the demo that I could see - the full screen Cross-Com), and exactly the same graphics as the first, it is a stand alone expansion pack and in no way a full sequel. Putting a '2' at the end and having Ubi refer to it as a sequel is never going to change that.
    This game makes some other expansions from other game series look like full blown 3 years in development sequels.

    The demo of Island Thunder felt like a much bigger improvement to the first Ghost Recon than this is to GRAW, and that was classed by Ubi as an expansion and RRP was £20. The same with Rainbow Six: Black Arrow and RS:3, there was much more difference between those two games than between this and GRAW.
    Ubisoft should feel fucking ashamed if they go ahead with charging full price for this 'sequel'. What happened to their seemingly 'anti-EA' approach of releasing rehashes at a cheaper price as a compromise?

    And the PS3 excuse is bollocks. They could quite easily release an improved GRAW on PS3 as it would still be a new game for that system, and then later on release this at a cheaper price as a stand alone expansion. So that's total bull.
    Edited by 1 at 31/01/07 @ 16:17

  • rhinoxious #19 5 years ago

    I guess PS3 owners will only want to play slightly aging 360 releases, not very old 360 releases?

    /gets coat.

  • jamesbee #20 5 years ago

    The graphics are not exactly the same. If you watch the dev diary on this site it outlines some of the changes they made to the engine.

    Also, why do people complain it's out too soon? It's been almost a year! If you don't want to play another one then don't...

  • BlackSentoki #21 5 years ago

    It's not Mexico again all the way through is it? I thought we sorted Mexico out in the first game. One of the great things about R6: Vegas was the fact that it started somewhere that looked like Mexico (I forget where) and then you zoomed off to radically different environments in Las Vegas.

  • Dr.Mott #22 5 years ago

    It was Mexico at the beginning

  • BlackSentoki #23 5 years ago

    I never realised Mexico was such a terrorist hotbed.

  • spookyzombie #24 5 years ago

    This is certainly prettier looking that GRAW, although not by much.

    Keeps £40 in pocket.

  • YourMessageHere #25 5 years ago

    Ubisoft in anti-mexican propaganda shocker!

    Why is the solo game 12 missions but the co-op only 6? For something that's supposed to have such good co-op (I hated it but then I was playing the PC version), being drop-in/drop-out co-op all the way through would surely be an obvious move.

  • ronuds #26 5 years ago

    I can't believe in a land where EA rules the charts, you scoff at this game? It's comical, really. Go play some NFS: 17 if you don't think this looks incredible.

    I never had GRAW, so I'm going to spread my love all over this puppy... whatever that means or entails!

  • captainrentboy #27 5 years ago

    Comparing the two of them on an hdtv I can definitely see a pretty big improvement with the graphics,infact I noticed it all looked a lot swisher as soon as the demo began.
    Wasn't really a big fan of the first one,but the demo of this one has actually got my attention,the controls of yourself and your team mates/flying camera thingy seem a lot easier to get to grips with.

  • FmCUK #28 5 years ago

    Same engine, same setting. Not deserving of the '2'. (in fact, the graphics looked worse in the demo to me) What happened to the brilliant idea of cut-price expansion packs to catch the buyers who were on the fence the first time and respect those who bought the first one?

    Demo Plot (spoilers :D)
    -Enter canyon via humvee, without team, presumably they were on a break or something.
    -Notice naff looking grass and general naff looking environment, wonder why it's called GRAW2 and not Advanced Mexican Fighter.
    -Kill stupid soldiers whose main ability is to shoot straight in one direction and can't cover a flank to save their lives, even in a completely open area without air support that we could've just airstriked and Scott could've had a break with the rest of his team.
    -Get some more weapons from a random mars rover vehicle. Wonder why it's giving me news when I have a video feed into my eyeball. Gives me exciting tidbits such as "there are hidden enemies"
    -Collect sniper rifle from mars rover, walk to canyon, wonder why the enemies aren't looking in my direction when it's the only direction anyone could come from.
    -Shoot 2 enemies, the rest immediately know where I am and decide to shoot the wall in front of me which in turn shakes my whole screen?
    -Use smoke grenades to get down to the canyon, and take out the enemies with an silenced MP5 I got from the mars rover (though this can be heard by everyone).
    -Watch 2 enemies run through a wall before a helicopter lands back where I was sniping.
    -Walk back to helicopter, my team mates have finished their break and decide to join me, no idea why.
    -Helicopter takes off, motor fire hits exactly where the helicopter would've been. Can't help thinking Mexicans being as musically talented as their stereotype suggests would have better timing.
    -Dodge mortars in a Gladiators style "I'm being shot by the Wolf with a tennis-ball gun" fashion
    -Take myself and team to tunnel, kill a few guys, 2 choppers land, credits screen rises

    I hope this isn't a good representation of the game, but at best it appears to be an expansion, potentially it's going to be quite a bit worse than the first one.

  • Milbe #29 5 years ago

    unfortunately FmC, they never aimed for anything more...

  • ronuds #30 5 years ago

    The same guys who bitch and moan about an excellent game like GRAW are the same who will say that Medal of Honor is a good series. These people need to stick with the garbage that EA pedals because they obviously wouldn't know a good game if it walked up and smacked them in the mouth. When you compare a game like GRAW with others in its genre, it's no contest. These people obviously have issues with the genre, so get out of it and go play FIFA.

  • SomaticSense #31 5 years ago

    I can't believe in a land where EA rules the charts, you scoff at this game? It's comical, really. Go play some NFS: 17 if you don't think this looks incredible.

    People are confused. The idea of a demo is so you can see whether the game is something you might like to buy. If you think this is bad, play, delete, move on. But forumites seem to be ingesting too much estrogen as they seem incapable of anything but bitching. Concentrate on things you like, you might even enjoy the hobby of gaming again because for most it seems like a harsh ordeal they must suffer the way they go on.

    The same guys who bitch and moan about an excellent game like GRAW are the same who will say that Medal of Honor is a good series. These people need to stick with the garbage that EA pedals because they obviously wouldn't know a good game if it walked up and smacked them in the mouth. When you compare a game like GRAW with others in its genre, it's no contest. These people obviously have issues with the genre, so get out of it and go play FIFA.

    Both of you are completely missing the point. The bitching and moaning is not about it being a bad game, as most have said that it is pretty great (I still love the first one, and have always loved the GR games). The problem I and others have with it is while as fantastic a game it clearly is, it is still just GRAW but with a different level structure, slightly more responsive controls, and a new Cross-Com feature. Other than that, it is EXACTLY the same, but with a less interesting environment (very minor graphical improvements on the characters/weapons or not, the Mexico City surroundings looked much better and more photo-realistic in the backdrops, and generally much more interesting than the canyon environment that was seen in the demo).
    So why are they sticking a 2 at the end and not marketing it as a stand-alone expansion pack, which it is?

    And you can fuck right off with the EA comments. In fact saying such a thing proves that you have no fucking clue what I or the others have been going on about.
    It's because I hate EA's approach to the gaming industry that I am disappointed in Ubi's approach with this game, ie, market the same fucking game as a sequel and charge full price to trick the consumer into thinking it's a 'new' game, as it goes completely against the reputation that they previously earnt by releasing budget priced expansion packs of games on the Xbox.

    EDIT - Sorted out the html for the quotes.
    Edited by 1 at 02/02/07 @ 12:34

  • FmCUK #32 5 years ago

    The irony of it is, Ubisoft is a beacon of light for me compared to the likes of EA. They might not make the most original titles but they usually have a quality and consistency EA could only dream of. Perhaps this demo doesn't represent the full game (though surely that is the point of a demo), but even so, I can't imagine Ubi would drop into this level of quality for long.

    If EA put out trash it's just another day at the office, this demo for me was atypical from Ubi.