If you play through the single player missions, you're going to spend a lot of time behind cover, peaking around corners to find the enemy. You also have a range of great weapons to choose to eliminate them with, so you get to feel sneaky AND deadly. I couldn't get enough of this stealth fighting mode and I really missed it team elimination multiplayer sessions. It's not to say that the multiplayer isn't good- it's great fun, but it didn't feel as unique a game as it did when playing the single player missions. I wanted to be able to peek over a wall and kill my friends like I had done with NPCs in single player mode. At least you can still get down on your belly with a sniper rifle and take them out that way, but you have to pick a good tactical position.

I also missed the 3rd person over-the-shoulder view in multiplayer sessions. In single player missions, I could see my character (Captain Scott Mitchell returns in GRAW2) in the environment and use his physique to pick tactical positions to advance upon the enemy. In multiplayer, I was the floating gun seen in every other shooter. Uniqueness from the single player was once again missing in the multiplayer.

One thing I really loved in multiplayer though was that your weapon of choice still remained tactical. If you picked a really powerful rifle that does a lot of damage, your opponents can track you down by "seeing" where the noise of your gun is coming from in the form of a bright red arc. Picking silent weapons that may not be as powerful is a better choice- especially since you can shoot your opponent just once (even in the foot) and they're dead.

Commanding your NPC teammates is nice 'n simple in the Xbox 360 version- a shortfall in the PC version, so if you've heard that criticism about this game, you don't have to worry about it if you're going to be playing it on Xbox 360.

Lastly, the environment is HUGE. You get a really good idea of just how huge when you get your hands on satellite views of the area. That said, I wish I could have interacted with the huge environment more. I could only climb up walls of certain heights, even though it seemed I should be able to get over taller ones.

Overall, this game is a buyer. I LOVE the stealth fighting. I love having to think about strategy and tactics instead of just shooting everything that moves. I griped about the multiplayer because it lacked elements from the single player missions that I thought made the game stand out, but multiplayer it is still fun.

Pros

* Thinking man's shooter
* Graphics, animation and sound are simply awesome
* You jump, you die.
* HUGE world
* Ride a helicopter or crawl your belly through the mud- lots of variety in what you get to do
* Simple and fun command control for your NPC team

Cons

* The controls take some getting used to
* Some cool features in the single player game don't make it to multiplayer elimination challenges
* Everything feels so realistic, but then I can kill my opponent by shooting him in the foot- what's up with that?

Interesting Info

* Depending on what platform you play the game on, GRAW2 can be a quite different game
* Downloadable content through Live available

Related Links

• Official Site