GRAW: Further Impressions

Filed in archive Quasi-Review on March 12, 2006

I was watching one of my favorite vidcasts last night, "The 1UP Show" and in the latest episode they did a little review of GRAW. They summed up GRAW perfectly in just a few words- GRAW is Rainbow Six, only outdoors.

As far as Xbox 360 titles have gone so far, GRAW is one of the best. But that doesn't mean it's a great game.

It isn't bad either - it's just okay.

The hardest part about reviewing an Xbox 360 game is looking past the graphics. It's so hard not to look at a game and say to yourself, wow, that looks absolutely amazing...it's a good game.

That said, even as far as 360 games have looked so far - GRAW is one of the best. The sound is good too, you really get the feel of being in Mexico City. The city really feels like it exists, and you get a real sense of being while you play.

The game really focuses on realism, and as a result kind of suffers. It focuses on being so realistic that at times, it can be frustrating to play. I'm a bit biased here because I can't stand uber realistic shooters. It's hard to fire more than four or five rounds accurately with your standard gun. However, it is balanced by the fact that you only need two or three shots to kill someone - so it's not really that bad. I'd just really like to take my gun and completely unload into a group of enemies.

In terms of difficulty- it's a really hard game. It's not easy at all. I died two time during the tutorial alone. If you think you're going to be playing a fun shooter similar to Black of Far Cry, you've got another thing coming. Even compared to Rainbow Six, this game is very difficult.

The HUD is pretty cool, it's got a system where once you see an enemy, he remains as a red dot on your screen until he is eliminated. I'm not sure if this is different than other ghost Recon games, but it's a really cool system; and also makes the game a lot easier.

In terms of missions, there are a wide variety of missions, my favorite were actually the missions at night because the atmosphere just seemed to realistic and immersive.

This has been a pretty rough review, I'm still in the middle of playing the game and I'll probably come back with a full review (that is much more coherent than this) soon.

Until then, why don't you go download the new Ridge Racer demo on XBL?