A gun! ... A drone! … A GHOST!

Of all the ways to go hands-on with the new next-gen instalment in Ubisoft's Ghost Recon series, sitting half frozen in a cold wooden hut in the middle of a forest, somewhere in deepest rural High Wycombe, wouldn't have been our first choice. But, on the other hand, an assorted group of pasty, easy-bruising, Snake Eater theme humming games journos probably aren't the usual clientele seen by the staff of the Buckinghamshire-based Skirmish Paintball Games centre, either. It was an all-around odd day out - but also an ingenious way to package the hype for what looks sure to be one of March's biggest releases.

Realism. It's a thorny issue in videogame-land. Many games fall down based on a lack of it - while many more, just as often, fail for being far too lifelike to actually allow any fun from the playing experience. While the majority struggle to mix the two, the best games around set their roots in reality, and build a powerful, playable fiction on this framework. Balance, then, is everything.

Sharp stinging pain!

Ubisoft's paintballing press junket seemed to be the publisher's attempt at hammering home that message - and equipping us gaming scribes with a little more real-life experience on which to judge Advanced Warfighter.

For anyone that hasn't been paintballing before, it's about the closest thing you'll get in real life to being on a Ghost Recon style virtual battlefield. There's that same panicked exhilaration at running for cover through a hailstorm of enemy fire, and a familiar feeling of abrupt disappointment when you take a hit. There's also a sharp, stinging pain when a paintball connects that, thankfully, even the next-gen Xbox 360 isn't looking to recreate. We'll stick with a built-in rumble pad, thanks.

Yes, paintballing undoubtedly made us appreciate the Ghost Recon experience more. Camo-wearing, gun-toting and barely able to see through fogged visors while baseball sliding for cover through dense, muddy forest underbrush, we felt like the real commando deal - so much so, in fact, that one guy took things a little too far, and ended up with a badly sprained ankle for his troubles. Those that did survive came through ever so slightly worse for wear, but also exhilarated and ready for an afternoon of multiplayer System Link gaming.

Advanced Warfighter did not disappoint. Even with unfinished code and the maximum 16 players, Ubisoft's latest offering to its Tom Clancy stable ran free of lag and framerate problems, and offered an engaging competition comparable with our folly on the paintball field.

From the outset, it's a stunning looking game. We sampled several levels, from the ironically named Dry Docks; a night time, rain-drenched harbour, to the Mayan-like jungle setting of Temple, the sandy undulations of Desert Gulch, an expansive stone structured town and a vast, Far Cry style island replete with golden shore, rippling water and gorgeous green foliage. In fact, regardless of the exact colour palette, the Far Cry comparison rings true across the entirety of the game's massive environments: colours are crisp and strong, animation smooth, peripheral cover of buildings, trees and such is plentiful, and design itself, more so than, say, Perfect Dark Zero, offers numerous instances for sophisticated team-based play.

Multiplayer

Leaping straight into an ongoing multiplayer game as we did, you'll start off selecting a primary weapon and a secondary pistol, plus a grenade option to boot. Switching between them takes a few seconds on the field of battle, which emphasises the title's slant on forward planning and tactical nuance.

Despite being instantly accessible, there's a lot to get your teeth into here. Movement, like any Xbox first-person shooter, is on the left analogue stick, with turning on the right stick, manual scoped aiming on the left trigger, firing on the right trigger, reloading on A and weapon select on B. A second, deeper scope can be accessed through depressing the right analogue stick, though you'll need to specialise in the more ranged end of the Advanced Warfighter arsenal to make the most use of this.

And there is an impressive selection on offer, though how much general difference there is between some of the weaponry really will take more detailed play. The selection of guns proffered a choice between various automatics, snipers, shotguns and even a rocket launcher. We'd wager that, with time, the awaiting online fraternity will form dedicated teams and delegate specific rolls to teammates across the entire weapon set - it certainly appears to offer the brand of offence that's almost artistic in the hands of skilled experts.

Which, unfortunately, we couldn't claim to be just yet. That probably explains our trouble in operating one of Advanced Warfighter's newest features; the Drone. Seeing some of the more learned Ghost Recon players in action though, they seemed to make use of the flying gun camera quite efficiently: calling it up, viewing it's flight with the on-screen cam, and reaping the rewards of this feature when coloured icons appeared in their main view to track enemy troops discovered by the hovering mechanical aid. In the final game, the trick is going to be as much avoiding or shooting down the enemy drone as it is controlling the drone effectively under enemy fire - another pleasing layer of tactical depth achieved by the Advanced Warfighter balancing act.

The genre leader?

After a lengthy sit-down with the multiplayer mode, we managed to get some information on the singleplayer campaign. We're expecting roughly 20 hours of gameplay, spread across 12 missions set right across the wide expanse of Mexico City - and, if the AI on offer holds up as well as the game did under human-controlled multiplayer constraints, this could well be the genre leader in next-gen squad-based shooters. Having already undergone a four month delay and emerged markedly improved for it, we have faith that Ubisoft are putting the final touches to something very special in preparation for the early March release date.

So, we wandered into a wood for a day, and discovered a deep, tactical and above-all enjoyable instalment in a well-loved game series. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter is nearly as fun as real-life paintball, but without the battle scars. Which is just as well, really, because of the other thing we discovered that day…

We bruise like a peach.

Preview by: Mark Scott
Version Tested: Xbox 360
Preview Published: 01.03.06