GRAW 2 demo coming soon to Xbox 360

Anyone who visits Ubosoft.com or the official GRAW 2 website will notice some GRAW 2 flash ads appearing down the side of the page. Rather excitingly, the ads are there to promote the soon to be released single-player demo of the game for the Xbox 360.

The ad reads: " Xbox 360 singleplayer demo available soon on Marketplace" . That' s a pretty open and shut case that the demo should be available soon. Rumours suggest that it will arrive before the month is over, but I' m not sure if that' s true or not.

I may not own a 360 just yet but I' m sure my cousin wouldn' t mind me downloading the demo when it' s on the list. He did, afteral, allow me to download the Dead Rising demo.

PS. Sorry if there is any other thread like this. I used the " Search" engine and found nothing.

PSS. You could use this thread to discuss the demo when it' s out if you want. You know, to save having an extra thread about it.

Yeah there are a lot of threads on GRAW2. Maybe someone can merge them. I wouldn' t doubt by the end of Feb early March the demo could be out.

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Good find dude!

Yeah there are a lot of threads on GRAW2.

Actually, I said there aren' t any threads about the demo.

I thought I' d make this thread so people can use it for that, like many did with the Dead Rising and, more recently, Crackdown demos. This would also save somebody the trouble of making one themselves(if this thread actually lasts until then, that is).

Easy peasy Marink, I' ll just break out teh bump stick. every so often.

Cheers Eddie_the_Hated.

(Damnit! I' m losing my Americanness already!!! )

Cheers Eddie_the_Hated.

(Damnit! I' m losing my Americanness already!!! )

Tell me about it dude. I' ve been here a year already & people stop me when I' m talking & ask me why I said rubbish.

Ok, it' s not up yet, probably not until Friday, but...

The menu' s and loading screens are almost a carbon copy of the original GRAW' s. Same style, layout and colour scheme.

The demo starts with a very short cutscene of a helicopter landing, early evening, industrial/urban area. It looks great and straight away you' ll notice the smoke and fire effects and how the downdraft from the choppers blades realistically effect how the smoke and fire move. Looks fantastic. The level is quite dark, with lots of smoke and shadows. The lighting is superb.

You exit aircraft and select team members, and notice that now you are limited to a number of med-kits. I guess this changes You can' t constantly revive team members, and obviously if you have a medic with you you get more med-kits to take with you.

The game moves and controls just like GRAW. It' s still kind of clunky but you seem to run faster. It' s just unfortunate the cover mechanic isn' t at as intuitive as the one in Vegas. Even more so when you still have to exit cover to throw a grenade whereas in Vegas you could grenade from cover, exposing yourself for only a second, or even throw grenades from cover blindly. I guess only " proper" special forces like Rainbow have those l33t skills :(

The physics are notably improved, as is the team AI. Multiple way-points can now be set although you still can' t move your men around individually like in the PC games. It sucks because while this is a more action orientated and less strategical game, the option to move your men to different points would have been nice to have.

You get to use the Mule, which i' m still not convinced is a good addition. Unlike vehicles in the first game you can actually control the Mule and put it just where you need it. Also, when commanding APC' s, like with team members, you can now go into a first person view and select targets for them from there.

Now in the original GRAW, when changing your weapon you couldn' t really do anything but change your primary weapon (in SP), but now you have different " packs" for grenades. Frag/Smoke is ' Defensive Pack' and you also get more of each than in the previous game.

Also, if you' ve played Half Life 2 and have used the rocket launcher then you' ll know how to use the player guided rockets in GRAW 2. In the demo you' ll need it to destroy a tank on a bridge. The explosion effects are great, especially those originating from enemy fire right next to your cover. Unfortunately cover doesn' t appear to be destructible and so sandbags will still keep you safe from tank shells

Fighting going on in the distance lights up the sky and smoke giving the impression of a much bigger battle. Distant gunfire and explosions push the point further. It reminds me of CNN footage of explosions going off in Baghdad at night, ...anti-aircraft fire, ...that kind of thing. It really adds to the atmosphere.

The original GRAW demo was kinda lame and didn' t give you a good impression of what the game was actually like. This isn' t, and does.


EDIT: Apparantly the Xbox Live demo may be a different level altogether. It could be a countryside level where players are tasked with taking out artillery placements along the border. Meh!


EDIT: Co-op like Vegas and Gears isn' t happening. Instead it' s an expansion of the original GRAW, with 6 new co-op campaign missions and 14 adversarial maps (up to 16 players), and a female player model.

Yay...

I' ll definitely be dling the demo. The dev diary was pretty cool to watch.

I found that GRAW 2 trailer hilariously funny though. First the main guy runs into the open and receives a rocket to the face behaving all stroppy afterwards. Then the black dude fires far too late at the helicopter and completely misses even with laser guidance. Then they finally shoot some other helicopter, but only so that it almosts crashes right on top of them!

Those ghosts were made to look like the most inept bunch of retards ever hehe. And then they' re asked to go all cross-com to save America from Mexicans, which creates the final few laughs.

ORIGINAL: f3hunter

Yay...

Yay!

Just thought you guys would like a look

The demo is up, and what did i say?

Apparantly the Xbox Live demo may be a different level altogether. It could be a countryside level where players are tasked with taking out artillery placements along the border. Meh!

And what is it?

...a countryside level where players are tasked with taking out artillery placements along the border.

And what else did i say?

Co-op like Vegas and Gears isn' t happening. Instead it' s an expansion of the original GRAW, with 6 new co-op campaign missions and 14 adversarial maps (up to 16 players), and a female player model.

And what does it say on the dash as far as co-op and multiplayer are concerned?

...14 multiplayer maps, and a 6 mission coop campaign...

Oh hum.

Just finished the demo, & I' m fairly disappointed myself. Not sure what it is, but something isn' t there. I' ll elaborate whn I have more time.

If that doesn' t feel like a full priced expansion pack, I dunno what does. Slightly prettier than GRAW1, slightly more responsive controls, and the 1st person cross-com thing works well.

Other than that you still get the feel that the game was aimed at your 6 year old kid brother than you.

The only draw to GRAW2 that I can see is the extra missions and mp maps... = expansion pack.

They chose a bad level for the Xbox Live demo.

I was hoping to play what was in your screenies Nitro, but no such luck. I was rather disappointed with the bland brown rocks we got instead.

The gameplay was also a little disappointing. Much more action oriented, which I didn' t like much. It seemed like you' d be better off taking a balls to the walls course of action than trying to master the controls, sneak & assault, method, which I am very fond of. Maybe I' ll rent it, but realistically, I' ll probably just mooch.

ORIGINAL: Eddie_the_Hated

I was hoping to play what was in your screenies Nitro, but no such luck. I was rather disappointed with the bland brown rocks we got instead.

The gameplay was also a little disappointing. Much more action oriented, which I didn' t like much. It seemed like you' d be better off taking a balls to the walls course of action than trying to master the controls, sneak & assault, method, which I am very fond of. Maybe I' ll rent it, but realistically, I' ll probably just mooch.

How much did you like the online in the original GRAW?! That alone will be worth buying the game for. But the map the provided over Xbox Live was pretty dull. I mean, i' m fine with the colour scheme, it' s not like a lot of the game is set in that kind of environment, but after the Vegas demo i expected more.

Timed demo' s are fine if they' re showing you a section from the most impressive part of the game. The one featured in the demo is the 2nd level in the game, and they did a decent job of introducing the new features, but i think the level i signified directly to above would have been a better choice.

But still, they got a nice set-piece in and you got to use the new M4.

I think graphically it' s much improved over GRAW, and that will become clearer in other less over-bright locales, but i think they' ve done a good job of making it more atmospheric. I liked the birds, ...that was a nice touch.

It' s a shame it won' t have Gears or Vegas-esque co-op, but i got a lot of enjoyment from the 4 co-op campaign missions in the original game, so the 6 new ones should be cool. And i think that the game length will be just right, and so while it' s not a fully fledged sequel i' ll be happy to buy the game upon it' s release an i won' t feel short-changed.

If i remember correctly though Summit Strike was released at a cut price so it' s a little shady that they' re calling it GRAW 2 and charging for it as though it was a brand new iteration, but meh, i adored GRAW and March can' t come soon enough for me.

Hahaha, i' m also interested to see how the PS3 version stacks up, as i see nothing in the demo that the console isn' t capable of.

Oh, and did anybody else notice that Mitchells face looks, erm, different?! Kinda bland y' know...

Mitchell always looked a bit...vacant, to me. Lights on nobody home type of thing!

" Faall back on meee"

How much did you like the online in the original GRAW?! That alone will be worth buying the game for. But the map the provided over Xbox Live was pretty dull. I mean, i' m fine with the colour scheme, it' s not like a lot of the game is set in that kind of environment, but after the Vegas demo i expected more.

Online in GRAW was phenominal, but it was a departure from the story mode. It was very overplayed in some ways, which was nice. However, if you got tired of going guns-blazing, you could always work the situation tactically.

I found it very hard to do that in the demo. I actually laughed when the helecopter swooped in and dropped off my homies. Right as I was stealthily setting up a good snipers hide. Then more antics, when the helecopter with the MG swooped down out of nowhere & opened fire. I know they had to end the demo somehow, but c' mon! This is Tom Clancy, not James Bond![:' (]

As for the mule? What a useless piece of junk. It reminded me of those plastic wagons you tote around at Disney World, so you never have to be far from your snackies. It seemed like a lazy alternative to ammo conservation, that only built on the " constant action" formula.

The visuals were really pushed to the limit this time, & that' s great, but it lacked personality IMO. I hate to compare the two, as I loved the original GRAW, but so far, it' s reminding me of my first impressions of Call of Duty: 3. Better graphics, but very mainstream, not much in the way of creativity.

Okay, I' ll stop b17ching now, but it bugs me when sequels dissapoint.

Late to the party, ...IGN...

While the demo provides hungry gamers -- with nothing better to do than download the latest free piece of software -- a fully playable GRAW 2 demo, the actual experience is a mixed bag. For one, it' s short and not terribly distinct from playing through the first five minutes of the first Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Demos are normally pretty short, though the Prey and the Crackdown demos were meaty, long-playing pieces of code. So, you can give it that.

But, I' ve played the single-player game through several of the first missions and the deeper one progresses through the game, the better it gets. You see, GRAW 2 starts out slowly and doesn' t impress nearly as much as the GRAW 1 did when it first showed up -- at first. The first few levels in GRAW 2 are basically training levels, and this demo is plucked straight from the beginning of the game. If you play through the demo and you are a big fan of the Ghost Recon series, GRAW 1 in particular, then you' ll easily breeze through this demo and feel a little disappointed. Why? The demo just doesn' t show enough of what' s actually different about the game.

Still, there are some elements to the demo that may tickle your fancy. The sequel to one of last year' s top-selling Xbox 360 games takes place on the border of Mexico and the US cities' Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. The landscapes in this sequel show that change right away. Instead of big open, Mexican streets and squares, you' re dropped into a dust bowl of dirt roads and barren winding hills. The demo also shows off how to use three of the sequel' s new gadgets. You' ll see and use the new UAV drone, the Mule, and you' ll get your hands on the new team command controls.

The new UAV drone, i.e. 2.0, is nifty for a short while. In the cross-com in the upper left-hand corner, you can switch from your team to the UAV, the Mule, or air support using the D-pad. The UAV now provides a first-person, top-down view enabling you to scan most environments from the UAV' s perspective. The UAV drone is in scanning position while you' re seeing down from it, meaning it' s in danger' s way. Thus, if you want to send it to a new spot at an unnoticeable height, you can use the D-pad to send it to a specific spot. And then you can jump to the UAV' s perspective and scan around, but every time you jump to it, the UAV lowers into enemy rifle range. But the demo, while nice to have, doesn' t really require the use of the UAV 2.0. You can just as easily sneak around the first few areas acting like a ghost and lay waste to the Mexican rogue assailants with little worry.

You' ll then use the Mule, another nice new instrument. The Mule is functional in three ways: It provides cover, offers a new selection of weapons, and provides news updates indicating upcoming enemy types and locations. It can also be commanded just like a team, using the D-pad. It' s faster than it seems, but it is destructible. Thus, if the enemy seems it, after several dozen shots it will explode and you' ll lose it. Again, in this demo you won' t actually need the Mule. It permits you to switch to an AS50 Sniper Rifle for long-range shooting, which you' ll want to do, and that' s something you couldn' t do in GRAW, switch weapons in the middle of a mission. One more thing, like the Ghost team, you can switch to the view of the Mule and see and control it from its perspective.

A few visual special effects accompany this slightly better than so-so demo. You' ll notice a spiffy heat blur in the air, on the side of the support helicopter, and in a few other spots. About three-fourths through the demo, the enemy begins a rocket assault on you. You' ll see the rockets arching though the sky, streaming smoke in their trails, all the way to the target spot. This is not only cool to watch, but you can actually see where the rockets are going so you' ll know where not to go. Last, just like the nifty smoke from the enemy rockets, enemy fire leaves a thin smokey trail in its path, which not only looks good but also helps you pinpoint the location from whence the enemy shoots.

Finally, the newest and coolest of the tools is the command function. Using this, you can switch to you' re a team mate' s visual perspective and actually command the team to move from spot to spot while seeing from their perspective. This will obviously come into play when the fights get thick and heavy, but just like the Mule and the AUV in this demo, they aren' t needed at all. You can easily bust through the entire five to 10-minute demo without using any of these news tools. And that' s my biggest gripe with the demo. You don' t need any of these cool new tools, which are a major part of GRAW 2, to play the demo -- thus making the demo feel more like GRAW 1.5 than GRAW 2.

Sure, it' s still fun as hell to play the GRAW 2 demo because it' s new and it looks slightly better and offers cool new toys to fiddle with. (Demo Spoiler Alert!) But the demo does one more thing that really busts my chops: it ends in the middle of a fight -- the very best fight in the whole demo! Ubisoft pulls a Halo 2 on us! Damn!

Still, there seems to be more to come. This is the single-player Campaign demo, which is stated very clearly on the demo menu. If that is a major point, then will there be a multiplayer demo too? One has to wonder. I sure hope so.

All in all, the demo is OK, if you' re jonesing for anything to play. But having played a little farther into the single-player campaign, it' s fair to say there is much cooler stuff to the game than the slow, rather ordinary first 10 minutes, which is what this demo gives you. I liked playing the demo enough, but it kind of misrepresents GRAW 2 a little. The game is actually cooler than this demo, and if you only see this as a representation of the final game, you may very well be turned off. My advice? Play the demo, but expect the game, especially in the mid- to later- levels to give you a much bigger departure from the GRAW we experienced last year.

Ok, so i mentioned multiplayer...









A multiplayer demo is coming, and it' ll be up at least 2 weeks before the game ships.

Graphically the lighting & shadowing systems have been completely overhauled and they' re now far more dynamic. There should be no instances of the drastic light source changes found in the original game where you' d be running along and then it jumped to look like a filter had been applied.

Like the single player aspect of the game the online will feature many of the same special effects; heat shimmer from explosions and burning buildings, wind and helicopters effecting smoke and foliage, advanced bullet impact effects, depth of field etc...

There won' t be any facemapping like in Vegas, but the camera will be supported.

There will be an ingame scoreboard which you can check at any time, instead of having to wait until the end of the round to see the killcounts etc.

If a team-mate is wounded but it' s non-critical, you can revive them. So being shot in the leg won' t result in death.

There will be loads of new weapons, both primary and secondary and things like satchel charges.

You' ll be able to see just how far you are from your next rank and what the requirements are.



It' s going to be awesome!

There should be no instances of the drastic light source changes found in the original game where you' d be running along and then it jumped to look like a filter had been applied.

I liked that feature of the old GRAW MP actually. Made it seem as if the sun had just come out from behind the clouds. Quite atmospheric.

There will be an ingame scoreboard which you can check at any time, instead of having to wait until the end of the round to see the killcounts etc.

You' ll be able to see just how far you are from your next rank and what the requirements are.

Two major things that were missing imo. Glad they' ve noticed it.

There will be an ingame scoreboard which you can check at any time, instead of having to wait until the end of the round to see the killcounts etc.

You' ll be able to see just how far you are from your next rank and what the requirements are.

Two major things that were missing imo. Glad they' ve noticed it.


Ditto. I mean the new modes and player models are nice and everything but it' s little improvements like these that will make the game better than the original. Rather than just expanding on stuff they' re streamlining it and making it more functional.

Majik' s Awesome Multi-Screenies

Anybody got a napkin?

ORIGINAL: Eddie_the_Hated

Majik' s Awesome Multi-Screenies

Anybody got a napkin?

NITROcaps...

















...the last two caps show the female [enemy] player model.

What you can' t see properly are the facial customization options. Like Vegas there are certain helmets, masks etc that you can' t get until you reach a certain rank. Here' s a example though...





In these caps it looks pretty similar to the original, but running it looks much much better. I just wish they' d " fix" the running animations.

Oh well, at least you can now slide in MP.