Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 [PSP]

When it was released earlier this year, Tom Clancy's GRAW 2 was an evolution of the franchise. Improved controls, smoother gameplay and a deep multiplayer experience added up to make an incredible first person shooter. The port of the title over to the PS3 was impressive as well, which merely added to the legacy of the franchise. With the release on the PSP, you'd expect Captain Mitchell's portable sorties to be just as impressive as his console adventures. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 on the PSP is barely GRAW in any sense of the word, which should be extremely disappointing for fans of the series.

GRAW 2 PSP isn't a condensed version of the console game onto the UMD, nor does it pick up where the console version leaves off. Instead, the plot is designed to be "GRAW 1.5." Shortly after the events of the first GRAW, Mitchell is tasked with following the weapons used in Mexico City, which takes him to Columbia. Unfortunately, as he and his team are being inserted into the country, the helicopter that he's on is shot down, leaving him alone behind enemy territory. To successfully accomplish his mission, Mitchell will need to follow his attackers and the weapons he was sent for, uncovering a conspiratorial twist that could drag all Mexico and all of Latin America into a new conflict.

Mitchell is a trained Green Beret who's prepped to take on seemingly impossible odds, especially with the help of his Advanced Warfighter equipment. So just like the console title, Mitchell will find his mission objectives highlighted with yellow diamonds, with blue diamonds highlighting friendlies and red diamonds indicating enemies. To eliminate any of these threats, Mitchell will have access to a variety of weapons, including assault rifles, handguns and explosives. At any point during a mission, he can carry two different primary weapons, such as rifles or machine guns, a pistol and his assortment of grenades.

Of course, as you cross through the dense jungles of Latin America over 22 different missions, you'll cover everything from reconnaissance sorties to escort missions to demolition objectives. The missions are relatively small, normally taking around 10-15 minutes to complete, and provide two to three paths for players to use to accomplish their objectives. However, there's a ton of problems that reduces much of the enjoyment or the rationality of the title. First of all, the entire game places Mitchell into a Lone Wolf scenario. He rarely gains allies during the missions that he takes, and even if they do appear, he has no way to command them. Nor will they be particularly helpful; in fact, I can't actually say that the allies that ever joined me during a stage did anything outside of standing around. As a result, you're pretty much forced to do everything within a mission by yourself.

Now, if you were forced to scavenge your weapons and explosives from your fallen opponents, or had to improvise the means of dispatching any soldier stupid enough to get in your way, there might be a bit of a challenge in going at it alone. However, Mitchell is more than capable of blasting a way through every enemy squad on the map, rarely running out of ammunition in the process. This is exacerbated once you have the OICW, which packs so many rounds that you rarely ever find yourself running out. Combine this with one of the other weapons, and you will often pack more firepower than the enemy will ever marshal towards you. If you ever find yourself magically running low, you can always restock at one of the ammo boxes that are easily accessible, which helps you continue the fight with very little incidents. An unfortunate byproduct of this situation is that you rarely feel the need to use certain weapons or items available to you. There isn't ever a moment in the game where you need to use the drones to scout out territory for you, nor are you required to use the air strikes or other weapons that you can acquire over the course of the game. You can easily find the one or two weapons that you like and blast your way to victory.