Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter [X360]

As the Ghost Recon series has learned to embrace the console systems, it's begun to stray a bit from its roots as a hardcore tactical shooter. Those expansive bits of outdoor terrain and abundances of sniping have been becoming a thing of the past. The most recent example on the PS2, Ghost Recon 2, was little more than a run and gun shooter with a superficially military look. While Advanced Warfighter on the 360 won't quite present the same sim-style feel as the PC original, it's certainly a lot more tactical than what we've seen recently, yet still has some trigger-happy action thrown in.

Set in Mexico City, the game's storyline takes place over a span of three days of intense urban warfare. As such, you and your three teammates will be working through the streets and in other locations completing missions in both day and night, good weather or bad. As the leader of the team, you'll have some rather impressive toys to play with, each working together to give you the information you'll need to make effective decisions.

The most immediately noticeable of these is the advanced heads-up display. This gives you navigational information, remaining ammunition, and other typical info, along with more unique features. Two picture-in-picture windows are available in the upper corners of the screen -- the one on the upper-right is only present when you receive mission updates from superiors or news feeds containing pertinent intel; the upper-left screen shows the viewpoint from one of your teammates. It will also show you the viewpoint from automated drones that can offer a top-down view of the area.

Through a 3D tactical map, you can guide your drone over the battlefield. Any hostile forces that the drone detects will be identified on the map. That info will also be sent to your heads-up display. Friendly forces will be similarly highlighted, making fighting amidst smoke and fog much easier.

Finally, the HUD comes into play when ordering around units. Advanced Warfighter takes a cue from Full Spectrum Warrior, featuring indicators projected on the ground when you order your units about. Tell your troops to move near a wall or behind some cover, and you'll get a preview of where they'll wind up before they get there. If you leave them alone, your troops are smart enough to peek around corners and over obstacles to look for bogies, and will engage automatically if allowed to do so.

The missions are mostly of a similar structure to the Xbox's Ghost Recon, with generally urban environments littered with terrorist forces. However, there will be occasional interludes of senseless violence, like a session in a Blackhawk gunship that enables you to mow down terrorists with a chain-gun.