This game has been streamlined to appeal to just about anyone, from the hardcore FPS fan to the casual arcade gamer, and is still fun for the strategist. The controls are easy to learn and fairly intuitive, so you should be fairly familiar with them after the first level. Mastery of these controls will be tested in Xbox Live, as you will most likely become target practice for the other players.
Even though GWAR is more arcade-like than previous versions, strategy is still a key element. You can’t just run into the city like an idiot and not expect to be instantly massacred. Even though you have advanced body armor, you will be taken out with a couple of shots. So, the game forces you to make tactical decisions like positioning your squad, identify and take out key enemies (like that sniper sitting in the water tower).
So how do you identify enemies exactly? Well, you have a few tools to your disposal. Once of which is a scout drone, which is a small robot you can move around the tactical map and drop down to scopy out enemies and track their movement.
Once identified (by seeing them yourself or scouted by the drone), the enemies appear as red diamonds on your HUD (since you are supposedly wearing a computerized monocle) and tactical map. Information is power, and your satelite-powered “cross-com” leverages all the intelligence of all allies on the field: once any one of your team identifies an enemy, they are tracked in real-time, providing situational awareness. This allows you to make strategic decisions: do you order the helicopter to make salsa out of the Mexican rebels or are they spread out enough to strategically take them out quietly?
Whatever you decide, you can see through the eyes of your teammates, so you can get a birds-eye perspective of the hot lead spilled out of the Blackhawk, or see the fire your Drone gets when it hovers too close to enemies.
As I said before the control are easy to learn but you’ll probably will be looking down on your controller if u are actually pressing the correct button (at least that happed to me a few times) but just keep on playing you’ll get the hang of it, the controls itself are basic and straight forward and are easy to maintain, even in deep combat.
The game starts out with a simple training mission that guides you through the core maneuvers Captain Mitchell can do, in addition to commanding your squad and vehicles. This tutorial is really necessary to get the PC player familiar with the minimized console controls, but are efficient and very usable once you get used to them.
Once you’ve learned the basics, you’re presented with a cutscene that immerses you right in the middle of the conflict. You start perched on the open side of a Blackhawk helicopter overlooking an impressively detailed Mexico City. Tall city buildings, rural areas, countryside, and city streets are realistically rendered and grouped, but I have no frame of reference if the virtual city is modeled after Mexico City, but looks extremely realistic.
There are no pre-rendered cutscenes, load screens or other transitions. Everything is rendered in real time, as is as gorgeous as any pre-rendered cutscene could ever be. You are plopped seamlessly down onto a highway, down the street from an objective.
The 12 missions are spread out over a great amount of variety. On some missions you start out on your own, to be joined by your teammates later. Some missions you are a lone wolf, and other missions you command a Blackhawk or Bradley tank The controls are intuitive and offer quick response. Some control elements are context sensitive based upon your current position and selected equipment.
