Ghost Recon...Mediocre Warfighter

So the reviews are in for the latest Tom Clancy Ghost Recon video game, Advanced Warfighter, and unfortunately for Xbox owners, it appears that those like me who were content on sticking with the current-gen version for now, will also need to be content with playing an inferior version of the game.

The overall consensus is that the Xbox game pales in comparison to the 360 version- not only in graphics, which any senile old man could have told you, but also surprisingly in gameplay. This is extremely disappointing for people like me who've been anxiously awaiting this game's release since seeing the amazing teaser footage shown at E3 last May. It's hard to believe that Ubisoft, the game publisher for this title, could not find a way to create a comparable Xbox experience to the 360 version, given the fact that EA was able to pull it off just recently with Fight Night Round 3. It seems like a case of rushing a product out the door before working out all the kinks, which is a bit odd considering that there are still today only a hand full of people in the video game community that own a 360 and have the ability to play the 360 version vs. the millions of Xbox owners out there. Cheap mofos.

If you're going to push out a game that was meant only to be played on a 360, why short change your audience and release a sub-par product that in essence emulates only a fraction of its original vision? Why even bother with an Xbox version? WHY? I'll tell you why- it's all about the Benjamin$. However, at some point there needs to be a threshold of what is an acceptable version of a cross-console game and what is utter camel piss. 'We need to take out the third-person over-the-shoulder gameplay option.' Okay, I can accept that. 'The player will only be able to control 1 additional soldier on the Xbox vs. a squad of 4 on the 360.' Seems like this kind of takes away from whole 'squad' based theme to the Clancy series, but okay, that too I guess I can accept. But once you start changing up things like player movement capabilities, HUD display functionality, and (don't even go there) weaponry (oh yes they did), what the hell are you offering other than a mod of the last Ghost Recon game.

If this is what the future holds for current-generation games, it won't be long until I'll be forced to drop $399+ on a new system to be able to play any half decent new games. Fortunate for me, there are still a good selection of 'new-classics' I have yet to play like Ninja Gaiden and Burnout Revenge that'll extend my Xbox life span a few more months.