Video game review by ERIK LEIJON

The Canadian Prime Minister is dead? Holy shit, those terrorists are serious this time. Consider Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (X360/Ubisoft, Tiwak/Ubisoft Paris) the unofficial passing of the torch from the Xbox 1 to the 360. More than just a half-assed port with some graphical improvements, the 360 version is completely revamped to the point where it’s a new game, while the Xbox 1 gets a solid, unspectacular Warfighter. But to those who’ve been to so many extraction points in the last five years that they’re all looking the same: neither one will be as advanced as you have hoped.

Warfighter places us in the year 2013, when the three North American nations agree to NAJSA, a deal that hopes to ramp up American-style security across the continent. For some reason Nicaragua doesn’t like it, Mexico overthrows their government, and big Stevo becomes the first Canuck PM to be assassinated (okay, we never hear his name, but my guess is he’s still in charge in 2013).

The Ghost Recons are an élite group of soldiers and this time get some snazzy futuristic interface à la Robocop. Unlike previous Recon games, the Xbox 360 version of Warfighter is a third-person, over-the-shoulder game. The regular Xbox version is in the traditional first-person mode.

I’ll split the gameplay and graphics section, since the Xbox and Xbox 360 versions differ quite a bit. For the 360, the game takes a greater step towards realism. The AI likes to shoot and has a knack for headshots, so most of the time you’ll be hiding behind walls or whatever cover you can find. The controls are intuitive and feel natural, so unlike war shooters, you won’t be getting stuck to walls or have trouble getting cover when you need it. This is all-too important because even the slightest of errors means you’ll have to restart the mission. I would have liked to be able to save at any time though, since you die a lot. It can get frustrating, but at the default difficulty the AI has holes in their positioning that give you hope. Your own team is usually pretty pathetic without your guidance and will frequently run into gunfire if you don’t specifically tell them where to go.

Graphically, the 360 version has beautifully textured buildings as far as the eye can see, and all the lines look very smooth.

The Xbox 1 version is good old-fashioned Ghost Recon gameplay. It’s not as difficult on the standard difficulty, and suffers from some long load-times 360 owners won’t be subjected to. To really know the difference in power between the systems, check out the foggy backgrounds in the Xbox 1 version.

Advanced Warfighter is a fun game, and fans will be pleased, but those who have tired of squad-based shooters won’t find anything here that will blow their minds. The 360 version adds the strategic elements that limitations in the old console prevented. Obviously the 360 Warfighter is better, but the other one is worth trying.

Technical questions

Last weekend’s Festival Son & Image 2006 (FSI) at the Sheraton on René-Lévesque was nine floors of incredible gizmos and gadgets poor journalist types like myself could only dream of owning. Unfortunately, I was there under the guise that video games would have greater representation.

They were pimping a vibrating chair for TV and video games, and I got to play Project Gotham 3 on a Samsung home theatre system, but why was the only Xbox-related product for sale from the Xbox 1 generation, and why didn’t Sony have any PS2’s connected to their plasma TVs?