Aug 29, 2007

If you're going to put a shooter on a portable system - and why not? - Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 does a decent job of trying to cram the action of a non-portable console action game into the PSP. It's dropped the typical squad based combat of its counterparts, and instead you play the lone-wolf soldier Capt. Scott Mitchell.

Let's get the obvious thing out of the way first: There's only one analogue stick. To be fair, we knew that when we got our PSPs, though. GRAW2 tries to adapt by using the right-hand buttons to look up, down, left or right, and the left analogue stick moves and strafes. Despite the manipulation of the PSP's controls, navigating through cramped areas can still feel like Mitchell has had a few too many drinks before crash landing in the middle of the jungle.

To help out with the clunky movement, the very generous auto-aim is a major helper in combat. Tapping the L button gets the Captain to zoom in and lock his crosshairs onto any unlucky Colombian terrorists standing in front of him. The point and click combat may be too easy for those looking for a realistic tactical sim, but it functions smoothly and makes for some fun, simple bad guy blasting.

In addition to helpful auto-aiming, there are several cool prototype weapons and gizmos to help you survive your missions - it is seven years in the future after all. You'll be frequently teamed up with a UAV drone that hovers somewhere over your head, and can be used to either scout ahead or scout ahead and drop bombs. The latter strategy is particularly effective.