Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter is a First-Person Shooter or Third-Person Shooternote video game in the Ghost Recon series, developed by Ubisoft Paris and Darkworks for the PlayStation 2, Ubisoft Shanghai for the Xbox and Ubisoft Paris, Redstorm Entertainment, Tiwak for the Xbox 360 and by Grin for Microsoft Windows (and later on Steam) and published worldwide by Ubisoft in 2006.
Advanced Warfighter features the Cross-Com system, which allows players to take control (indirectly) of friendly units to assist you in fighting the enemy.
It takes place after the events of Summit Strike in 2013. An American spy plane was shot down over Nicaragua with an a wireless device called Guardrail IX being captured afterwards prior the signing of the North American Joint Security Agreement (NAJSA), which would allow American/Canadian troops and law enforcement to have a legal presence in Mexico in return for providing military assistance to Mexico. In response to the NAJSA, parts of the Mexican military launch a Military Coup as they are against it. Among those involved in the coup are Aquila 7 commandos. The Ghosts are sent it to stop the coup and help North American leaders escape from the attack.
The game is followed by a sequel, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2. It takes place immediately after the events of the first game.
Tropes found in Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter:
- The All-Seeing A.I.: Sniper-type units are better at detecting your team, while regular foot soldiers may sometimes wait a few seconds first.
- Anyone Can Die: For most of the game, soldiers are simply wounded until the end of either the current or following mission. But in the story, Jennifer Burke's team is overrun and she is presumed KIA, and Nick Salvatore is citically wounded by Aguila 7 and last seen being tagged for medevac, though he's shown to be alive in EndWar.
- Armor Is Useless: Zig-zagged: Elite Mooks wearing body armor have somewhat better odds of surviving 1 bullet hit compared to unarmored regular infantry, but nothing is certain.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Ghosts were able to take out Carlos and secure the nuclear football, but the Canadian prime minister was killed. James Monroe, a retired US Army general, was found to be the Rogue Soldier who helped the Mexicans do their coup and was arrested. Meanwhile, the Ghosts are being deployed of Juarez due to more Mexican rebel activity.
- Book Ends: One of the first levels in the game has you defending the bombed-out remains of the American Embassy from an enemy assault while protecting the Mexican President. The final level of the game has you assaulting the same embassy building, where Big Bad Carlos Ontiveros and his cadre of Elite Mooks are making their last stand attempting to use the building to access the American nuclear missile system.
- The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: Some of the weapon specifications shown in Advanced Warfighter are incorrect - stating that default assault rifle has a capacity of 60 bullets, when it really has 30. This came up in the first game as well: for whatever reason, the ammo count in the squad-selection screen is given by way of total ammo available plus the number of mags that ammo fits into, requiring you to divide the former by the latter to tell how much you get per magazine, rather than a more sensible approach such as simply telling you how many bullets one magazine holds then the number of mags you get.
- Concealment Equals Cover: The CGI opening movie shows Mitchell using the Cross-Com to mark an enemy through the wall and then using his .50 BMG sniper rifle to shoot him through the wall. You can't actually do this in-game, not even with the .50 BMG sniper rifle. It's not until Future Soldier that this actually becomes a viable tactic. That said, some very specific pieces of cover (namely wooden fences and cardboard box piles) are actually physics objects and can be destroyed by gunfire, though bullets won't actually penetrate them.
- Elite Mooks: Advanced Warfighter has the Aguila 7, the Mexican special forces leading the coup d'etat. They're equipped with body armor (increasing their odds of surviving an assault rifle hit) and superior weapons (notably using silenced SMGs that help hide their firing position, heavy-hitting SCAR-H battle rifles, and One-Hit Kill M99 .50 BMG sniper rifles).
- Escort Mission: The Quarterback mission will challenge the intelligence of US President Ballantine. The Ready For Bear mission has you escort the pilots of a liberated Abrams brigade, who are better at taking care of themselves.
- Final Boss: The PS2/Xbox version ends with a shootout against Carlos Ontiveros in the basement of the U.S. Embassy; Carlos can withstand a few dozen rounds of assault rifle fire before falling and is a full video game boss fight in a series which otherwise has realistic health for enemies. The PC and Xbox 360 versions also end with a confrontation with Carlos, but he dies after a few shots just like any other human.
- Game-Breaking Bug: On modern systems, if the game is patched to the latest version, you'll fall through the terrain and die at the very beginning of Mission 6 "Ready for Bear" as soon as the opening cutscene ends. This can be avoided by messing around with the game files (removing one of the patched files then putting it back in once the mission is complete), but it's a bit of a hassle, and likely part of the reason why the game is no longer sold digitally while Advanced Warfighter 2 is at least still available on Amazon.com.
- Ghost Town: Mexico City is totally deserted except for a few platoons of troops. Mexico City is one of those gigantic mega cities where you see at least 1000 people literally anywhere you look around.
- Gunship Rescue: The Plaza del Angel mission where, after several minutes of increasingly hostile engagement, your squad and the dignitaries under your care (as well as the "nuclear football") are saved at the last second from a tank brigade by the arrival of U.S. gunships.
- Interface Screw: A slight blur, done several times. However, you won't be able to use the compass or have enemies marked on your HUD.
- It's Up to You: Getting killed causes the general to order retreat to all units.
- Made of Explodium: As for Every Car Is a Pinto, non-armored vehicles in this game and Advanced Warfighter will explode if they get shot up enough. Sometimes for what appears to be no reason, several minutes after the most likely cause happened.
- Monumental Battle: The mission Coup d'état has a minor battle in Zócalo Plaza with infantry. The mission Fierce Resistance doesn't, as approaching the plaza causes you to be ordered to do something else, but you do get two tanks used to clean up the mess at the end of the mission.
- The mission VIP 2 is Down (the Plaza del Angel/Mexican Presidential Palace), in which you must protect the President of the United States, several dignitaries and the U.S. "nuclear football" from an onslaught of enemy soldiers and armor. Redux in mission NORAD on the line.
- No Scope: GRAW allow you to aim a sniper rifle without going into scope view.
- Notice This: The game will often alert you when it is possible to place C4 explosives.
- One Bullet Clips: Averted; the game tracks your spare mags rather than your spare bullets; reloading will discard any unfired rounds left in your current magazine. The only exception is the single-shot .50 cal sniper rifle.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: In Hard mode, any shot connecting with you will kill you instantly.
- Real Is Brown: This game suffers from a pretty severe case of the "coffee filter" effect that was popular during the Gears of War era from which it originated. This may also tie into the use of a yellow camera filter for scenes in Mexico, as popularized by the film Traffic and used in many films and tv shows such as Breaking Bad, to convey the dry desert heat. The sequel notably averts this, with a more colorful palette.
- Reformulated Game: The Xbox 360, PC, and 6th gen console versions are all completely different games made by completely different teams. They follow the same general plot and mission flow, and mostly use the same voice lines, but have vastly different gameplay and level structure. The Xbox 360 is a third-person shooter and an evolution of Ghost Recon 2, while the PC version is a first-person shooter with a realtime tactical map more akin to the original Ghost Recon. The Xbox version is also a first-person shooter, but is much more linear and scaled down with more forgiving difficulty, being more of a standard 6th gen console FPS rather than a larger-scale tactical shooter. The PS2 version is a parred down version of the Xbox version, with numerous things such as weapon reload animations and ragdoll physics removed and level geometry vastly simplified so the game would run in the less powerful PS2 hardware.
- Regenerating Health: The PS2/Xbox version has very slow regenerating health. Unlike games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, it isn't fast enough to heal you in the middle of combat, and is more of an Anti-Frustration Feature to prevent you from being stuck in the middle of a level at 1% health.
- Scenery Porn: In the "Plaza del Angel" mission, features an exquisitely rendered and 100% accurate-for-the-moment Angel of Independence
area together with a geographically perfect Reform Drive. Almost literally the one single difference is that the Banorte building in the game says "Bankorte". - Shown Their Work: One of the reasons GRAW is so popular in Mexico, especially among Mexico City gamers, is its attention to detail to the city's famous landmarks and locales. Even if you blow the crap out of them in some way or another.
- Take Cover!: Seen in the third-person Xbox 360 and PS3 ports, though unlike Gears of War pioneering the more standard implementation, you have to move into it physically for it to automatically work and press a button or move backwards to leave it.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: The Steam version has the player fall through the terrain during a mandatory cutscene.
