Got GRAW for 360

[Aramis]

My in-laws picked me up GRAW for the 360. I had played the pc demo at a friend's as my pc couldn't play it. I thought it looked pretty but I was never really into the previous ones (I know, prepare the firing squad). Tactical shooters didn't appeal to me until SWAT 3 came along, then the R6 series. Anyway, just some background as to my playing experience with the series.

I popped it in mostly to humor them. Had the 360 at their house on a nice 50" rear projection HDTV. It was SO pretty. My brother and father in-laws both kept saying how awesome it looked. The graphics and the GUI are really awesome, and the sound is sweet, even hooking it up to just the tv and it's internal subwoofer.

Pretty steep learning curve that almost turned me off to it, but now I must say I'm hooked. I'm not very far in.

My complaint seems to be that it's pretty linear- the terrain and storyline keep you in line. That's not a bad thing but I can see how that'd hurt replay.

Obviously I'm late to the show on this game, but I'm glad my family picked it up. It's quite a bit of fun.

[Ronin]

I've got GRAW for the PC.  I finished it.  But it was _not_ easy.  Also the graphics on the PC are terrible compared to the graphics on the 360.

On the PC the colors are washed out and high frame rates are difficult to achieve.  The HDR doesn't work very well and the AA is done in the game engine at a huge rendering cost.

You can't turn off the HDR from the game interface.  You have to edit an XML file to do that.  But if you turn off HDR (which makes the graphics look SO much better) you lose your night vision (how dumb is that?).

I'm wondering if the enemy AI is as accurate (able to see you and shoot you with a pistol from 100 yards away in the dark) as it is on the PC.  I'm also wondering if it's common on the 360 for the enemy AI to know where you are even when you creep up on them.

On the PC, the friendly AI is dumber than dirt.  They won't seek cover generally in a firefight (they usually just stand there and shoot) and if they do seek cover, they will quite often push you out of your cover position.  Is the friendly AI on the 360 like that?

And on the PC there is no ROE control.  I believe there is on the 360, correct?  Overall, it appears that GRAW on the 360 is a better game than GRAW on the PC.  I'm surprised you didn't get that from playing the PC demo.  Or did you?  Even the XBox 1 version of GRAW is a better game than the PC version (even though I suck at console games).

[Aramis]

I really haven't gotten far enough in to see the enemies be super accurate, but thus far they seem to be less-trained and organized than the Ghosts, which makes sense. They pop in and out of cover, but I've been rushed by them in the past. It's not GREAT AI, but it's serviceable from what I've seen. The Ghosts seem to do ok but occasionally I have to revive them when they went forward into cover and didn't pull back and were overrun. That's more my fault in not calling them back.

The pc demo, I was so bad at it, I never finished it. I had limited playtime on it but thought it sure looked pretty.

What's ROE control?

[MONOLITH]

ROE= Rules Of Engagement.

Assault vs Return fire only

[Aramis]

Ah ok. It's just basically a toggle between aggressive and passive.

[MONOLITH]

Yes, but in a fairly extreme and useful way.

I keep them on return fire only to sneak up closer and get into good flanking positions. They will report "tango spotted" (or "rebels" actually), but they will not give away their positions.

Until you set them to Assault, then they open up on anything they can see.

Good Times.

[Aramis]

I have been setting them to recon when I want to do most of the work, but if I'm hurt more than my team I'll send em out on assault. One thing I've found is that they don't always know when to pull back and so I don't put em on assault much.

[MONOLITH]

they don't always know when to pull back

Yeah I think this is true.

They will look for and use cover pretty well for AI, but in a losing a situation they will stay put until killed.

I just look at it as following orders. i told them to get out there and fight, so they do. And they won't come back unless I tell them too.


They're just well trained.  







.

[Aramis]

...aaaaaaaaaaaaaand I just finished GRAW for 360.

The good:
Decent story.
-Interesting locale for  this type of game.
-Exciting moments in the SP campaign that I really enjoyed.
-Neat HUD (also see below). It's better than a silly bar at the bottom.
-Being able to pick up enemy weapons.

The bad:
-HUD: I felt like I was shooting at red diamonds an awful lot. Also, why couldn't I turn it off? When they were jamming, what idiot WOULDN'T?!
-Any gun without a scope isn't worth much in this particular game.
-Team AI is dumb. If I have to direct them to take cover, then why are they specialists?


I most enjoyed the parts where I didn't have teammates, because they annoyed me. They were rarely helpful, unless I brought someone with a damn rocket launcher. In that case, he was a huge help. He even killed Ontiveros for me, which was kinda anticlimactic, but I didn't care.

All in all it was a pretty decent game, but I don't know that I'll be picking up GRAW 2.

[Ronin]

-HUD: I felt like I was shooting at red diamonds an awful lot.

The diamonds are RED?  Now I'm wondering how much of the washed out colors on the PC are because I'm colorblind.  I'm going to have to get my wife to look at the enemy diamonds and see if they're red on the PC.  The enemy diamonds on my PC look kind of green.  And friendlies are blueish.

[Ronin]

One thing I find a bit annoying about the friendly AI is that the guy who is the default sniper (number 3 who is usually assigned the Barrett) always hangs back from the rest of the team.  This usually either exposes him or he gets stuck on things.  I almost never assign the Barrett to him (mainly because he's pretty useless with it).  I usually assign the M249 to one guy and the other two get SCAR Ls.

But the "sniper" guy still acts like he's a sniper.  You'd think that without a sniper rifle he wouldn't ACT like a sniper.  But he does.  In places with tight quarters he's not even on the same street as the rest of us. I find myself quite often telling him where to go after giving the team a move order so he doesn't get lost or just hang around useless down an alley or on the other side of the building.

Once he's hung up, he's there for the rest of the mission.  I usually just go find him and shoot him if he's stuck.  I wish there was a way to "unstick" him.  I've even tried lobbing a grenade close to him to see if I can knock him loose.  But that usually kills him.  It never unsticks him (I've not been successful at all doing that).  Sigh...

The game is still fun, though.  I find myself playing the Mayday! Mayday! map a lot.  Not today, though.  I'm doing our taxes today (fun, fun, fun...)

[Aramis]

They could be different in the pc version, but yeah. They're bright bright red. Friendlies are green.

I never used a sniper- I mostly went with the default team they gave me because I did so little with them except use them as a bit of support. I really didn't like leading them around as they acted like idiots sometimes.

[Lostroth]

grrrrr well i had a pretty lengthy post, but i'm tired and insteading of typing F5 i hit the F5 key and refreshed the page and lost my post

well i downloaded the demo, it was alright. i wouldn't mind trying the full version. maybe it was just me but it seems i couldn't control my squad unless i went to the tactical map, and they wouldn't follow me. i changed the key bindings and i still couldn't tell them to do anything

graphics were good, but the demo ran horribly on my PC

overall i wasn't impressed, but it is only a demo, i would like to try the full veresion before really critizing it.

[Ronin]

grrrrr well i had a pretty lengthy post, but i'm tired and insteading of typing F5 i hit the F5 key and refreshed the page and lost my post

well i downloaded the demo, it was alright. i wouldn't mind trying the full version. maybe it was just me but it seems i couldn't control my squad unless i went to the tactical map, and they wouldn't follow me. i changed the key bindings and i still couldn't tell them to do anything

graphics were good, but the demo ran horribly on my PC

overall i wasn't impressed, but it is only a demo, i would like to try the full veresion before really critizing it.

I'd say that your impressions from the demo are pretty much the same as the full game.  I'd say wait until the game comes down to $19.95.  It's not worth more than that.  I certainly wouldn't pay the original retail price.  Given what you got for it, that was just a ripoff.

I played the demo first.  But I made the mistake of thinking that the full version would have the rendering sorted out.  I was wrong.  The full game's graphics are exactly like the demo.  Muddy image with washed out colors.  Orange Ghost uniforms and everything else is a shade of brown.  The only thing that isn't some shade of brown is the sky which is sort of blue but with brown clouds.

[Lostroth]

I'd say that your impressions from the demo are pretty much the same as the full game.  I'd say wait until the game comes down to $19.95.  It's not worth more than that.  I certainly wouldn't pay the original retail price.  Given what you got for it, that was just a ripoff.

I played the demo first.  But I made the mistake of thinking that the full version would have the rendering sorted out.  I was wrong.  The full game's graphics are exactly like the demo.  Muddy image with washed out colors.  Orange Ghost uniforms and everything else is a shade of brown.  The only thing that isn't some shade of brown is the sky which is sort of blue but with brown clouds.

man that sucks i thought the washed out colour was just the demo and me having the graphics turned down, that sucks that it actually looks like that

[Wolfsong]

man that sucks i thought the washed out colour was just the demo and me having the graphics turned down, that sucks that it actually looks like that

The post effect, which casues the washed washed out brown mexican look, was changed in patch 1.35.

As for diamonds, on PC the friendlies are blue/turquoise just as the rest of the HUD and the enemies are red (or you monitor isn't tuned right).

Now have a cookie and be happy. :cookie:

[Ronin]

The post effect, which causes the washed out brown mexican look, was changed in patch 1.35.

I'll have to check the current visuals against some old screen shots.  I didn't notice any difference in the visuals when I installed 1.35.

As for diamonds, on PC the friendlies are blue/turquoise just as the rest of the HUD and the enemies are red (or you monitor isn't tuned right).

Now have a cookie and be happy. :cookie:

It's not my monitor.  I'm colorblind and don't see red the way I should.  

[Wolfsong]

I'll have to check the current visuals against some old screen shots.  I didn't notice any difference in the visuals when I installed 1.35.

It's still brown (as it's still set in mexico with a dry feel) but the post effects is lowered, which many has noted at the GR.net board. Some think it's enough, some don't and also some want it like it was before. You can never please everyone I guess.