My opinion - GRAW

Every now and then I'm going to pick a game and give my opinion of it. Why? Because this is my blog and I can do whatever I want. So there.

Any hoo! The game I picked this time is Ton Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter otherwise known as GRAW. This game came out in March of 2006 but I didn't get it until later. When I did get it it was because a bunch of my friends were playing it and they suggested it to me. Without playing a demo I took them up on it. Now I don't think I should have.

I owned it for a long time before I ever put it into my system to play. There were just other games that I was more interested in that more of friends were playing instead. When I did put it in I had a hard time reading and following the instructions in the tutorial level. I couldn't understand what they were asking me to do or where they wanted me to go. And then I got the grenade toss.

That was where I quit. I just couldn't toss the smoke grenade in the right spot in order to run across the open road without dying. No matter how many times I tried I just couldn't do it the way the computer wanted me to and that meant that I couldn't progress in the training. It really frustrated me. I stopped playing. A couple of weeks later I came back to the game and tried again. The second time through the controls were a little easier to understand, but not much. But then I got the grenade part. I had the same problem again.

This time I stopped playing for months. If I was getting frustrated just trying to make it through the training mission what was the actual game play going to be for me? Once GRAW 2 came out I figured I should at least try it one more time. Still the same problem. It wasn't worth it for me any more. But I kept the game.

I always thought I'd come back and play GRAW. I never have. And my experience playing Call of Duty 4 has taught me that there are some games I just won't be very good at. And if that is the case, why play them? I'm still playing Call of Duty 4 because I still have fun with my friends despite how poorly I play. But will I ever go back to playing GRAW? I don't think so.

So I decided to trade it in . . . as soon as I can find the case for it. I don't see the point in keeping a game that I have no desire to play (even if my friends want me to play). I'd rather spend the money on a game that interests me and doesn't frustrate me completely on the training level. Maybe The Orange Box perhaps. Or Eternal Sonata. I already have a hard enough time finding the time to play the games that I have and love that I don't think I'll ever want to put GRAW in and give it another go.

This doesn't mean I think it's a terrible game. It just means that I couldn't get through the training level. I feel stupid for that too, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it any more. If a game doesn't interest me it's going back. And maybe I'll start downloading demos to try them out first. And if you're on my friend's list and have been waiting for me to learn how to play GRAW so we could play together we'll have to find another game to meet in. May I suggest Boogie Bunnies?