I don't usually like to begin a review with a reference to faeces, but Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW from now on) is a turd of a game. If you don't yet own an Xbox 360 and was hoping for some new Ghost Recon goodness on your trusty old Xbox, I apologise for being the bearer of bad news. Well in reality, it should be Ubisoft apologising as the Xbox version of GRAW is nothing but a lame port hoping to cash in on the success of the franchise's Xbox 360 blockbuster.

The story of GRAW is essentially the same as the Xbox 360 version when a North American security treaty between Canada, Mexico and the USA is compromised at the eleventh hour due to a Mexican military coup. The ensuing rebel action results in the death of the Canadian President with the Mexican and US Presidents going missing within Mexico City. Your mission as leader of a group of four elite Special Forces soldiers known as the Ghosts, is to rescue the two Presidents and recover a lost nuclear 'Football' of the type seen in the last season of 24. The story has promise but unfortunately for Xbox owners, the only cut scenes in GRAW are delivered in looping credit-card size windows of non lip-synched characters delivering their lines. Ubisoft have really taken the cheap option here.

The first thing that will strike you about GRAW, is its considerable lack of polish. From the game menus to the in-game graphics through to the level design, GRAW just looks sloppy. Playing GRAW you could be excused for thinking it was a first generation Xbox game and not the fifth variation of the series to grace the big black console. I would go as far as saying the graphics in GRAW are barely any improvement on that of Ghost Recon: Island Thunder and are definitely not anywhere near the standard of Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike.

Character, vehicle and geometry models are simplistic and covered in low resolution, muddy textures. The game is viewed solely from a First Person Perspective (FPS) viewpoint showing the equipped weapon as in the Rainbow Six games. Aiming, brings up a scope view or slightly zooms in but given that the aiming reticle is a light orange colour it tends to blend into the bland background graphics making it very hard to tell exactly where you are aiming.

Aiming in general is a flawed exercise, as it is very common for perfectly aligned sniper shots to miss their target for no apparent reason or to impact on objects to your immediate front that are not visible through the weapons scope. Add this to the continual wobble of the zoomed target picture that can not be steadied temporarily or even countered by adopting a kneeling position.

The problems don't stop there, as player mobility is extremely restrictive. You can only toggle between standing and crouching with no ability to lay prone or successfully navigate low obstacles. Walking speed is quite fast and has somewhat of a gliding on ice feel to it although I do like the limited sprint ability toggled by pressing down on the Left Thumbstick.

Considering the increased manoeuvrability and situational awareness of the Ghost Recon 2 games, it seems strange that Ubisoft has reverted back to first person for GRAW and removed so many key abilities. Forget crawling, rolling, diving for cover or shooting over and around objects from cover as none of these options are available to players on Xbox... yet 'all' of these are crucial features in the 360 version.

It also seems that the tactical team play synonymous with the Ghost Recon series has been all but ignored in the Xbox version of GRAW. Squad size is limited to you and only one other, as apposed to three and six subordinate squad mates in Ghost Recon 2 and Ghost Recon respectively. Tactical options are severely limited with such a small squad and considering the friendly AI's penchant for erratic behaviour, the overall experience is less than enjoyable.

Your squad mate can be ordered to both freely seek out and engage enemies or to fire only when fired upon by pressing the Y-Button. This system works for the most part but is still problematic. For example on numerous occasions, my squad mate wandered a considerable distance from my position looking for enemies and had to be called back into formation continually. On another occasion I ordered my squad mate to man a mounted machine gun, which he did but as soon as I selected an Apache gunship in support, he left the gun and ran around engaging enemies with his rifle. On another occasion he became stuck on level geometry and when I left him behind, began complaining that the two of us should stick together...Bloody hypocrite!

Realism has also flown far out the window in GRAW with the introduction of supply points that instantly heal both you and your squad mate and rearm all carried weapons as well as allowing you to save your progress. These supply points are in fixed locations throughout each level but can be returned to at various stages. Your character's weapon load out is decided for you prior beginning the mission and can not be altered. The usual weapons assigned to your character are an assault rifle, a pistol, grenades and a sniper rifle. Weapons are selected by the antiquated method of pressing the B-Button continually so that it scrolls through all available options. This is a very annoying method of selecting weapons and is far from intuitive during the heat of battle. Loosing the ability to choose you own weapons for each mission is also a pain.

On the topic of antiquated game mechanics, the level design leaves a lot to be desired. From what I could tell, levels are in no way the same as those in the Xbox 360 version and just loosely follow the original intent of each mission. Some levels initially appear to be large and open but are considerably smaller than the levels in Summit Strike for instance. Not only that, but most contain locked gates that miraculously open by themselves after specific mission objectives are completed to allow access to other parts of the map. This is especially annoying when your gaming ability exceeds that of what the level designers expected and you have to backtrack from a locked gate to catch up with scripted events that failed to trigger due to your swift level progression.

Weapon accuracy is a major issue in GRAW as most of your advance weaponry is horrendously inaccurate. This is mainly due to sloppy aiming mechanics but it is further exaggerated when you can not hit a certain enemy with an entire clip of sniper rifle ammunition, but he can hit you repeatedly with fully automatic bursts from an AK-74. This is also the case at night, where the use of night vision gives the player no advantage over the enemy as they can frustratingly see you as clear as day with their naked eyes.

Unclear damage animations raise their ugly head once again in a Ghost Recon game as with the exception of a head shot, most enemies will fall to the ground once shot only to get back on their feet seconds later...This was also a problem in Ghost Recon 2. Now I can understand this occasionally happening against a body-armour clad soldier but not against poncho wearing Mexican rebels. I know this is supposed to be the near future, but I think bulletproof ponchos are a little way off. A lack of blood or even a pink mist doesn't make things any easier either.

The Cross-Com system, which is such an integral part of the Xbox 360 version of GRAW, is a real poor cousin in the Xbox version. The picture-in-picture video feeds from team mates and Unmanned Aerial reconnaissance Vehicles (UAVs) are displayed at about one or two frames per second and do nothing but clutter your field of view. Frame rate issues are not confined to the Cross-Com screens however, as the entire game suffers from regular frame rate stutters and a general lack of smoothness.

Multiplayer and Xbox Live options are varied but nothing offered is really new or stands out. The single player campaign can be played by two players cooperatively (with a quick mission option for all previously completed missions) which is functional and always worth a try when you have a mate handy. There are 12 multiplayer maps with different options and game modes depending on if you choose split-screen, system-link or Xbox Live. But all the multiplayer and online features under the sun can not make an intrinsically flawed game any better and online success relies mainly on the game possessing a level of addictive gameplay and there being a decent number of people interested in playing the game... The Xbox version of GRAW has neither.