This is what I'm talking about!! Finally 60 beans well spent!

GRAW is RAW DAWG! and that is a GOOD thing! There are absolutely tons of reasons that I love this game and I'm calling this the must own for 360 owners.

Let's jump off with the graphics, and campaign mode. The setting is beautiful, Mexico City. This city is a co-star of the game. Mexico City lay out before you, glowing with a rugged yellow aura from the mix of dirt roads and concrete. The graphics are precise and deserve stellar praise. The graphics from this city is introduced as you view from hundreds of feet up, behind your gatling gun, on board a Black Hawk copter that prepares to deliver you into battle.
Throughout the game you will get a full tour of the splendor of different beautiful geographical environments all in Mex City. These include, urban, downtown type, warehouse, a park, railroad yard, poorer more ragged areas, monument areas, suburban areas, etc, etc. You will fight in both day and night. Speaking of day the sun, reflection, shadows, are all gorgeously illustrated in GRAW. You will find yourself blinded at times by the glow of the sun as you shoot at an enemy. Missions will tell you what day it is, and what time of day it is, be it noon, dust, dawn, etc, and GRAW's Lighting effects displays this perfectly.

As you start campaign mode you begin in training. You are forced to do training, can't skip it. This is a good thing because you will learn things that if you didn't learn you would run right out in a game and die instantly and then end up disliking GRAW.
GRAW is a third person shooter. Basic movement controls, walk in direction left thumb stick, look and turn in direction right thumb stick.
In training you learn the controls: fire your weapon with Right trigger, more important- left trigger will aim, this makes your shots more precise it's not a zoom, however, it zooms slightly and sort of settles your character into a more controlled shot.
If you have a weapon that has zoom capabilities you can click the right thumb stick to use the zoom. You can hold your breathe by clicking the left thumb stick.
As important as firing is, your life line will be using cover. GRAW makes taking cover simple. Simply run up to a wall, or vehicle, or crate, or whatever, and thats it. That simple no button to press just attach your character to the wall by making him go to it.
Once your using cover you can slide your character to the edge, fire your weapon and return to cover automatically. You can also press the right bumper button [I love this button],and your character will turn his body in the opposite direction so that you can shoot from the other side. You can press the "Y" button to release from cover and go on your way.
You can only carry one assault weapon and one side arm at a time, as well as different type of grenades. I like this, as it is more realistic than games that have you running around with tons of assault rifles.
Overall the controls are fairly easy to learn and nicely explained during training.

During training you learn how to use your team. Yes in Most of the game you have a team of 3 other soldiers that are vital to your success. Issuing commands is probably the simplest ever. Whatever your looking at if you press up on the "D" pad your team will run there. If you want them to take cover up ahead, look up ahead at what you want them to use as cover and press up on D-pad. If you want them to attack look at what you want them to attack and press up on D-pad. The real beauty of this is, let's suppose you are ducking behind cover taking fire, you don't have to expose yourself from cover to tell your team to attack the target. just look at them from behind cover and issue the command. You are equipped with a cross-com system that allows you to see the enemy, even from behind cover, [more on this later], It works great and you will appreciate your team. You can call your team back by pressing down on te D-pad. You can tell your team to recon or to be aggressive with the left bumper button.

GRAW isn't just a 4 man fire team. It is also control of some of the Military's finest weaponry. Most missions you will be able to issue commands to these vehicles just as easy as you do your fire team. During your campaign you will command: A Black Hawk helicopter, an M1A1 Abrams tank, an APC stryker, and an Unmaned Aerial Vehicle [U.A.V.], used for recon.
These weapons are a big help, easy to command, and are vital to your success.

The Game Play allows you to take various paths and strategies to complete your mission. This is not a run and gun game. You need to take your time, use your team and environment. Running into a battle straight on will have you killed quickly.
What are we doing in Mexico you may wonder? The premise of the game is set in the year 2013 and the Mexican government is threatened by a Mexican General that is forcing a coup. This coup is during a gathering in Mexico of the ,Canadian Prime Minister, Mexican, and U.S. Presidents. This is a Tom Clancy game so of course there is more to it than this, but why write more on that, back to the rest of the game.

GRAW, captures the sounds of war with a fine sound replication of gunfire portrayed from different guns. Explosions are loud, tanks and APC's make distinct sounds representing the raw muscle and power of the finest weapons. The enemy speaks Spanish, and the team voices are good. The background music is fitting, subtle and on cue for the situation at hand.

Back to the cross-com. In GRAW your character, name "Scott", has a system that allows him to see what your team sees. You see this in a little box on the top left of your screen. Scott also has a color schematic that gives a blue outline to friendly team members, and a red outline to the enemy. You don't see the enemy automatically, however, you can use you U.A.V. for recon to show you all red [enemy] in the area that you search. Otherwise if you look in the direction of the possible enemy once you spot them they will get the red outline. This outline is even visible through obstacles. There is even a sniper rifle powerful enough to shoot through thin walls and some barriers.
The cross-com shows your objective as a yellow icon, how you get there is up to you.

The campaign mode is incredible and intense, it took a little over 10 hours to beat it. Kind of short but due to the opportunity to take a different approach to each mission it has a high replay value. Also it is quite challenging on normal mode. I put it on Hard the second go around and wow the enemy became sharp shooters.

The A.I. is among the best yet. Sort of like Call of Duty 2. The enemy uses cover the same way you do. They sometimes converge on your position and keep you on guard.
Sometimes your team A.I. will stand and fire in the open like there playing a game of paintball. If one of them goes down you can order another to heal him. Overall I'm very pleased with the A.I.

When your done with the campaign there are plenty of things to keep you entertained until GRAW 2 [they have to keep this one going!]
You can play up to 16 people on Xbox live or system link. There are a bunch of matches you can do such as: solo; every man for themselves, Co-op against the cpu, Territory; about seizing and holding positions, set Objectives, and more.

GRAW online could be like 360's Halo in terms of fun factor and variety. I can go on and on about GRAW, but I'm about to go play a little. Hope to see you there.

Graphics A+
Playability A
A.I. A
Sound A+
Innovation A