Imagine the world of the near future. The Far East is still recovering from events a few years earlier when, in the final days of his Presidency, George W Bush mistook a takeaway menu from a local Washington restaurant for a security briefing, saw the words 'Peking' and 'Duck' and launched a pre-emptive nuclear strike against China. Meanwhile, the UK is awaiting the results of the competition to name the new number created by the final cost the 2012 London Olympics and, in the entertainment world, Simon Cowell has finally scraped through the bottom of the reality TV barrel by creating a new version of Pop Idol for animals, which is eventually won by a goat that can fart The Macarena. Thankfully, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 doesn't include any of the above. Instead, its vision of things to come combines an adrenaline packed, but fleeting, single player campaign with a whole magazine full of multiplayer options to justify the game's purchase price.

To begin with, the main solo mission may leave owners of Sony's console thinking that they've missed something - and they'd be right. Despite the fact that the PS3 version of GRAW 2 is basically a direct port of the Xbox 360 original, Ubi Soft appear to have decided not to bother carrying out a similar transfer with the first GRAW game, and this leads to an initial continuity problem with the storyline that causes confusion. Another oddity with both Ubi Soft's GRAW and the Rainbow Six franchises is that, although both proudly carry the name of top author Tom Clancy, their stories are often more straight to DVD than multiplex blockbusters and this latest outing is no exception.

The plot here sees the volatile political situation in Central America that developed in the first game intensifying. The region has now become a powder keg, with a civil war in Mexico the potential touch paper lying right on America's doorstep, and intelligence reports suggesting strongly that a nuclear weapon might be in play. This potential mushroom cloud does have a silver lining though as, in response, the United States government decides to send in a covert Ghost squad, led by your character, Captain Scott Mitchell (who might well be related in some way to Grant and Phil from Eastenders and may, in the not to distant future, make an appearance in Albert Square, laying waste to vast swathes of Walford as he battles with Pat Evans for control of the region).

Whilst the storyline may be half-baked, it does allow for the inclusion of some brilliant B-movie style characters, the best of these being the General in charge of your mission. This is a man who seems to spend all his time drinking far too much DEFCON 1 strength Pentagon coffee and keeping one of his fists permanently clenched because it contains an unexploded grenade with its pin missing. His normal response to every situation is to shout at you from Washington so loudly that it makes all the hi-tech communication gear you're wearing unnecessary and his special tactic for ordering you to use stealth is to simply shout in a slightly quieter voice.

To begin with, the graphical similarities between the PS3 versions of GRAW 2 and Rainbow Six: Vegas are striking and unsurprising. Both have come from the same publisher and from debuts on the 360 but, whilst the textures and many of the icons used may be comparable, visually, the GRAW game makes much better use of its subject matter. Whereas Team Rainbow's adventure had a much more exciting location and an arresting palate of colours to utilise, the Vegas created was slightly flat. By contrast, whilst GRAW 2 has less to work with, its looks are more memorable. The desert lands around the US/Mexican border are a mix of dust and dry brush, whilst the partially destroyed Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez features sun bleached buildings and fires burning out of control as far as the eye can see. The sunlight and smoke effects in particular deserve special recognition, with both shown off to great effect during the series of missions set in Juarez as night comes to an end and dawn breaks. Amongst all this goodness, the only slight blemishes to GRAW 2's appearance is a slight juddering of the animation at times and the way that, as a whole, everything still looks as if it was built for the 360 rather than the PS3.

As great as parts of GRAW 2 are to admire, the game's most impressive achievement is the amount of times it actually makes you feel like you're on the ground in the middle of a war zone. The third person camera sticks closely behind your character, helping to create a sense of scale that's spot on. From this view, the land around you rises and falls with both natural and manmade features. City areas are especially impressive, with buildings, advertising hoardings and other urban landmarks rising up before you, making each level seem like a maze with potential trouble around every corner.

The realism reaches its height, however, when you start to encounter some resistance, as it's at these points that the game makes you feel amazingly vulnerable. Apart from the odd bit of fumbling and loss of direction, the way the cover system automatically pushes you up against any large object you get close to and allows you to release yourself again with a single button press makes it very easy to use. Crouching behind a car while engaged in a gun battle with enemy forces, the sound of the bullets whizzing past your head and punching holes in the metal can be heard whilst the vehicle shakes and twitches with the force of the hits it's absorbing to protect you.

Coming up against something much more serious, such as a tank, is an even more exhilarating experience, as the massive explosions in the game are incredible and numerous. If any heavy weapons fire lands near you it rocks everything around, causing the whole picture to shake and your vision to fade. It's such a shame then that, at the time of writing, the PS3 still doesn't support controllers with a rumble function, as this would take the intensity to a new level where you feel that, at points, the pad would flip up out of your hands so far that it would smack you in the face.

Even though GRAW 2 has its fair share of high octane flash points, the base objective often remains as moving from point A to point B, taking out all the bad guys along the way. To avoid any chance of monotony though, the game supplies a good deal of variety to its missions to hold your interest. In one section you're required to hold a bridge and supermarket entrance until an air strike becomes available, whilst in another you're acting as gunner in a Black Hawk with orders to take out a convoy of enemy vehicles. Some levels are purely solo missions, while others put you in command of a squad of three further men whose presence plays a big role in your tactical thinking. Using the futuristic cross-com communication system you can easily move your team around, give them specific instructions to target a certain enemy and even see the battlefield from their view. You can also toggle between ordering your men to either fire only when fired upon or shoot on sight and, although their aim makes you wonder sometimes about the standard of the US military eye examination, they make up for this by being very good at spotting danger and shouting out warnings. Each of your squad even has their own area of speciality, with the medic being particularly useful, as he can heal you or any of your guys who have taken one (or possibly significantly more than one) for your team.

At points you're also given access to some pieces of advanced weaponry and support equipment to help you in the fight. As well as such items as guns with cameras that allow you to aim from the safety of a cover position, there's also the MULE - a controllable armoured vehicle that carries weapons and supplies, and a small spy satellite, which is extremely useful for sending out in front of you to scan the area ahead to locate enemy positions.

In many missions the game gives you pretty wide parameters to decide whether you wish to make a more stealthy advance or go in all guns blazing, but as some sections lend themselves much more naturally to the softly, softly approach, in almost all the others, you'll want to take the direct option because it's just so much fun.

With so much good included in GRAW 2's mechanics, it's a real shame that the single player campaign is so short. Whilst many may prefer a game to burn brightly for a short time rather than fade away slowly, there really is only six to ten hours maximum to be had from the storyline, no matter which difficulty level you play it on. With this in mind, it's fortunate that there are a huge variety of multiplayer options included in GRAW 2 to help balance the limited solo challenge. The game supports matches involving up to sixteen players, maps are inventive and there are lots of different customisable options that allow you to set things up to look and play exactly how you want them. To top it all off, unlike the multiplayer parts of other, similar games the graphics here are of a high standard, almost matching those in single player.

A final huge bonus is a completely separate, six mission, co-op campaign, whose story, which ties into the plot of the main solo campaign, sees you as part of another Ghost team heading down to the Panama canal. Once again, rather than being a rushed extra tacked on to fill a bullet point on the back of the game box, the levels have been carefully designed to place the emphasis firmly on teamwork.

With so much to it, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 is definitely a package that has something for everyone. The main single player game is like a shot of adrenaline administer on the battlefield, a huge rush that can only sustain you for a short time where, once it's over, the pain of the direct hit taken by your wallet quickly returns. With this in mind, if solo play is all you're interested in then, as good the game is, it's definitely worth a rental but possibly not an all out purchase. On the other hand, if you also enjoy a bit of multiplayer combat then you should seriously consider drafting GRAW 2 into your PS3 game collection as quickly as possible.

Reviewed by James Hamblin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).