"Captain, this is Private Dawson reporting for duty, sir!"

"Sit down Private, we have a new... videogame for you to play today."

"I don't understand sir, I thought I was reporting for combat training."

"You are Private, but the government of Ubisoft has decided that from now on combat training will be done on the Xbox 360 via Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter."

"But this is just a training mission, it's not even the full game."

"That is correct Private. Your job today is to get a feel for the game and report back to the rest of your squad. Next week we'll have the full version for you to sit down with."

Ah yes, Tom Clancy and his plethora of videogames that have captivated shooter fans years. As Ubisoft prepares to release Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter next week, I took a quick look at the Xbox 360 version of the game to give you a heads up on how the game is coming together. The preview build I played only had the training mission available, but it was enough to get my feet wet and discover what's in store for me when the game hits retail next week.

When I first put the game into my Xbox 360, I was treated with the standard Ubisoft logo and I thought I was in for the same old, same old. But as soon as the title screen music kicked in, I knew this was a new game... a better game. The title screen music had a futuristic tone to it, but still upbeat and really pumped me up for some action. NBA Live 06 for the Xbox 360 had the same effect, but the game wasn't quite what I was expecting (compared to NBA 2K6 at least), but in this case, Advanced Warfighter meets the hype.

Many have been skeptical of the visual quality in the final build of GRAW. The first trailer Ubisoft showed off around E3 2005 was a visual marvel that rivaled Sony's PlayStation 3 teaser reel. Reports surfaced a bit later that an early build of the game wasn't quite meeting the visuals set by the original trailer, but the graphics were still close. Well, after viewing the game in HD on my 50" DLP, I can safely say that the visuals are just about spot on with the original trailer. There are a few instances where the graphics dip below the standard set in the trailer, such as burning cars on the side of the road, but overall Ubisoft has done well in stepping up the graphics.

The training mission walked me through the basics of the game. At first things were pretty simple; find some cover, look out over the cover, shoot the target, etc. Then the game instructed me to go to the ammo bin, pull out some smoke grenades and take down a tank. Well, being the super intuitive player that I am, I thought I would skip the smoke grenades and just blow the tank with my normal grenades. That was a bad idea since my normal grenades seemed to have no affect on the tank at all.

So after listening to what the game told me to do, I grabbed the smoked grenades out of the ammo bin, peered around the corner of the building and sent a couple toward the tank. Of course by this point the tank had already spotted me (throwing normal grenades at a tank tends to do that), so I was under constant fire. However, after the smoke grenades took effect, the tank stopped shooting at me and I was able to run across the street to the top of a parking garage, where a second ammo bin was waiting for me.

Now it was time for some real "playing". I was instructed to pull the rocket launcher out of the second ammo bin and have at it with the tank. Soon after the tank was in pieces and my troops moved in. I headed down to ground level and met my troops. At this point I was able to select the members of my team and what kind of ammunition they would be using. The game then instructed me in how to bark out orders to my team, as well as friendly tanks. A few simply directional inputs on the d-pad will bark out orders to your teammates, and if one takes a few too many bullets you can press and hold the Y button to give them medical attention, or instruct one of your squad members to do it.

From the brief time I spent with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, it's looking good. The graphics are pretty much spot on with the original trailer, the gameplay is quick and intuitive, and the action is nonstop (after the initial stuff in the training mission). If you've been waiting for the next solid third person shooter, Advanced Warfighter is it, and the Xbox 360 version is the best looking out of all the console ports. Stay tuned as we'll have a full review of GRAW next week.