Here’s the deal with GRAW 2: Two days after the events of the first game, you are sent on a similar mission through similar environs, and given similar weapons with which you kill similar dudes.

Helicopter Guy is absent, for obvious reason, but he’s replaced with Different Helicopter Guy, who is joined by all the other supporting characters from the first game.

To summarize: You’ve pretty much seen this game before.

What you haven’t seen is GRAW 2’s five or six hours (add a couple more if you insist on clumsily pursuing secondary objectives, as I did) of zig-zagging story and shoddy QA. The game frequently advises you to “be stealth,” which is either some kind of Zen shit or a typo. Scripted events fail to occur, instructional video from the first chapter pops up in the last (reminds me of Crackdown), and poor translations are sprinkled liberally throughout (“search Rosen in the surroundings” doesn’t mean what you think it does).

GRAW 2 really should have been—and certainly feels like—an expansion to the first game. Instead, we’re paying full price for some new maps and a retooled multiplayer (which I have yet to touch). Ubi’s annual release strategy at its finest.