Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

We all know most Tom Clancy’s games are more tactical than run and gun games.

When you start Ghost Recon Future Solider (GRFS) it goes straight off and makes you use a cover and “plan ahead” strategy system that other games such as the gears of war franchise use that makes you think about where to put yourself and your team than running in and hoping for the best.  An example of this is if you stand in the open to long you will keep seeing the same game over screen over and over again.  This game is meant to be play very strategically with the uses of camouflage and UAV’s while using cover to tactfully complete your missions which is often the best thing to do within a couple of missions as the objectives state that they are “No alert” missions, this means you will have to plan ahead to avoid patrolling guards finding dead bodies and rising the alarm.

The use of teamwork is essential for the course of the game. The whole feeling of acting as a team is strengthened when your teammates tell you where enemies are, and of course it’s always fun to take out four enemies at once and get away with it with the new and improved mark and execute called the “sync shot” which we have seen before from other Tom Clancy’s games, more recent from splinter cell conviction. Rather than you telling your team mates to move to cover like in the T.C games you can now tag one or multiple enemies (maximum of four). When a tag order has been issued the AI will move to a position to make sure the enemies will stay in their sight.

 

However the A.I is a bit faulty at times, freezing in some places, unable to take a mark and execute shot while in front of the target and walking right past a downed teammate without an order. In these situations, an interesting idea that could work would be to play the story with a full four player squad to get more experience and feel more like a team.

In the campaign, you play as a Ghost, a member of a elite four-man squad of soldiers, the dialogue during the missions are nice with a few witty banters here and there which gives you a feel of camaraderie among the squad.

Presentation isn’t bad but at a few times they feel a bit unfinished with the environments looking a bit pixelatated. The game also falls short of being a great presentation due to poor facial expressions throughout many cut-scenes.

The game has a good combat camera system that reacts realistically as if you are in a real firefights. There is a couple of neat features in GRFS during some intense firefights.  Examples of this is such mechanics like “Slow Motion / Bullet - Time” breaching maneuvers to take out enemies in buildings and some on “on-rail” hostage extractions during some missions, where each ghost takes a side of a hostage to cover all points.

 

Ghost Recon future solider has a vast style of gun customization called gunsmith. Having this vast amount of attachments to your weapons is just overwhelming. Sometimes I found myself ignoring the attachments and kept to the initial mission setup. Although with millions of combinations, it is interesting to add a shotgun mount to your assault rifle etc. Gunsmith can also be used with the Kinect which is a lot of fun to do, it is also possible to edit Gunsmith from a mobile app with the vast amount of customization features at your array. You also have advance gear at your disposal. Adaptive camouflage enables Ghosts to blend in with background; although you can’t run while camouflaged, the A.I seems to have this capability.  You also have sensor grenades that you can throw to see enemies behind any type of cover.

The most valuable piece of equipment and your disposable is the UAV drone. Which is familiar to anybody who has played the previous games, the UAV in Ghost recon Future solider has also been improved with new features, it can mark targets for the AI to take out from its bird’s eye view, the drone can also transform into a Radio-controlled car and fire a sonic pulse that can disable nearby electronics and stun enemies. During the game, ghost also gets to control a robot called the “Warhound”.

With more games now using there on styles of cover systems, you can see a major difference of games that do well with and others that cannot reach that set benchmark. From playing this, I have to say GRFS has pulled inspiration from the likes of the “Gears of War” franchise and other top games.  With the already well created design, they enhanced it, edited it into a more GRFS styled look and made it work well demonstrating some quite flawless cover moving within game.

 

The multiplayer in GRF is good and delivers what is asked of it.  Using the team markers you can ask your team to go to a certain objective or to mark each other, with each player will bring their own style of customized guns and gadgets.

Two teams of six players can take part in different types of multiplayer modes, which as in the campaign always makes you use the cover system to stay tactful other you will be caught out very quick. A feature within multiplayer mode is that you can hack stunned enemy to take his location data to reveal the enemy positions which can be very helpful at time but also quite risky to pull off. The multiplayer does have a few issues such as keeping friends together in game; where it seems to prefer placing you and your friends into different squads.

GRFS also serves up a good horde mode taken from games likes gears of war but instead is called “Guerrilla Mode”.  In Guerrilla mode, you and three other friends can take on fifty waves of enemies while defending a headquarters with added bonuses for surviving a certain number of waves, which can help you throughout this progressing within this game style.

 

Overall, I give this game 8.5 out of 10. It is a good game with a nice story but with a few multiplayer issues and lack of polished presentation sadly lacks it a full 10.