Review: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will offer long time Ghost Recon fans and newcomers to the franchise a fresh new experience.
The game picks up with the Ghost team foiling a terrorist plot to bring a nuclear device into the United States through the southern border. The plot starts rolling very quickly as the Ghost team travels to South America in search of an arms dealer. This time around there is something in the way of character development for the Ghost team, but not as much as I would have liked to see. Unlike the other Ghost Recon games, Future Solider immerses you fully as member of the Ghost team. You play a team member named Kozak, who is the newest member of the squad; along with Pepper, 30K, and Ghost Lead, you will hunt down those responsible for trying to attack the United States. In your travels you will go to Africa, South America, Pakistan, and the Arctic Circle. The game has a pretty straight-forward story as far as the terrorist plot-line goes, or so you think. You will soon find out the nuclear device was an act of war by a Russian separatist group. This group, called Raven Rock, not only wants to destroy America and Great Britain, but they want to take over Russia as well. The latter half of the games takes place primarily in Asia and Russia. Eventually you’ll make your way into Moscow in an attempt to quell the coup. All this can be done in Co-op, which makes it even more enjoyable playing as the Ghosts when your best buddies are there alongside you. The game does follow the path of Call of Duty with some amazing set pieces, but you won’t hear any complaints coming from me.
Ghost Recon: Future Solider is easily the best game of the entire franchise, and has you performing a variety of tasks in the 12 campaign missions that keep the gameplay exciting and rewarding throughout. The game does a great job of making the player feel like a member of the Ghost team and the numerous gadgets at your disposal are some of the coolest the franchise has seen yet. For example, the UAV drone can prove to be one of your most valuable tools and can be used to spot enemies and line them up for a “Sync Shot”, a feature that allows the whole team to simultaneously take out four targets. The drone can also transform into an RC land drone that can use a sonic pulse to stun enemies.
The weapon customization in Future Solider is off the hook. If you’re one of those gamers who loves to customize weapons and loadouts, this is the game for you. You can customize the stock, barrel, muzzle, gas system, optics, magazine, trigger, side rail, and the paint job. The game allows players to customize their weapons in Co-op, single player and multiplayer; the combinations are endless.
The multiplayer is a step in a new direction for the Ghost Recon series. One of the new multiplayer offerings is a mode called Guerrilla, which is just like horde mode in Gears of War and has up to 50 waves of enemies. The franchise also brought back the classic siege mode, which is an attack and defend game type. There is also Conflict, a mode in which each team is actively trying to complete tasks before the other team can. In multiplayer you can choose from three classes such as Rifleman, Engineer, and Scout. Each class can choose from a different set of weapons and equipment. This means that to have an effective team, players must have a good balance of these classes in order to secure victory. For example if your team does not have an engineer, then your team also does not have anyone throwing sensors to locate enemies or a UAV drone to spot enemies from above.
Graphically Future Solider is one of the best looking games out there at the moment. The audio quality is superb and if you’re playing it in surround sound you’re in for a treat.
Overall Ghost Recon is a great third-person shooter. Every now and then you’ll get stuck in a loading screen, which can be frustrating. Other than that, the only other glitch I encountered was while playing single player. You’ll be prompted to break a door down in certain situations and once in place you cannot move until all four team members are at the door, and sometimes the AI gets stuck, forcing you to restart.If you’re a fan of the Ghost Recon franchise this is a definite buy for you. If you’re a newcomer or on the fence about buying this game, I would recommend watching gameplay videos to better understand what Ghost Recon is all about.
ryan
May 29, 2012 @ 12:21 am
“Graphically Future Solider is one of the best looking games out there at the moment.” …. this made me LOL..
graphically, this game is actually pretty average and almost entirely unchanged from the beta … the cut scenes are universally known to be pretty ugly.
Mike Bonura
June 1, 2012 @ 9:06 am
Well when you’re playing on a 1080 P TV everything looks nice and without a doubt Ghost Recon is a beautiful looking game.