Undeterred by its deposition to the Call of Duty crowd, Ghost Recon Future Soldier is a terrific and peerless update of Tom Clancy’s tactical shooter. Ubisoft is perhaps best placed to open up second among the war on modern military shooters out there. Their third person, cover-based approach might be hardly removed from the heavy hitters in the world of elite video game soldiering but it’s no less bombastic, explosive or enchanted.
The game starts off with a Ghost team being taken out by a hidden bomb wiping the whole team out. Then it’s up to another Ghost team which you’ll be controlling, to find the source of bomb and take out everything which gets in your way. The Ghosts will end up further down the rabbit hole as they expose different secrets and go to many flung and dangerous locations around the world. However this isn’t the most intriguing part of stories, but it does try to rig it in a more serious manner, compared to other blockbuster shooters.
One of the most onerous games in some respects, Ghost Recon doesn’t allow you to stand out in the open and expect to survive for more than a few seconds, well on the harder difficulties anyway. It forces you to think strategically, to plan ahead and use cover at all times technically. Most of the times, the best route is to not fire at all, but to move silently and secretive to your objective without the enemy realizing you’re even there. Almost every mission requires a sneaky mindset, the game is Ghost Recon after all. Use your recon drone to scout the surroundings instead of popping your head out and risk being detected. Better to wait and hold fire and watch patrols from the drone than charge in and be torn to shreds, this is what a tactical shooter is.
While traveling between Russia, Nigeria, Pakistan and other portentous but audacious places, in Ghost Recon players are treated to some wonderful variety and choice, as well as the challenges each location gives, makes Ghost Recon more exciting. Russia will see poor perceptibility thanks to some impressive snow storms which look great by the way, whilst Nigeria has you trying to stealthily and secretly move through crowded villages while trying no to hit the civilians. Each area gives the Ghosts a chance to try out new toys dependent on where they are and what they are needed for, which vast the experience of the player as they have to play strategically
The new tech has a great impact on how the game is played and despite some early fears that some of it may cause the game to be too easy, or give the player a completely unfair advantage; there are no real issues with that at all. The tagging system is improved a lot as it works well too. You can spot and tag enemies by using items like sensor grenades, UAV or even your vision, then issue a command to the squad to take them out simultaneously.
The AI is fairly intelligent at normal difficulty, giving a decorous challenge, but the harder difficulty sees you really needing to plan specifically each attack and each move. It keeps things really intense and severe as you progress through each environment. You need to be quick and stealthy with UAV’s use as AI will spot it if it is in their line of sight. Again this adds a balance to the new tech rather than being overly advantageous to the player.
Whilst Future Soldier is enjoyable in single player, it gives best experience in co-op and four player co-op at that. Playing online with three other friends, with headsets on talking your way through each encounter takes the game to a whole other level, if you can play it this way, then you are in for a treat.
Guerrilla mode is also there aside from main campaign mode, like other games it sees you attacks various maps and take on various waves of enemies, in different ways, ranging from stealth, to all direct fire fights. It is designed primarily with co-op in mind, as multipliers and bonuses can be got by working as a team and killing multiple enemies in quick succession for rather than fighting alone for own prestige. Trying to do this in single player is a lot more difficult and a lot less rewarding.
Multiplayer offers up various modes, each with their own immense enjoyment, experience with sets of objectives. Conflict, Decoy, Saboteur and Siege, all these maps offer up enough variety across which, the online aspect becoming stale, old and decayed. Saboteur seems to be the most enjoyable, with a kind of reverse capture the flag, whereby teams have to secure, transport and plant the bomb before the enemy team. However the online servers are pretty inconsistent, some are laggy as hell while others will be smooth as butter. Depends on your timing and luck mostly.
There is plenty to be taken from Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, the game is a bit different to previous entries in the series as it is a very much improved version of the Tactical Shooter, however those changes are positive rather than being negative. Ghost Recon hardcore fans may not get on with the new direction, but in general it is a fine game well worth your attention and is certainly recommended.
TechDeville awards Ghost Recon: Future Solider 4/5 stars.