Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier Review

[K4RN4GE911]

I'm always one for a team based game. Why fight against friends you get along with when you can work for a common goal? Me and my buddies online already act in a well synched manner, so this game looks right up our alley.

Now to just get sixty bucks.

 

[Steve Butts]

You call this crud a strategic shooter!?
Play the original ghost recon first before you say that.

That was the one where you could fire a shot in the air and just wait for the enemies to stroll up in single file to be gunned down.

Strategic!

Ha! Totally.

I loved the original Ghost Recon. We even gave it Game of the Year when I was running things at IGN. That one swamp level alone was worth the price of admission. Still, it was not without its problems. Being able to make enough noise to lure every single enemy to the very start of the level? I'm not proud, but I've done it.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

I remember having a really good time with graw 2, but I don't know whether to buy this game.
I haven't been playing as much lately, and my 360 suddenly got all screwy around august-september, so it takes me several tries just to start up a game.
That, and I'm afraid part of my enjoyment of the game came from the fact that I was young and everything was new.
I just don't know.

It's not a bad investment. I enjoyed GRAW 2 also and I like this game, though I am slightly pissed that they added in regenerating health, but the enemies aren't terrible shots or dumb as a box of rocks anymore so I guess it was necessary. One thing you might miss is micro managing your squad. They don't really require your oversight anymore anyway so micro managing would probably be unnecessary and they're generally more intelligent than you in a fire fight. I went down on average 4 times for every one time they did, though they do like to play the whole shooting gallery game and don't really advance all that aggressively. Oh, and there are no clown closets full of endlessly respawning enemies. It's a good game, and is still worthy of the Ghost Recon name.

 

[Jonluw]

I remember having a really good time with graw 2, but I don't know whether to buy this game.
I haven't been playing as much lately, and my 360 suddenly got all screwy around august-september, so it takes me several tries just to start up a game.
That, and I'm afraid part of my enjoyment of the game came from the fact that I was young and everything was new.
I just don't know.

It's not a bad investment. I enjoyed GRAW 2 also and I like this game, though I am slightly pissed that they added in regenerating health, but the enemies aren't terrible shots or dumb as a box of rocks anymore so I guess it was necessary. One thing you might miss is micro managing your squad. They don't really require your oversight anymore anyway so micro managing would probably be unnecessary and they're generally more intelligent than you in a fire fight. I went down on average 4 times for every one time they did, though they do like to play the whole shooting gallery game and don't really advance all that aggressively. Oh, and there are no clown closets full of endlessly respawning enemies. It's a good game, and is still worthy of the Ghost Recon name.

That's uplifting at least.
But I'm still worried I won't be able to play it because my xbox is pretty much ruined.

 

[Paragon Fury]

The reason that the Tom Clancy games can't do the whole "War with another nation" thing yet is because the main three series (Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon) have not yet caught up to the timeline in Endwar, where the actual war amongst superpowers occurs. The most recent Clancy games (Conviction, HAWX 1+2) and now Future Soldier are all building us up to and giving us little pieces of information that lead us to the conflict in Endwar and give us insight into why it starts. It seems very convoluted on its own, but when you put the different pieces from different games together it starts to make more sense. Rainbow Six: Partiots will likely give us another piece of the puzzle when it comes out.

And I notice you kind of glossed over the multiplayer.

Haven't had time for Conviction or HAWX yet, but damn, so Endwar is actually happening? I always sort of thought of it as an alernative grim future setting that wouldn't actually be happening in current or future games. I mean, once it actually takes place, EVERYTHING changes. What I'd like to see though, is how you in future R6, GR and SC games work together to prevent Endwar from ever happening in the first place, leaving Endwar as just a "what if"-scenario.

Yep, Endwar is actually canon, though what went on in the Endwar game may be tweaked slightly to better reflected actual events and what happened in Convictions, Future Soldier and Patriots.

But the pattern is there, if you look for it. The plot behind the attack on Washington in Convictions, the happenings of Future Soldier (particularly the bit right at the end) and the HAWX games are all connected. From what the Endwar books let us in on, all these things are manipulated by one group to force the world to the events in Endwar.

Patriots will likely let us in on the events and conspiracy that lead to the breakup of Team RAINBOW before the events of Endwar, and gives us more hints at the manipulation that brings us to Endwar.

I have a feeling that we'll get Patriots, then one more Splinter Cell, one more Ghost Recon and one more HAWX before we get an Endwar 2 which will take place after the lid has been blown off the conspiracy in those games.

 

[Martin Toney]

I'm holding out some hope for the Ghosts. This is a damn fine game in my opinion, but I would love a crossover between Ghosts and Cells. That would rule.

 

[randomsix]

It looked like there was regenerating health. Imo it would make more sense to have the same 1 bullet = crippled, 2-3 bullets = dead health from the first ghost recon given the massive tech advantage.

 

[Metalrocks]

played the second one and i had actually a hard time with it. it felt like i have to press 20 buttons to give specific orders. and when i was out of ammo, you cant pick up the weapons from dead enemies.

this one, well. dont know yet. looks alright though. but first max payne 3. according to steam, future soldier will come out in the middle of next month.
dint expect it to have a great story. after all, rainbow six vegas 1+2 also dint had a great story but the game play it self was really awesome.

 

[Paragon Fury]

It looked like there was regenerating health. Imo it would make more sense to have the same 1 bullet = crippled, 2-3 bullets = dead health from the first ghost recon given the massive tech advantage.

You actually need the regenerating health for several parts, particularly on the harder difficulty. If you didn't have it, then you would be unable to survive the few scripted scenes, and it would make several encounters next to impossible.

The health doesn't come back that fast either, particularly in multiplayer. It takes a while for you to recover.

 

[That_Sneaky_Camper]

Hasn't this already been out for like a week? I thought you guys had just decided not to review it.

Anyway, I found the game utterly and completely lacklustre. You play a bunch of bloody American special forces guys running around the world shooting brown people and Russians. Again. There's a coup in Moscow. Again. Someone gets their hands on nuclear weapons. Again.

Ugh.

Also, all the various gadgets made me feel grossly overpowered. Between the X-ray vision, invisibility mode, spotting drone, air support, indestructible mortar-bot, sensors and cover-penetrating weapons it all feels a bit, well... unfair. You're using all this in a battle against guys with AKs and sandals. Hardly the underdog heroes.

They can review whatever game they want at any point they want, Yatzee reviewed Psychonaughts and Shadow of the Colossus years after they had already been released. Not a big deal, especially since I thought the review was pretty good and addresses the pros and cons of the game just as a good reviewer should.

Just because a story is recycled doesn't mean it is bad, at this point there really is nothing truly new under the sun, and besides even a good plot can be executed poorly. Also there aren't that many people you can make a bad guy, other than Nazis and aliens, that won't end up offending someone, and because political correctness is so prevalent we won't be see anything like a war with China for example in a game any time soon.

America's Military is the most powerful fighting force in the History of Mankind, with some of the best trained soldiers and most highly advanced equipment and weapons in the world, that power won't see a decline for a long time to come. To portray us as anything other than the best and the most powerful would be a discredit to the U.S Military, we are not the underdogs and honestly we don't need to be. All you need is to stop putting us up against Arabs and Russians who are no real threat to us, someone like India or China would be a much more credible threat due to their wealthy economies, large populations and their conflicting political interests with the United States.

 

[duchaked]

think I'll try this out, though I do feel weird having never finished either GRAW 1 or 2...hmm something to aim for this summer lol

 

[Zhukov]

[snip]

They can review whatever game they want at any point they want, Yatzee reviewed Psychonaughts and Shadow of the Colossus years after they had already been released. Not a big deal, especially since I thought the review was pretty good and addresses the pros and cons of the game just as a good reviewer should.

I'm not saying they shouldn't review it. It's just that a review that comes out a week after release is largely irrelevant.

Just because a story is recycled doesn't mean it is bad, at this point there really is nothing truly new under the sun, and besides even a good plot can be executed poorly. Also there aren't that many people you can make a bad guy, other than Nazis and aliens, that won't end up offending someone, and because political correctness is so prevalent we won't be see anything like a war with China for example in a game any time soon.

There's a line between "recycled" and "utterly indistinguishable from every other entry in the genre". Besides, it's not like they make up for it with brilliant execution or something.

The story isn't bad because it's recycled, it's bad and recycled.

America's Military is the most powerful fighting force in the History of Mankind, with some of the best trained soldiers and most highly advanced equipment and weapons in the world, that power won't see a decline for a long time to come. To portray us as anything other than the best and the most powerful would be a discredit to the U.S Military, we are not the underdogs and honestly we don't need to be. All you need is to stop putting us up against Arabs and Russians who are no real threat to us, someone like India or China would be a much more credible threat due to their wealthy economies, large populations and their conflicting political interests with the United States.

I don't give two hoots in hell about a game being "discredit to the US Military".

Having the protagonists in a position of dominance throughout an entire story makes for a crap story. It would be like producing one of those cheesy sports movies, but making it about the snobbish rich kid's team. They get all the best training and equipment payed for by their parents, everyone says they're going to win the championship... and then they win. It's not a satisfying narrative arc because there's no tension.

In the case of games it also makes for crummy gameplay. The various gadgets render the enemies completely ineffectual. Hell, in one level you just follow a big robot that effortlessly kills anything you point it at. Where's the fun in that? It turns the game into an a extended sequence of vaguely disturbing military porn.

Hey, here's a revolutionary thought... how about someone makes a modern warfare game where you play as someone other than the US who doesn't have access to all the fancy tech? I realise that game developers seem to think that such a concept would cause Americans to have heart attacks, but we could at least give them a chance.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

I think it's more about difficulty than fluff.

In DXHR you can still have entertaining gameplay although you're a supersoldier armed to the teeth with all the latest gadgets and sponsored by a pretty influential company. It was still fun tho because the enemy was an even bigger fish and the setting as a whole was generally down-to-earth. This was reflected in the gameplay on higher difficulties, too, where you'd really need your abilities to survive - but maybe more importantly, you needed to rely on your own skills, no matter if you wanted to shoot everyone in the room or take the ninja approach. That's how the game prevented you from feeling the gadgets are doing the work for you.

 

[blackrave]

Gameplay seems solid, but story...
Dear Mr. Clancy, we know that you have graduated cold war screen writing school
We also know that you are patriot of USA and fanboy of US armed forces.
But could you please stop writing now?

Russia will never start war with or even threaten USA (although russian and american politics might have occasional cockfights), because there is no good reason to waste resources on such global suicide
War between Russia and China is more likely scenario, due to the simple fact that chinese are de facto taking over Russia's far east territories.

 

[blalien]

Is this the game with the ad where the guy screams "You can't stop a bullet" over and over again? Do you know how hard it is to justify video games to people when all the ads are just flashes of stuff that frat boys like? I'm surprised this ad didn't have the one snapshot of a woman's ass that all dumbass action movie trailers seem to have between the gunfire and explosions nowadays.

 

[maninahat]

Also, all the various gadgets made me feel grossly overpowered. Between the X-ray vision, invisibility mode, spotting drone, air support, indestructible mortar-bot, sensors and cover-penetrating weapons it all feels a bit, well... unfair. You're using all this in a battle against guys with AKs and sandals. Hardly the underdog heroes.

That's what I was worrying about when I watched the review. There is a fine line between having lots of cool gadgets at your disposal, and giving the player too superior an advantage. Same problem with Crysis. It doesn't sound impressive or smart when you have a goddamn invisibility cloak.

It just leaves me wanting to play as a non-American, poorly equiped soldier for once. Hell, if you can't do that, make me an American advisor in a developing nation, who has to go it alone when the green troops/militia get flattened by a powerful invasion force. That way you might get to use some interesting, unconventional weapons as well - whatever you can scavange. Also, you have to be much smarter if you want to beat the well equipped, high-tech enemy.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

My one main concern is the versus, I haven't played the game yet, but GRAW 2 had the ability for hosts of games to choose the camo for both sides, so you would have the hosts side in actual useful camouflage while the opposing team had "holy shit, I can see you from seven miles away" white.

That was my one main complaint about the game, lets hope it was fixed.

Yes, absolutely fixed. No issue there. However, people have a tendency not to talk it up online. It's such a team based game that I can't really find a reason for that, but that's hardly the fault of the game. Find some friends and you can pretty much wreck most people that come against you due to the communication factor.

 

[Monkeylord]

The reason that the Tom Clancy games can't do the whole "War with another nation" thing yet is because the main three series (Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon) have not yet caught up to the timeline in Endwar, where the actual war amongst superpowers occurs. The most recent Clancy games (Conviction, HAWX 1+2) and now Future Soldier are all building us up to and giving us little pieces of information that lead us to the conflict in Endwar and give us insight into why it starts. It seems very convoluted on its own, but when you put the different pieces from different games together it starts to make more sense. Rainbow Six: Partiots will likely give us another piece of the puzzle when it comes out.

And I notice you kind of glossed over the multiplayer.

Haven't had time for Conviction or HAWX yet, but damn, so Endwar is actually happening? I always sort of thought of it as an alernative grim future setting that wouldn't actually be happening in current or future games. I mean, once it actually takes place, EVERYTHING changes. What I'd like to see though, is how you in future R6, GR and SC games work together to prevent Endwar from ever happening in the first place, leaving Endwar as just a "what if"-scenario.

Yep, Endwar is actually canon, though what went on in the Endwar game may be tweaked slightly to better reflected actual events and what happened in Convictions, Future Soldier and Patriots.

But the pattern is there, if you look for it. The plot behind the attack on Washington in Convictions, the happenings of Future Soldier (particularly the bit right at the end) and the HAWX games are all connected. From what the Endwar books let us in on, all these things are manipulated by one group to force the world to the events in Endwar.

Patriots will likely let us in on the events and conspiracy that lead to the breakup of Team RAINBOW before the events of Endwar, and gives us more hints at the manipulation that brings us to Endwar.

I have a feeling that we'll get Patriots, then one more Splinter Cell, one more Ghost Recon and one more HAWX before we get an Endwar 2 which will take place after the lid has been blown off the conspiracy in those games.

Whoaaaa what? This just blew my mind. It's obvious that the games are all in the same universe (references to 3rd Echelon in GRAW and to Ghost Recon in HAWX) but I had no idea they were supposed to be in a consistent timeline of events. Is there a place where this is all put together so I can see all the interconnected bits?