VIDEOGAME REVIEW: GHOST RECON FUTURE SOLDIER
“Silence is a virtue.”
GHOST RECON FUTURE SOLDIER is developed by UBISOFT PARIS, RED STORM and ROMANIA and stars four elite operative soldiers armed with the latest and greatest in technology in the world leading them to be called “Ghosts” respectively.
The story starts up with four Ghosts being killed in a terrorist accident that leads to the deployment of Hunter squad where you the player take control of Kosek, a Russian-American badass who along with his squad must find out what this new Russian terrorist group dubbed Raven’s Rock is truly after and what it means for the rest of the world.
The story is predictable, the characters are somewhat memorable with only Kosek and Fergueson, your captain of Hunter squad being the only two characters I might even walk away from this story and be like, “Yeah they were pretty cool.” Everyone else? Who cares. The bad guys are one dimensional and boring and the enemies are nothing but cannon fodder for you to stab, shoot and make pansies out of really.
Gameplay wise the game shines when it comes to stealth combat. The most rewarding sections of the game are when you and the rest of your squad silently moves invisible to the naked eye as you use drones, night and magnetic vision and easy to use button prompts that lead to slick takedowns that really make you feel like you’re a badass Ghost.
The game takes a lot of creative ideas from a far more superior game called Splinter Cell Conviction with the ability to mark and execute enemies on the fly and the visual presentation of text displaying where to go and which country you’re in just in case you forgot that Russia has snow in it and Pakistan looks like…well Pakistan. I also enjoyed the tight camera that zooms in on Kosek as enemies fire down on your cover and really adds a nice cinematic touch to the overall feeling of the battle.
Another thing this game nails down is the cover system. You get into cover, easily enough, then if you choose to head forward to another spot a easy to use arrow will display where you will end up if you choose to roadie run to your new destination. It’s quick, slick and just damn right great how easy it is to go from behind a pillar as soldiers destroy the object you’re hiding behind only to hit one button and suddenly be running forward and getting behind a more sturdy structure. I loved it.
The environments range from sort of lackluster to suddenly gorgeous as you travel from many countries with standout missions in Africa, Pakistan and Norway. The worst part of the game however is the painfully awful lip synch and facial animations which really detracted me from the whole story when some reporter who is trying to make the situation look dire and instead looks like someone dubbed an old Chinese kung fu movie as nothing really lines up. And the characters faces, ughhh. So bad sometimes.
GHOST RECON FUTURE SOLDIER is a mixed bag with some really great elements and unnecessary problems that seem like they could have been fixed so easily if the team just applied to these situations. It’s sort of simple to play, the story is predictable and the facial animations are downright horrid. But it makes up with gratifying stealth gameplay, surprisingly intuitive AI that helps you most of the time and some really cool moments where the game goes from being a rehash of past experiences to a, “Oh shit” moment.
If you like squad based shooters with an emphasis on stealth you’ll enjoy the latest entry in the GHOST RECON franchise otherwise I’d say wait ‘til it drops in price before you delve deep into this adventure. And enough with the Russians being bad guys it’s getting annoying guys.
OVERALL SCORE: 8 out of 10
BY MILAN JEGENJAN
