Review: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Future Soldier (Xbox 360)
By Wayne Webb
Although this is a war game through and through and features loads of killing, strange as it may seem, my biggest complaint is the aggressive nature of the story and people you play with.
I expect killing in a war game. I expect aggression and high levels of testosterone as well. In Ghost Recon though it feels like they characters you are playing hate everything. They fight with each other, are constantly insulting the enemy, other soldiers, the people giving orders etc. It’s too much. Everything just feels mean and vicious and this left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Even though the gameplay itself is enjoyable I dreaded the upcoming cut scenes and dialogue.
Even the introduction feels this way as you kill a few people, capture a bomb and then lose a couple of soldiers to enemy trickery. This gives the excuse to declare war and a wholesale slaughter of everything that moves ensues. It’s possible this comes from the source material, as I have not liked anything from Tom Clancy since the Hunt For Red October for similar reasons. Unfortunately you have no option to skip these scenes, which is not something I generally do, but this time round would have liked the option.
It’s not all bad though. Underneath all this grimacing and posing is a good game with cracking weapons and strategic thinking required. Stealth is mandatory to complete certain levels and others are a matter of going in guns blazing (which makes it hard) or staying stealthy as long as you can. You have UAV’s, which you can use to spy enemy locations and queue up to four sniper shots for your team to execute of your command. If you are paying attention to where the enemy is looking then this means you can take out half the squad or more without anyone cottoning on. That synced kill feature is loads of fun to experiment with and a great element. Similarly, the other tech like the War Hound, and the almost invisible camouflage, make the game great to play, if only it weren’t for the story. There is plenty to play in the long solo campaign, offline guerilla mode, co-operative campaign and the ubiquitous online multiplayer versions.
If you can stomach the plot and characters and just play for playing’s sake then this is a great game hampered by bad writing and badly drawn people. Oddly the people graphics are a bit underdrawn and look like they belong in a previous gen game not on the 360 or PS3. Everything else looks graphically rich.
Pros: Lots to do and play, good weapons and technology, synced kills, good gadgets, plenty of game modes, fun gameplay.
Cons: Weirdly over aggressive, poor people graphics, poor story.
4 Shacks Out Of 5
