Introduction
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon is an American series of tactical shooting video game created by Red Storm Entertainment and the latest to come from the Ghost Recon franchise is Ghost Recon: Future Soldier which released on 22nd May 2012 for the Xbox 360 and PS3 and the PC version was released on 27th June 2012
| Developers | Ubisoft Paris Ubisoft Red Storm Ubisoft Romania Ubisoft Ukraine (PC version) |
| Publisher | Ubisoft |
| Writer | Richard Dansky |
| PLatforms | Playstation 3 Xbox 360 Microsoft Windows |
| Genre | Tactical Third Person Shooter |
| Engine | YETI |
Story and Presentation
In the game we take the role Kozak who is of russian-american ethnicity, and is a newest member to the Group of Specialized Tactics, he is a master in hacking security systems and is also great with a gun.
He and his 4 membered Ghost Team called, “Hunter” have been assigned to find the cause and track down the source of a bomb that had previously killed another ghost team is killed on a mission by a dirty bomb and this marks the beginning of an escalating conflict that sees your small team of dedicated soldiers crossing the world to root out a conspiracy.
Along the way you’ll stealth your way across Zambian refugee camps, perform on-rail hostage extractions, wield high-tech toys from drones to robotic weapons platforms before tying it up neatly with the classic-Clancy ‘up close and personal’ denouement.
As for the Presentation the game doesn’t have much to offer except for how in some parts of the world, the people are affected when they are under the dominance of a warlord. It is also shown very well on how the whole world is affected when nuclear power is under the wrong hands.
Gameplay
The gameplay is good its like a cross of Gears of War and Splinter Cell: Conviction in a certain way, well atleast for me. Its pretty much like a close up third person shooter, which makes me feel like it was an FPS game sometimes.
The option of a coordinated kill, which was the just one of a kind and i think its the first of its kind as well to be introduced to such a game. Then there are the gadgets such as the camouflage suit which really makes you feels like its Crysis’s nano-suit, and then there are portable UAV’s, sidewinder missiles, and a lot more stuff, i think Future Soldier has covered almost everything in the gadgets department and as for the guns i’d say they pretty much covered that part as well it has around 40-50 guns and each of them can be fully customized with more than 500 separate components i think. Everything from sniper scopes, custom stocks, triggers, nozzles, etc..
The game is fun to play as you get new gadgets with each new level and the AI that back you up are also pretty decent although its pretty much finding, taking cover and shooting basically.Single-player clocks in at around 10 hours, but is best played through with friends cooperatively.
The entire campaign is playable with four players – and it adds a different tone to the way the game is played. Also, if you leave a teammate to die, it’s game over, so trust and working together becomes more important.
Graphics & Audio
Graphics
The Graphics of the game has some issues for the PC version as the game was not properly ported from the 360 version. The use of the highly modified YETI engine which at times can bring a delight at the level of detail during a sandstorm, or a firefight but other times there are missing textures and the environment details sometimes tend to stick out like a sore thumb. powerful GPU’s, higher resolutions and directx11 at times tend to highlight the good and the bad even further.
Audio
On an overall i’d say the audio of the game is pretty good, the voice acting was done well which gave a pretty good depth to each character. The guns sounded great and the explosions were just excellent. And the combo of the music during each gunfight was ok if you ask me.
PC Performance & Final Thoughts
As i said before this game was not properly ported to the PC and because of this the game has a hell lot of glitches, bugs, resolution problems, connectivity problems and most importantly mouse and keyboard problems. The game’s framerate is almost spordiac as the quality of graphics being displayed. Chugging and skipping occurs at very weird and random moments. I can understand a bit of slow down during moments of heavy action, where the bullets are flying and flashbangs are being thrown out like candy on Halloween. One should not encounter these issues when simply walking into a village though. The fact that Future Soldier does not support 120-hz refresh rate only compounds the games graphical issues.
This straight-up port of the game may likely be rooted in Ubisoft originally having cancelled development of Future Soldier for PC.
PROs
1. 10 hours campaign and co-op
2. Gadgets, Syncshots, etc makes for an awesome gameplay
3. Multiplayer has an exciting different approach
CONs
1. A very bad port
2. connectivity problems
3. In-game the story is a confusing mess, and quite frankly just interferes with the action, for me atleast.
Review Rig:
Core 2 Duo E7500 @ 2.94ghz
4GB Kingston @800Mhz
ENGTX550-Ti
MS WINDOWS 7 Ultimate x64