Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review

On May 25 out came the latest Tom Clancy game, of which there are over 30 titles, but why should you care? what makes this one special? In a genre dominated by behemoths such as Call of Duty and Battlefield can this kid still hang? Your god damn right he can. 


Tom Clancy games have always been a relative success, spawning franchises such as Rainbow 6, Splinter Cell and of course Ghost Recon, but there as been a sense in the last couple of years that Tom Clancy games have grown stale and irrelevant and fallen behind the times somewhat, this is the exact feeling that Ubisoft wanted to squash with the release of Ghost Recon Future Soldier which takes the game in an entirely new direction. 


The very fundamental mechanics of this game have been kept the same, you are still in a small squad and still rely heavily on tactics but other than this the game takes on an entirely new appearance to any other in the series. As you may have figured by the title this game is set in the future, which in itself seems like a very simple thing to do to a game but the way the game has been moulded around this near future setting is unbelievable realistic, even though paradoxical in nature this realistic setting is the basis and foundation on which the game then grows.


Everything in this game screams futuristic, be that the invisibility suite, or drone control mechanic or the fantastic setting which sees you travelling worldwide with your squad to beautifully designed and rendered locations such as Russia, Nigeria, Siberia and many more. Each country you visit in the game seems unique and more importantly alive, some of the visuals at times will blow you away. Each location looks how it should, which as said before is essentially a paradox as its in the future, yet it still seems to work and you fully believe each location which is key to creating a realistic therefore exciting futuristic setting. As I've alluded to there are three main "themes" of this game and they are change, futuristic and realism, these three ideals are utilised in every part of the game. What is important to consider is that each of these aspects are equally important to each other, when one fails the others have to, that's why it was so important Ubisoft got this balance right. 
"Everything in this game screams futuristic, be that the invisibility suite, or drone control mechanique or the fantastic"


The game is split into three main parts, campaign mode, guerrilla mode and multiplayer mode, but I will focus on the campaign mode in this review. Staying with our theme of realism the story presents a realistic yet admittedly slightly generic story, which I won't spoil but will say like most games features Russians as the enemy (when will this trend stop?). But the story is often not the strongest part of games in this genre and this game is no different, the story is not terrible but not amazing either, its just acceptable, what makes the campaign special is the locations and the gameplay mechanics. 


Upon starting the first level of the campaign, you will notice straight away the complexity of the enemy AI, it really does stand out from the offset, you are not fighting cut and paste terrorists in this game you are fighting well drilled, well organised, smart soldiers. As much as tactics is important for you it is equally important for them, and this is only exasperated with each step up in difficulty. How does this come across in gameplay? well if you find your squad grouped together behind what you thing is the "safety" of cover dont expect the enemies to just stand there putting lead into a sandbag while you pick them off expect a grenade to come over the top, expect enemies to break right and left in an attempt to flank. The AI insures that you and your squad are always thinking, always moving and always on edge.

Make your own unique weapon with Gunsmith 

You can't talk about Future Soldiers campaign mode for long without stepping upon Gunsmith, which on the face of it is a new revolutionary way of customising your loadout, but underneath is a brilliant mechanic that changes the game itself in so many ways. I will start by just explaining what Gunsmith actually is, Gunsmith lets you essentially "open up" your weapons and then change single parts of the weapon before putting it back together. To give you a sense of how in-depth this customisation is I'll list you some of the components you can customise; optics, stock, trigger, magazine, underbarrel, gas system and more. What this means is that when you play the game you are having your own unique experience and as it says on the box their is "over 20 million combinations". But how does this affect the gameplay? every mission that you play, because of Gunsmith, can be played in different ways, in most games in the genre you will ask yourself, shall I go with an assault rifle or a sub-machine gun but in this game you will be asking yourself what trigger system do I want for this mission. All this adds to a unique campaign that will be played differently by every single person who plays it, and also makes the re-playability aspect high as you will ask yourself what you could have done differently.

Co-op increases tension greatly

The only thing that made playing the campaign more enjoyable for me was playing it in co-op, which added a variable that made the action so much more tense and exciting. When you are lining up targets to sync shot (a feature similar to that of Splinter Cell Conviction) in single player you know that your squad will always be in a position to make the shot but when you are playing with another human character you have get everything right, you need to make sure your count is synchronised, and that you are in a good position but also have a backup position ready if anything goes wrong. The co-op experience in this game is helped by the large sized playing area as this allows you to approach each area tactically, be that staying close together with the safety in number attitude or splitting up in an effort to not get sense, you are always thinking and planning when in co-op. 


There are many things that this game has to offer but a feature often looked over in games is the 3D mode, I am lucky enough to have a 3D TV so I have been playing the game in 3D and I don't understand the negativity towards 3D in gaming. In the game the 3D essentially puts your HUD close to you (as if on your helmet) and adds depths to the actually gameplay area, this immerses me more in the game because it adds to the realism and you actually feel like your looking through a visor. I will continue to get behind 3D gaming because to me it adds an extra dimension to a game which makes the over all experience better. 


Ubisoft set out the make the Ghost Recon series relevent again, by essentially re-inventing it, and in my eyes they have done that, they have offered an altirnative to the generic run and gun shooter games that clog up the market and offered a game that truly requires that you plan each approach, think about priority targets and worry about the position your in. Tom Clancy games have been put back on the map and with the release of Rainbow 6 Patriots and Splinter Cell Blacklist in 2013 their not going away any time soon.



Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - Buy or Rent = Buy              Score - 8.7/10