Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review

The premise of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is the same as many games in today's market: A global crisis is threatening world stability and must be averted by shooting many, many people. Where Ghost Recon has always differed from its contemporaries is the way in which you go about the aforementioned shooting; Ghost Recon has always marketed itself as the 'thinking person's' shooter.

In this latest addition to the series, your four-man team of 'Ghosts' will travel around the globe to take part in various tactical engagements, beginning with chasing down some black market arms dealers in Central America. You'll find no spoilers here: save to say that this initial mission catapults the team into a deeper and more complex conspiracy that presents a threat to global stability.

It's all very standard fare, typical of modern military shooters, and isn't particularly engaging; it serves its purpose in moving the action along but don't expect to have any sort of emotional connection to the plot.

The same goes for the characters, who are fairly two dimensional and forgettable. In fact, having played the game all week as I sit and write this review I find myself unable to remember the name of any of the Ghosts, with the exception of the easy to recall 'Ghost Leader'.

Of course, characters and plot are always secondary in a game like this with the primary draw being the action and gameplay, and I'm pleased to say that the gameplay here is good - for the most part.

It's third person, in case you were wondering, and blends stealth, action and high-tech gadgetry together into one package.

As a general rule, most missions start with a stealthy insertion by the Ghosts and you must carefully make your way through the level, taking out enemies as necessary to progress whilst avoiding alerting their friends and setting off the alarm.

Your best weapon in your mission to keep from the watchful eyes of guards is your high-tech adaptive camouflage. By crouching and moving slowly your super suit renders you partially invisible with a predator-like effect and allows you to sneak close to the enemy without them spotting you. Stand up, run or start shooting and the effect is lost so you really must take advantage of this before the bullets start flying.

Another invaluable tool when attempting to sneak past the enemy is your ability to designate up to four targets for simultaneous elimination. As you tag targets your three squad mates take aim on them. Once they are in the position you can order them to fire at any time ensuring all will fall, or alternatively if you tag and take aim on fourth target yourself your squadmates will wait for your move and fire when you do.

This makes annihilating groups of up to four enemies a breeze. But more than this, successfully pull off a four-man coordinated shot and you will have a brief few seconds of slow motion action to allow you to pick off a fifth, or even sixth straggler if your reflexes are up to it.

Even if the enemy numbers are high enough that you know in advance you aren't going to be able to eliminate all of them for an easy and stealthy passage, this kind of coordinated strike is a powerful opening move to start a firefight with.

And firefights are inevitable. Be it through a mistake on your part, a scripted event or just sheer impossible numbers to sneak past; sooner or later you will be spotted. At certain parts of the game being spotted means instant mission failure. At other points, it simply means that all hell is going to break loose and when it does you'll find that stealth goes out the window and you are thrust into a fairly standard, if well made and entertaining, third-person cover shooter.

The cover mechanics work very well and moving in and out of cover is intuitive and easy. One particularly nice touch is the ability to dash from one piece of protective scenery to another simply by pointing the camera at it and pressing a single button. As simple as this sounds, it's a nice touch that lets you keep moving under fire, rather than pinned down in one spot until everyone else is dead.

There are also some nice dynamic set pieces thrown into the mix along with a couple of on-rails sections to keep the action from becoming stale - including the arbitrary 'man the gun in a helicopter' section that you seem to have in all vaguely military themed games these days. Some of the on-rails sections stand out as better than the usual fare, namely the sections where you are dragging a prisoner or wounded ally along and firing back at your pursuers with your pistol.

As the 'Future Soldier' tagline in the title would suggest, technology is at the forefront of the game. As well as the light bending camouflage that has already been mentioned, the Ghosts pack more gadgets into their operations than James Bond packs into the boot (or trunk, for our American readers) of his Aston Martin DB5.

Top of the list is the super-duper magic glasses the team wears which give them their augmented reality vision of the world. These little gems can highlight enemies that have been marked by a tracker, can see enemies through walls in X-Ray vision mode and can display useful text such as 'Nicaragua' across the sky - just in case you forget which country you are in.

They also serve as a useful explanation as to why you have things like ammo counts and objective markers on screen so serve to bridge the gap between the in-game HUD and reality with high tech wizardry.

Other useful gadgets available to the Ghosts include a remote-control drone that can both fly and be driven on the ground, motion detector grenades and a big robot dog thingy that acts as a mobile artillery platform.

On top of the gadgetry, you are also given a great degree of flexibility over your weapons loadout at the start of each mission, with the ability to not only choose your weapons but to fully customise every aspect of them - from the sight, to the barrel length, to the paint job. New weapons and customisation options are unlocked by completing various in-mission challenges which provides both incentive and replayability.

The whole campaign can be played in online multiplayer with up to three friends - and I stress 'friends' as there is no matchmaking facility available. Should you choose to go it alone your AI companions are more than capable of backing you up.

In fact, the AI companions are quite effective in their own right and unlike in many other games they are quite capable of putting up a fight and actually doing some damage to the enemy, rather than leaving everything up to the player. They are also very good at keeping you informed and when spotting enemies they will tell you how many they see, what they are armed with, what direction they are in, what landmarks they are standing near and what they are doing.

Unfortunately there were some technical hiccups that marred the experience during my playthrough. On one occasion I soundlessly made my way through an enemy position and to the next checkpoint without firing a shot, only to find my teammates had refused to follow me and would not move until we had eliminated the enemy presence.

On another I passed a checkpoint and moved through a street only to realise the checkpoint hadn't registered and I had to double back to it; when I did, a group of enemies materialised from doorways and from behind vehicles where I had been standing moments before and saw no one.

Whilst issues like these did not occur with a high degree of frequency, when they did surface they drew my attention away from the action and excitement and reminded me that I was, in fact, just playing a game.

Graphics are something of a mixed bag. They are not terrible by any means, but the characters all look a little... wrong... when you see them in cut scenes; their facial animations and lip syncing just make them look a little less-than-normal. The rest of the graphics are perhaps not as neat as we are used to seeing these days, with some jagged edges, blurring and poor textures being evident. On the whole, the graphics certainly aren't bad enough to detract much from the gameplay - but conversely, they certainly aren't impressive enough to add anything to the proceedings.

Multiplayer is present in this game with four competitive modes, the aforementioned co-operative play, and Guerilla mode - more commonly known as a 'Horde' mode by many.

You won't find any deathmatches or team deathmatches available in the multi-player as each of the four competitive modes are objective based and encourages teamwork and coordination to succeed. A team of lone-wolf players will find themselves hard pressed to defeat a team of players working together to reach their objectives.

With interesting multiplayer and a lengthy and enjoyable campaign, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is a solid game. Whilst it never quite achieves true greatness, it provides enough entertainment throughout to be a worthwhile title for fans of stealth games and action shooters.