Five years since the last Ghost Recon outing, the shooter landscape has changed irrevocably. Does Future Soldier have what it takes to make its mark?
A lot has changed since Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 hit shelves in 2007 and we’re not talking about the game’s setting. Just six months after that title gave gamers a new take on tactical shooters, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare arrived to change the landscape.
Suddenly tactics were out and fast-paced, linear ‘twitch gaming’ was in, with stealth and observance taking a backseat to expensive cinematics, heavy hand holding and eventually, the kind of explosion-count that would make even Michael Bay sneer.
Into this market comes Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, a third-person, squad-based shooter which takes the best ideas from the likes of Call of Duty and Gears of War before swirling the components together with its most commercial and undeniably fresh series entry. Simply put, you won’t find a better shooter this summer.
Players take on the nondescript hero role of Ghost, part of a four-man globe-trotting squad which takes on only the most dangerous missions, all while decked in the kind of ingenious, near-future military tech that we suspect is not so far-flung as to not appear credible.
While the storyline is the same kind of garbled, forgettable nonsense that essentially exists to showcase the variety of multiplayer levels, what impresses here is the breadth and effectiveness of gadgetry on display.
In fact, I’d wager that it’s simply impossible to play through the first level of Future Soldier and resist not calling someone into the room to witness the sheer brilliance of the squad combat dynamics and ever-growing toolkit of your team.
For one thing, each squad member has ‘active camouflage’ which renders the player invisible when crouched. Stealth is of the utmost importance at times, whether you’re attempting to finish a section without a body being seen, Hitman-style, or flanking a valued target while sneaking through a crowded, terrified refugee camp.
If stealth isn’t your thing, you’re soon introduced to the Crawler, essentially a tank and stealth unit (there’s that handy active camo again) which is useful for scouting behind enemy lines or blowing helicopters out of the sky with its handy mortar rounds. With a Crawler around there are entire immensely satisfying sections where you won’t even have to fire a round of your gun and yet have a whole army at your mercy.
Taking a backseat can be quite common in Future Soldier and is never bettered than when utilising a Sync Shot. This tends to involve firing off a tiny remote-controlled spy drone to spot and mark rooftop snipers, all the while staying out of their sight. Once you’ve lined up the targets, you’ll wait a few seconds for your teammates to line up their shots for imminent headshots.
As each player’s sight reaches the head of its target, you simply squeeze the right trigger and let your team drop your enemies. Did I mention that you can also land the drone and drive it into packed dens of enemies before emitting a pulse blast? Yeah… this game is pretty cool.
While Future Soldier swims against the tide with such a raft of gameplay innovations, it also provides a meaty campaign that depending on trial and error, could take upwards on 30 hours to complete. Factor in a Gears of War Horde-style Guerilla mode (available in offline split-screen too) and a Gunsmith weapon-building mode with over 600 attachments and you’ve got a game that bends over backwards to provide longevity.
The multiplayer component deserves a lot of credit too, as Ubisoft have wisely put teamwork at the forefront, offering measly rewards for single kills compared to that of teams working together.
Here you’ll assist one another across various modes to retrieve bombs in Saboteur, deal with shifting objectives in Conflict or attack/defend particular points in Siege. Crucially, you do not respawn after death in Siege mode so you’ll quickly be able to pick out the twitch gamers – they’ll be the ones causing defeats for their teams from the offset through ill-advised Rambo tactics.
Boasting plenty of genuine innovation and a generous assortment of modes, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is the perfect balance of today’s cinematic, flashy demands from gamers and the series’ tactical roots.
A somewhat personality-free single player campaign aside, what stands here is arguably an early contender for the video game shooter of the year. After being spoiled by Future Soldier, every title without a giant killer robot assistant will have a lot of ground to make up.
Format: Xbox 360, Playstation 3
Developer: Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Romania, Ubisoft Red Storm; Publisher: Ubisoft
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