Ghost Recon Future Soldier

Developer: Ubisoft Paris and Red Storm

Publisher: Ubisoft

Genre: Shooter

Rating: 18

Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC

Release date: Out now (Xbox 360 and PS3) and June 14, 2012 (PC)

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier sees you follow an elite spec ops team called ‘Ghosts’. The team is skilled at getting their job done quick and quietly. To execute their missions effectively Ghosts use near futuristic technology to give themselves the advantage in the battlefield.

Future Soldier’s campaign sees a squad of four Ghosts taking on mission which sees them travel around the world tracking a large quantity of weapons, and as they delve deeper into their mission the discover a planned military coup in Russia.

Future Soldier’s combat is based around stealth and cover with a touch of run and gunning. In my opinion the stealth is the best part of the campaign as it requires you to think rather than go guns blazing, but with that said stealth can also be a tad frustrating.

Stealth based missions require you to get to a certain area without getting spotted, now this might sound difficult but your team is equipped with optical camouflage, this equipment renders you and your team mates invisible when you are crouched, but the camouflage isn’t perfect and you can be spotted if you get to close to an enemy.

Sometimes you will find camo isn’t enough and you will have to use your gun to continue sneaking and at this is where the game shines. Normally when you have to shoot it’s because of a large group of people and since taking them out one at a time is out of the question you have to perform a ‘sync shot’ which is a synchronized shot by all 4 team members, to perform this move this move you need to target the enemies you want to shoot and wait for your team mates to get into position and then pull the trigger.

You can fail a stealth missions if you or a dead body have been spotted, but some missions will allow you to continue by shooting your way out the situation.

Moving away from stealth based missions that dominate the game there are typical run and gun missions. One of these missions takes part on a shoot out on a crowded street in Pakistan. I did find it a bit difficult to get used to and died a few time, but the ability to quickly run between cover and the advance tech made it a tad easier.

Before the start of every mission you are given a brief over view of what new equipment you are using in the mission. You are also allowed to customize and choose which weapons you take with you, but if you don’t want to do that you can just go with the weapons HQ recommends you take.

On the futuristic technology side of things there is than just the camouflage at your disposal. You have access to a small quadrotor drone which is useful for a bird’s eye view of the battlefield and to help you mark targets. There is also magnetic vision which is a great way to see when visibility is poor and it also allows you to see through objects allowing you to spot enemies easier, for some missions the magnetic vision is swapped out with night vision. Overall the tech you can use is pretty handy and adds a great dimension to the game.

While the campaign was a mixture of fun and stress I enjoyed it, but the campaign left me feeling a bit let down at end when the last section of the final mission decided to take control of my movement and restrict me to just shooting. Also some questions I felt were left unanswered.

In Future Soldier there are two forms of co-op one of which allows you and up to three other friends take on the campaign together and the other is ‘Guerrilla Mode’ which sees you and up to three other friends fight hordes of enemies which become tougher after each round.

Personally I am not a fan of co-op based modes, but I really enjoyed ‘Guerrilla Mode’. A friend and I decided to play it and we enjoyed it. While playing I found myself calling out areas to go to etc. which I would never usually do.

The main idea of Guerrilla Mode is to capture an area from an enemy and hold the area for about 10 rounds before you move onto the next area you have to capture and repeat the process several times. Between each round you have several seconds to pick up new weapons, ammo and equipment which are dropped. Also you unlock skills like air strikes, turrets etc. throughout the game which can be very effective.

Losing the game can happen in two different ways. The first way is when you and the rest of the players are all killed, usually if there are two people left you can do manage to get you down you are put into a type of bleed out where an ally has several seconds to help you recover your health. The second way is when the enemy reclaims the area you captured. This happens when the enemy gets into the capture area and if they are not killed within 18 seconds you lose.