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Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (PS4) review

On March 27, 2017 by Ash Meehan

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SG Gaming Info’s Aaron Meehan becomes a ghost and fights the Santa Blanca cartel in his review of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is a new open-world shooter from Ubisoft, with the game focusing on searching for and eliminating members of the Santa Blanca cartel in Bolivia. The game’s linear goal of eliminating low-level buchons to underbosses to a head of one of the cartel’s four operations is interesting if not a bit repetitive.

The reason why I say the structured approach is interesting as it makes it feel more lifelike, I mean to take down an organisation that spans an entire country is a lot tougher than just finding the leader and killing him because if you kill the leader someone will rise to take his place. Therefore, if you take out the leader’s subordinates and their main supporters it is easier to destroy the organisation.

Now, I also said it was repetitive, and well it is repetitive because if you want to eliminate a leader in a particular province you have to jump through at least five major Intel missions before finding and eliminating the target. In all, you need to eliminate twelve members of the cartel to take on the boss of the cartel, El Sueno. For me, my motivation died at about the fourth elimination as the repetitive nature of the game made me bored. What adds to the boredom for me is how the game tells you that stealth and being undetected is the best option, but for missions that don’t force stealth, it is far simpler to run in guns blazing and kill everyone near your target.

The repetitive structure of the main story is also hurt by the bland open world. The open world environment has the usual search for trinkets, which is mainly finding supplies for the Bolivian rebels, the supplies you find also allow you to unlock new skills. Apart from supplies, you can collect weapons, attachments and rebel support abilities. Besides the collecting these limited number of items, you can only really fly or drive to your next destination, and frankly stealing a helicopter or car to get around gets boring quickly.

So, what can I say that is stand out about the game. Well, the gameplay itself is decent. If like me you aren’t a fan of the cooperative play, your three teammates are helpful, especially when you drive or fly around an area and order them to start firing on all enemies. If I can imagine what the co-op would be like for a second, I would say it would be more efficient as the ally AI could be better. Although, while not efficient you can control AI teammates can be via ghost squad commands, these commands are to go to a certain location, fire, hold and group up.

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In terms of the skills, they are broken down into five categories: weapon, drone, item, physical and squad, and are based around improving and focusing down a particular play style, for example, unlockable drone skills allow for better range and battery life of your drone. While skills help, you improve your chosen play style the game is still pretty much run and gun.

Now I haven’t touched on the story, so in brief, the story is about a four-man special-ops team called, ghosts, entering a near future Bolivia to eliminate the Santa Blanca cartel, this cartel has become so powerful it now effectively runs the country. Following the murder of an uncover D.E.A. agent, you are brought in to help the country’s rebels and destabilise the cartel by eliminating its key members. In terms of story, it isn’t anything to write home about, but the in terms of setup for the game it works well.

Now, let’s focus on some technical issues with the game. The major issues I found on the PlayStation 4 version of the game is texture pop in and shadows flickering. These two issues while not game breaking they are visually unappealing and immersion breaking.

Speaking of visuals, the game visually appealing, with each of Bolivia’s provinces having their own visual charm. In terms of audio, I didn’t hear any problems.

Conclusion

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands offers a decent premise of hunting down and eliminating members of a cartel, however, this does become repetitive rather quickly.

Score: 6/10

Pros Cons
+ The game offers a decent premise  – The game gets repetitive quickly 
+ You have the freedom to approach a situation in any way you see fit.  – The open world environment is boring 
  – Texture pop in and shadow flickering 
Developer Publisher Genre Rating Platform Release date
Ubisoft Paris  Ubisoft  Shooter  18+  PS4, XBOne, PC  March 7, 2017 

*A review code was provided by the game’s publisher.*

For more information on Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, visit https://ghost-recon.ubisoft.com/wildlands/en-us/home/.

Author: Ash Meehan

Hi, I’m the creator of SG Gaming Info. When I’m not working on my writing or creating content for this site’s YouTube channel, I like to relax and enjoy character driven story games.


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