A stealth fan’s heaven is what Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is, as you’ll find out while reading through this review. If you’re exhausted by the absolute bullet-frenzies modern shooters are presented as, here’s a game that has the ability to absorb you by asking you to fire as few bullets as possible. The Ghost Recon series has come a long way, and has certainly seen its share of ups and downs during this journey. But with Future Soldier, the ride just seems to have hit a new high. The crux of this game lies in the versatility it serves you with during the campaign as well as with its co-op and online components.
Sure there’s a story in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, but even if you forget about it you’ll still be able to enjoy the game with almost the same enthusiasm as you would if you ended up keeping track of things. A four-man Ghost Team named Predator has been sent into Nicaragua in order to interrupt the weapons trafficking that is prevalent in that region; and no, you’re not this team. Running into a booby trap completely eliminates Predator, and investigating this incident is left to another four-man squad named Hunter. You are this team. As you go along playing whodunit, you of course uncover a huge conspiracy and blah blah, and then there are nuclear weapons and African warlords involved. Oh and how can we forget the Russians; they’re there too. Anyways, as we were saying the game’s formulaic story isn’t one that hooks you into it.
But then there’s the spectacular gameplay that more than compromises for the title’s insipid narrative. Three things are worth highlighting here – the cover swap mechanic, the optical camouflage and the sync shot feature. It would be appropriate to say that Ubisoft has done what Epic couldn’t with Gears. Switching between cover spots is as flawless as it can get in Future Soldier. You move into cover and choose your next spot with a pointer and get going towards that location without even worrying about things that are in your way, as they’ll all be taken care of. The game’s optical camouflage makes you almost invisible to the enemy but certain actions like standing upright and firing your weapons will immediately give you away. And the coolest among all the new features is the sync shot mechanic which enables you to stealthily kill four enemies with the help of your partners. This neat little addition makes for some absolutely pleasing moments during the game.
The beauty of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is that it lets you make use of your gadgets and other abilities in a no holds barred manner. This translates into numerous possibilities in which you can accomplish your missions. Strategic thinking is a must if you’re to move through this game steadily. This one mission took us to Nigeria wherein a field occupied by a number of enemy soldiers was to be bypassed. Now we could have gone all guns blazing on them, but this game very easily encouraged us to go covert instead. So this is what we did. We popped out our drone marker, sent it into the air to mark targets and take them down with the help of squadmates. We had to be careful that our targets didn’t find the dead bodies of their comrades and hence had to wait for them to reach specific positions before taking them down. But in the end, the defining moment came when we achieved the feat. It is this flexibility as to how the game can pan out that deserves acclaim.
With technologies like the drone marker, sensors that give away enemy positions, X-ray vision goggles and missile-launching Warhounds, the missions are fun and versatile, and unlike the title’s story, they are by no means clichéd. Most of the forgettable story in Future Soldier is told through intel briefing sessions that are just futuristic display feeds. And in between these and the missions, there are bland cutscenes which make you wonder why they’re there in the first place. Although the game’s graphics are well constructed, a special mention should go to the character faces that seem like they’re straight from some 90s PC game. The futuristic HUD however, helps the game’s visual appeal a great deal. Throughout its entirety, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier takes you across continents, with nations like Nigeria, Pakistan and Russia being prime spots. Each and every environment is detailed and is built diversely. Like in most of today’s games, the sounds have been captured to perfection, and there’s even a pretty nice soundtrack to accompany them.
During our playthrough, we encountered a number of technical issues that blighted our experience with the game. Framerate drops, complete freezes, blackouts, you name it. A patch for these problems is direly needed. The whole campaign of Future Soldier can be played in co-op, while co-op fans can even enjoy the wave-based Guerilla mode which features specific missions made specially for team play. And then, there’s the online multiplayer for which the title gets another hats off from us. You have four modes at your disposal in the form of Conflict, Decoy, Saboteur and Siege. The abilities that you get to wield in the single-player campaign have been sorted into the different classes that the game has on offer. At its core, the game is a team-based title, and you’ll realize this even during multiplayer matches which just ask you to think as groups in order to achieve your objectives.
Final Word: The game’s appeal lies largely in the liberty which it throws at you in terms of how you want to complete its missions. There are objectives that fail when an alarm is raised and there are those which don’t but still are fun when done stealthily. Whatever you choose to do, the game will waste no time in hooking you onto it. The poor cutscenes and story of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier are overshadowed by its spectacular gameplay, and this alone goes on to prove how enjoyable the game is. The multiplayer is sturdy and playing the campaign in co-op is the most fun you’ll have in the game.
Graphics: 7/10
Sounds: 8/10
Environments: 8/10
Gameplay: 9.5/10
Replay Value: 9/10
Overall (not an average): 8/10