Ghost recon has always been a game about stealth, slowly working your way through a mission trying to take out all enemies, stealth and tactics being a main story of the series since its release. Wildlands tries to take that concept and push it into an open world game, with more freedom of what you are allowed to do, does it work? Well…
Open world games are becoming a dime a dozen, and in some cases woefully put together, and usually added in purely because it’s the “new” thing to add. It does not always work and in some cases make games even worse because not only do you have developers spending less time on the main story, you now also have to drag your feet across the game world.
Metal gear solid 5 is a great example of a game that was once very linear and now attempted open world to mixed success. However, I think it completely ruined the series completely, as it’s now a massive frustration to get to missions and takes a long time getting from place to place.
Wildlands is like this also, it’s a game that tried too hard to please everyone and in the process forgot what it was supposed to be, the game is a solid shooter, and is much easier to get around than MGS5, however, I wouldn’t say it’s perfect.
Gameplay’s pretty expected, however, the gun unlock system is a little bit…annoying, but the attachment system is something I love. I do love customisation and being given the ability to choose from lots of different attachments to customise all of my guns with, oh yes.
Thankfully the game has gotten better since the beta came out if you were someone who played the beta you know how god awful the driving was, like being drunk and constantly on ice. Thankfully this has been fixed, it isn’t the best driving in the world, but it works and I can actually drive in a straight line which is a massive bonus to me. Flying is easier also, it now actually goes quick whilst keeping altitude. Most of the random bugs I experienced in the beta do not seem to be here either, it seems like for once the test was done and feedback has been listened to which his a lovely change.
I do need to say this, though, for those of you who played in a group in the beta, this is very much a multiplayer game, if you do not have a few friends in the game, it is not as fun as it was in the beta.
The highlight for me of this game is going to a site, and trying to figure out how to get through the whole compound without setting off the alarm, using our drones to plan our attack, our attack obviously failing because we are as skilful as a rock, then running through the compound going loud and making as may James bond references as possible, “Close the door Alec, theirs a draft”.
If you are someone with a set of friends ready to play this game great get into a jeep, or into the boot of a jeep and tackle the game, without them? The games repetitiveness starts to rear its head, most fights can be quickly dealt with, with enemies walking around randomly generated in some odd positions sometimes. This is very much a game that needs friends.
The game does try to help this by giving you some AI companions that are for the most part efficient in doing what they do best, killing. However it isn’t the same as with friends, they won’t drive vehicles for example and honestly some of the best moments I’ve had in the game are some high-speed chases out of a site, with us hanging out of windows desperately shouting at the one at the wheel to actually drive normally, a game that really brings you together.
Graphically the game is okay, views look amazing and some of the performance problems people had in the beta have been ironed out, with new drivers also helping that along. However, it must be said that this is not a game you want to run on low, the game does not look good on low at all. On high there are some problems of pop in rarely, the game does look nice, however, it is not the best-looking game in the world, this is a case of Ubisoft downgrading their game again? I am not sure, but when I go back to games like the division, It is notable how the game looks.
I want to also talk about Ubisoft overall, a lot of people have been giving them a bad time because of their practices with some other game series from 2014 and before. Ubisoft has shown to me at least that they have changed their development processes, their constant support for siege and division was massive to me, from a company known to drop their games to work on the next title. There are some teething problems in Wildlands at the moment, but I do think they will be fixed, and if nothing else look at how siege was basically reworked and high res textures added for PC, bringing the game install size to a whopping 80gb, not many other companies are supporting PC games like this. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a solid game with some solid features, but right now I am not sure if it is worth the buy unless you have a set of friends ready to play the game with that in mind I give it a 7/10.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands was Review on PC via Uplay
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