tom clancy

All posts tagged tom clancy

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/14/2012
Posted in: Microsoft, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox 360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Paris

Release Date: 6/26/2012


Available On

Advanced Warfighter was one of the first games to really push the new next-gen consoles but also evolve into the tiring Ghost Recon franchise. Future Soldier has huge boots to fill, and it does a good job by evolving the series even further. The game finds a balance between stealth and action, plus it throws in some cinematic scripted events to keep things exciting.

The story is pretty much what you would expect from a Tom Clancy game. Full of politics and pretty dull. You are a team of four ghosts who are helping the Russians put the “good” president back on the seat. There’s not much to it, and even the banter between the ghosts isn’t fleshed out as well as it could have been. You’re here for the action, and Future Soldier delivers well. I was most impressed by the new recon elements. First off, you have camo that makes you practically invisible. This can only be used when standing for a while and crouched or prone. Enemies can still spot you if you get too close, so this isn’t cheating per se. On top of this, you get a nifty little drone that you can control in the air or turn into an RC car for ground recon (with a pulse blast!). In the air, you can tag targets, figure out where the enemies are, and study patrols without the frustrating trial and error of figuring it all out yourself on the ground. The drone is a lifesaver and one of the best gadgets ever implemented into a Ghost Recon title.

The coolest thing in the whole game are the sync shots. These allow you to tag up to four enemies and, at the same time, take them down quietly. This eliminates the frustration of having to take everyone down yourself or use useless commands. The friendly AI in this game is some of the best I have ever seen. You can tag enemies above in the drone, and the ghosts will quietly move around and position themselves for the sync shots. The only problem is that if you do four tags, you have to be the fourth.

Sync shots and active camo may be lifesavers for recon, but there is action thrown in. To prevent diving into action, the game will tell you where enemies can see you, so you get a few seconds to find cover before getting discovered right away. However, the game sometimes forces engagement on you because enemies will be clumped too close together for stealth sync shots. This only leaves one option, and that’s open firefights. You aren’t penalized for this at the end of missions because the game encourages sync shots and stealth kills.

I did find the campaign, toward the end, repetitive and less exciting because there are fewer scripted events and more of just non-stop shooting. The difficulty spikes all over the place in these later levels, leaving you to do many checkpoint restarts due to dying. Thankfully, you can “die” three times, and a team member will revive you. I just found the first half of the game to be better designed and more exciting than the last half. There was less and less recon and more running and gunning, which isn’t what Ghost Recon is famous for.

Besides these few complaints, I do have to say that being able to fully customize your guns is an awesome addition to the series. Instead of just choosing people and stocking weapons, you actually get to decide each part of the gun. Trigger, stock, magazine, side rail, under rail, paint, muzzle, gas system, barrel, everything. Most items are unlocked by completing challenges during missions. Other than this, the only thing to go back for is multiplayer, which is what Ghost Recon is famous for.

Multiplayer is pretty much like the campaign and just as fun as past GR games. There’s not much to really say except that GR multiplayer isn’t really for the typical Call of Duty fan. At least there’s a co-op here for buddies to sit around and play, which can actually make the game a lot easier and more fun. The visuals are amazing, and the PC has extra detail thanks to DirectX 11 support, so it looks way better than the console versions. There is tons of visual detail on the PC version, but you will need a really powerful rig (a GPU no more than 2 years old and a high-end dual-core or quad-core CPU for full detail).

Overall, Future Soldier was a long wait, but we got some great new ideas, like gadgets such as the active camo and the drone. Sync shots are a lifesaver, and there are some pretty awesome scripted moments in the game. The story is typical GR dullness, but we get a lengthy campaign with challenges to complete and even fully customizable weapons. I highly recommend this to any GR fan or newcomer who loves stealth action and shooters in general. Just expect some difficulty spikes towards the last half of the campaign.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 02/14/2012
Posted in: 3DS, Nintendo, Retro Consoles. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft

Release Date: 3/22/2011


Available Exclusively On

  • 3ds

When you think of Tom Clancy or Ghost Recon, you probably aren’t thinking of turn-based strategy. Ghost Recon takes the weirdest and most unlikely departure that is sure to become a disaster, but works well and culminates into a great little TBS game. This would be a great game, whether it had the Ghost Recon name or not. Traditional fans of the series may cry foul or turn their nose up, but portable fans and turn-based strategy fans will likely get hooked. Ghost Recon has never been known for deep or complex stories, and Shadow Wars is no exception. You play a squad of elite soldiers trying to stop a war between the Russians and Kazakhstan. Due to the lengthy campaign (a good 15 hours or so), you get an entertaining story that you actually want to see an ending to. While the characters aren’t very deep, you do grow somewhat attached.

Of course, you want great tactical gameplay in a game like this, and Shadow Wars delivers. While it may not be very deep, it’s suspenseful and has various missions that will put you on edge sometimes. The enemies are just regular soldiers, but as the game moves along and you level up, they get tougher, and eventually you get drones thrown at you, which are pretty tough against anything but explosives. Each of the six ghosts is completely different, such as one who uses a mini-gun, which is good for up-close firepower; Haze is the sniper; and Banshee uses a cloaking device, so she is invisible to everything unless right next to an enemy. You will use each ghost and rely on their powers and abilities because each mission will require you to really choose wisely how to move about the map.

Each ghost can gain command points by killing enemies, which can then be used for their special power. Duke and Banshee can use Rapid Strike, which gives them one extra turn, or Haze can use Super Shot, which is pretty much a hit-kill sniper shot. Of course, their secondary weapons can be used this way too, like grenades or Duke’s portable missile launcher. Most maps have various command flags that you can capture to earn command points for the entire squad that can be used to give a ghost another turn, give everyone a huge command point boost, or call in an airstrike on outdoor maps for devastating attacks. You can use cover, like in regular games, that will reduce damage, such as going into buildings or being next to obstacles. You also have an attack range that will be reduced the farther the enemy is, but this isn’t anything new to TBS players and should fit right in.

While all this sounds deep, it really isn’t. Sure, on the field, you have to use your brain and decide how to move about the map wisely, because 99% of the time you’re greatly outnumbered, and a dumb move can cost you the game. Each map is completely different, but most objectives tend to be the same. After a mission is complete, you can distribute points to level up your ghosts, which gives them more health, further movement, and more damage. You can also equip weapons, but I was greatly disappointed in this because each ghost only gets one other option for each category, and I stuck with the first one through the whole game.

There are other problems with the game being way too hard on anything but easy, and even then, you’ll fail missions a lot. Thankfully, there’s a save feature, but towards the end, you’re greatly outnumbered by enemies that take forever to kill, even if you’re at the highest level. I found this unfair, and despite being intense by getting out with a hair of health left, it was exhausting because some levels dragged on forever. Despite these shortcomings, the campaign is varied and mixes things up a lot, so this kind of help.

Don’t expect anything deep that you expect from most turn-based strategy games; just come in expecting a lot of fun activities. The game is extremely tough and doesn’t offer a deep and really interesting story like most turn-based strategy games do. The graphics are also nothing special, even with decent 3D effects. You’re not going to see anything that you haven’t seen in a portable TBS game. Shadow Wars is a great entry into the 3DS and will keep you busy for quite some time.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Predator

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 10/08/2010
Posted in: PSP, Retro Consoles, Sony. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft

Release Date: 11/16/2010


Available Exclusively On

  • psp

Ghost Recon has always been a great game, and Advanced Warfighter 2 was pretty decent on the PSP, but Predator is a complete disaster. To start, the controls are simply horrendous. Games like Syphon Filter and other third-person shooters have perfected controls on the PSP, so why not just borrow from them? The thing that breaks the game is the fact that you have to press X to go into aiming mode and then press X again to walk. So this makes the game a run-and-gun shooter since it gets so frustrating that you just hold L down to strafe and shoot your way through. Even using the cover system stinks, and it just feels like a crappy hack job by Advanced Warfighter.

The enemies are as dumb as dirt, and the mission layout, along with the levels, just plain stink. The problem mainly lies in the fact that the game is like a cardboard cutout of other Recon games, even visually. Buildings, fences, and bushes all look like they were copied and pasted right into the game. The characters’s mouths don’t move when they talk, the animations only consist of a few frames, and it just feels like a low-budget first-generation PSP game.

All the Warfighter elements are here, like the diamond HUD thing, the blurring of the screen when someone’s shooting, and customizing load-outs, but it just all feels half-baked, and this just doesn’t do Ghost Recon justice. Yes, there’s a co-op, but who would you drag into this horrendous game? The game isn’t worth a playthrough unless you really need to play every Ghost game ever made, but there are better ones out there.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/24/2010
Posted in: Android, iOS, Microsoft, Mobile Reviews, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Retro Consoles, Sony, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox 360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Release Date: 4/27/2010


Available On

Sam Fisher is back in a more action-oriented Splinter Cell, and while this may be great for people who hated the series before, fans will be let down. Splinter Cell is known for its stealth-heavy gameplay that relies on shadows, trial and error, and patience. While Conviction still uses this, it’s quicker and feels like Splinter Cell Lite, and this isn’t really so bad.

The story is continued from the series, but only fans will really pick up on it. Sam is still trying to find his daughter after Third Echelon supposedly killed her. In the meantime, he is trying to stop a terrorist organization from setting off EMP bombs and killing the president.

To get to the meat of the game, let’s talk about stealth. Yes, you can use shadows like in previous games, but instead of some sort of meter, the screen just turns gray when you are hidden. The game’s best feature is the new cover system, which lets you jump to cover on the fly by pressing Space and aiming for a new place to hide. This can give you quick access to enemy positions, but it is a little broken. Sometimes there isn’t cover in the right spot, and it’ll force you to use your gadgets and even use headshots. This can really kill certain parts of the game and make them very difficult, especially when you have lots of enemies in the room. In previous games, you could just kill lights and sneak around in the dark, but Conviction confines you to cover. You can climb around things and hang off pipes like before, but the game mainly forces you to use cover.

The best feature by far is the mark and execute system, which lets you target certain enemies, and Sam will quickly kill these guys with headshots without giving away your position. This is great when you have multiple enemies, but you can only get a mark and execute points if you stealth kill someone. This really forces you to sneak around cover and try to kill someone up close. Certain weapons have a different amount of points you can use as well. There is also an interrogation system here, but it’s not much other than pressing C and watching Sam bash up his targets. This could have been a lot more.

The game has a weapon upgrade system, but it’s really cheap and pretty pointless. You can upgrade handguns with more powerful ammo or reflex sight to upgrade accuracy, but there are only three upgrades per weapon, and you usually stick with the same weapon throughout the whole game, so this is really wasted. You get some pretty neat gadgets, such as the sticky camera, which allows you a remote view of an area, makes noise for distraction, and even blows it up. However, the noise distraction rarely works since enemies won’t walk over and check it out, so it just feels like an irritating remote mine. You get your NV goggles late in the game, and they are the same as before, but you can see hidden lasers with them, but they just feel tacked on.

The multiplayer is what you would expect from a Splinter Cell game, but it uses the whole cover system thing, so it’s not as intense as previous games. There’s not much to talk about here, and I’m not really a multiplayer fan, so if you like Splinter Cell multiplayer, it’ll keep you busy for a while.

Conviction just feels too light and has broken stealth elements that they shouldn’t have changed. Even when you do have to shoot, the other weapons feel useless since they can’t hit anything. The story is pretty decent, and the game looks good (what you would expect from UE3). Michael Ironside does an excellent job as Sam, but it feels like Splinter Cell was cored out, and it just feels like a rush job. You still have to have patience in this game, but the elements and patience don’t really mix since this game is more like a Splinter Cell with action elements. Still, the game is worth a playthrough, and you will have a lot of fun.

Reviewed On

Keyboard & Mouse