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Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Beta Impressions
I have never really been a big Ghost Recon fan. Yes: I have played some of the games and have spent probably over 10 hours playing the Ghost Recon: Island Thunder demo back in the days. However, this has never been a franchise I have been looking forward to too much. By curiosity, I recently dived into the franchise’s latest game’s Beta just to make sure I was not missing out on anything good. I came back from the Ghost Recon: Future Soldier battlefield rather impressed to say the least.
The first thing that will hit you when you start playing is the really fast pace the game has. Games begin in a rushing frenzy similar to Gears of War matches: people run as fast as they can to take the best tactical positions around the map’s first objective. Then, it’s all about tactical cover decisions and team work to flank the opposing team and take control of the first objective.
Talking about cover: Ghost Recon: Future Soldier’s new cover system works perfectly. Just like Gears, you can run up to walls and other covers (cars, wooden crates, etc.) to hide from enemy fire. Then, you can plan your next move by selecting your desired destination with an on-screen reticule. Once your next cover spot is selected, you just need to hold the A button (or X on the PS3) and your character will automatically run as fast as he can to it. This makes the cover-to-cover movement easy to use and greatly increase the games’ speed. However, you must be careful since enemies can easily take you down during these sequences.
The only mode available in the Beta so far (Conflict) is basically a special take on the classic King of the Hill game mode. Each team have to storm a specific spot on the map to either capture or defend it. Knowing each part of the map becomes vital since defending positions become a complicated task as both teams storm the objective with the use of the many available gadgets. Precise weapons, detection cameras, cloaking devices, flashbangs: there is constantly something to look out for, making both attacking and defending an exciting task. I have to admit: storming out with your team and suppressing the enemy out of the objective’s area is a very satisfying experience in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (and well... yeah... being taken out by a good team is also a very cool thing to witness too).
From what was available in the Beta, the maps are also a lot of fun to play. The first of them took place in a sort of Middle East urban environment with buildings, market booths and cars as your main hiding possibilities. While it does give you some options with its different paths, this map is rather straightforward with more or less two primary paths to choose from, which kind of keeps the action at a high pace. The second map takes place in a small rural town surrounded by trees. This map contains much more possibilities with its numerous paths that make controlling the matches a bigger cooperation effort from your team. There is also quite a lot of differences in levels, making the combat even more interesting as you must be careful of protecting yourself from attacks coming from higher or lower grounds. It is also a better map to try out the Scout’s sniping ability due to the wider areas available.
The Beta also gives you limited access to some of the game’s new features. First, each character class has different leveling skill trees, enabling you to upgrade your game experience depending on your play style. Also, you can take on friend challenges that bring a friendly but fierce competition amongst your friend list. Finally, you can also check out the cool Gunsmith mode that enables you to select each of your gun’s parts (barrels, scopes, grip, etc.) and instantly test out your weapon in a gun range. While both the customization and the shooting range can be tried out with Kinect, I did not tried it out yet (since I do not own a Kinect sensor) but it is something to look out for since not that many games have managed to make Kinect work in a true FPS gameplay situation.
Since the Beta is probably over at the time you are reading these lines, make sure you check out the full game when it comes out on May 22nd. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is shaping to be the shooter game you will have to play through this summer so do not miss out on it!
Redacted on: April 25th 2012
Uploaded on: May 6th 2012