I don't really think this is a tac-shooter. There are moments of tactical goodness but there is a huge amount of grinding, travelling and collecting various power-ups; I simply don't understand all the resource symbols and the needlessly fussy "rules" by which you can reveal missions, secure alliances, get supplies, acquire important weapon enhancements, etc. and I find the skill tree completely incomprehensible and really tedious. Some of the firefights are ok but they are not as good as Metal Gear Solid V, not even close, and that's going to be the major open-world comparison. Cover is iffy, and tactical control over your AI squad is an illusion most of the time; you order your team to "Hold" and they still follow you over a wall into the compound you are trying to infiltrate. I am not convinced that the stealth mechanics are sound and there is a lot of scripting which punishes an unsuccessful stealth assault with an onslaught of enemy reinforcements. The bottom line to all this is that there is just not sufficient empowerment for the player, especially as a lot of grinding has to be done before you get more than one sync shot slot and everything else is similarly nerfed at the outset. I think it's a huge misjudgement on Ubi's part to nerf the player this way and to make him grind and grind; these games are supposed to make you feel like a badass, an elite trooper, not an ROTC cadet.

I will play some more and try to do some coop with you guys and maybe it will work its way into my affections but so far it is only intermittently impressive and suffers mightily from the obvious points of comparison with the far superior MGSV.

...And the load times are horrible.

No bueno.

Hmmm.

No overarching campaign or 'open world' a la GR:W or MGS:V but these Dynamic Recon Ops SP/Coop missions for Arma3 are probably closest thing to proper GR-style mission.

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=722652837

Ever expanding range of maps added - plus you can add different factions, choose air or ground insertion, time, custom area of ops, and it will spit out a random mission to blow something up, clear area, rescue hostage etc.

You can also outfit your SF team (up to 8) beforehand and save loadouts.

I think I have come to the conclusion that it's no bloody good at all. In fact it's so aggravatingly bad that I may not play it again during this CB, let alone buy the thing.

I played it last night. The best way I can describe this is that it is a combination of Far Cry and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. This game in no way resembles anything like the original Ghost Recon release back in 2001.


Having said that, I did find the coop play entertaining and I'll most likely buy it. I don't really see myself playing this in solo mode though.

I completely agree that the skill tree setup is both confusing and awkward.

I loved it. Best shooting in a game, short of the sniper games, in a long time. It isn't twitchy. I play more stealth games than anything and this game rewards that approach. There are consequences for sloppy attacks. It has flaws, but far more positives. I wish you at least had your initial guns fully outfitted. Constantly unlocking this and that gets old, but that's how it is these days. Agreed on the skill business. Why can't I just do the one I want? It's the best of Far Cry's big environment--with more civilians than any previous GR game--and the approach of a GR squad game.
It's a day 1 must buy for me.

Tony and I played for almost 3 hours last night. Had a lot of fun with it. Like Farcry4, but better. I like that the COOP allows for MORE THAN TWO.
The COOP was a long load the first time, and then after that it would connect us near instantly. Sweet. It is AMAZING to me how difficult games make the COOP connection. This one was very straight forward. No dancing around keyboard looking for the magic sequence to "Accept Invitation"
The helicopter was a mess to fly. Most times we crashed into things trying to move it around.
Loved that we could make it run on our 4 yr old PCs which are the Min Specs, and it looked good. I can imagine with some serious horsepower, it would be really nice.
Liked how I could see that RK was in the game at the Connection Screen.
Didn't even MESS with the Upgrades/Skill nonsense. Sadly this is the way all games are going, so will have to deal with it. Did NOT figure out how to execute the SYNC SHOT feature. Loved that in Splinter Cell.
Maps: Was not happy that the Invited Player could not see the highlighted paths to the Objective. Only the Host could. And also not everything was visible to BOTH players on the TacMap/MiniMap. That sucked.
Tony was getting pretty pissed off at me saying "Its the object RIGHT THERE" and him not seeing anything, and me too dumb to realize it. Hahah.

We will buy this Next Week.

Yes, I found the shooting very satisfying. Get a bead on someone and you can take them down fast, but if you don't get a clear shot they can take you down just as fast.

The revival mechanism is good, and the ability to unlock speed boosts to it is nice.

While I don't find it as picturesque as Far Cry 3 or 4, it looks great for what it's supposed to be--Bolivia. The bikes are great fun, although I find the cars a little too squirrelly for my taste. The ability to hide in and then pop up and shoot out of the trunk is awesome. I used an old sedan as a weapon to take down some SMG-wielders and it worked well.

Lots of civvies running around, so you need to check fire because they're even inside "enemy" bases. Too many walking the roads, though, so you can make a mess if you're too crazy driving.
Haven't tried the helos yet, and I saw there are prop planes too.

I haven't messed with the difficulty settings to see how it works, but even on normal being careless will get you killed. Sync shot appears to be SP only from the limited time I spent trying to work it.


Quite simply users can pick different objectives/missions. Just because you picked it means nothing. He also has to pick it himself by going to the map screen. You can tell in the upper left if you are in the same or different missions (you will be grouped together if you are, separated if not).


I would say this is indeed FRAW. It's not GR at all as we knew it, but it's a solid shooter with a lot of stuff to do. Original GR's big shortcoming was the limited number of missions it came with. It needed both expansions to be what I considered "full" and even then I happily grabbed 3rd party maps in later years due to over familiarity with what it had. I anticipate FRAW, er...GRW? could give as much or more hours.




The Jedi Master

I didn't know about the trunk thing, that's cool! I bet there's a lot more tidbits like that to be found.
The chopper was very...odd. I got around, but very slowly.

The sync shot, which I assume gets developed to more than one target later, worked well with the drone. I couldn't figure out triggering it otherwise, but I didn't experiment much, I just used the drone. That was fun, I like directing fire to quietly clear out an area.

Something that I loved to do was ... shoot out the streetlights! Love making it dark and then sneaking around.

I laughed my butt off when I (Singleplayer) drove the vehicle up to the badguys and suddenly all my team pops out the windows and starts shooting.
Did NOT expect that. Hahaha.

Sounds more like a gang shootout in East LA than a special forces team engaging hostiles!

THANKFULLY you can turn the RADIO OFF in the vehicles.

One thing that is a BIG turnoff is the liberal use of over the top cussing. The "banter" between the team is totally unnecessary as well.

Wish I could select THIS Patch in the Character Customization....

GR used to be the PG game. I wish they'd left the language out. Ubisoft loves F bombs.
I quickly found the radio off button. I wish you could set that as default for every car you get in, but it always turns back on. I'll check the menu again to see if that's an option.
The Mafia games did the radio right, most others it's an annoyance. Far Cry was another that was annoying.

Sorry, but I never bought that. You are KILLING people but you watch your language? "Golly shucks, you blew my leg off, you cretin"?
I find the whole "violence is perfectly acceptable but swearing and nudity are not" attitude illogical.

That said, I find the radio and chatter in the game to be pretty lame overall, the voice acting and writing is hardly good compared to some other games, so I posit that it's bad because it's bad, not because it's vulgar. The radio in Far Cry was more acceptable by far. People didn't just launch into lame jokes and stories at random.

Oh, and to hear four people talking when there's just you and one buddy playing coop is beyond bizarre. It's more like having voices in your head.




The Jedi Master

The ability to mark more than 1 target is an upgrade you need to purchase. You can trigger it in the drone or while aiming down the sight by holding down the "Q" button. Or firing a shot at one of them will cause the AI to then fire on the other targets.

As for the higher difficulties, bullets are very lethal both ways, you can die very easily and can only be rezed once per firefight.
It makes things hard when you screw up or a target moves and gets obscured as you ordering the sync shot.

I'm not killing anyone, I'm playing a game, but language is language. If I didn't have kids around it might not bother me as much, but I don't like being forced to wear headphones because my game talks street unnecessarily. It adds nothing to the game. I also don't need a rape scene to establish how bad the bad guy is.

I'm with you. I have no moral or religious objection to the language per se but I've been in the business of managing writers and written content in movies all my adult life and this is pandering, pure and simple. It would not pass muster in a half-well written action flick and it would not escape my blue pencil. The whole game -- in my opinion, and despite the fact that it is intermittently entertaining -- is an undignified exercise in pandering to the lowest common denominator. I am very disappointed in it, regardless of the issue of whether or not it honors a great tactical franchise, as that, by now, is moot, as others have pointed out. It's just artless and crass and the singleplayer is essentially unmanageable from a gameplay standpoint even when the endless grinding for tactical competence is discounted. I'm not being a snob; I had HUGE respect for The Division which to me was very well executed, atmospheric and had better shooter and cover mechanics. And they made a very smart decision not to include driving and flying in the gameplay. Wildlands is a cheap and nasty GTA derivative with an unconvincing patina of tactical gameplay; the crass scripting and ugly language is, as is often the case, a sign of desperation.

...Just my 2c, gents, as always.

Had a great time with it tonight wiht Bill Grant and Mojo. Open world games are mainly mayhem type fun, but it's done well. I agree the Division feels a little better in the controls, but the gameplay here is far superior since you don't have the constant weapon/armor class/damage business to be continually outclassed in. The enemy isn't a bullet sponge. It's centered on the player and how you want to play it, not what you have unlocked. That's what holds the Division back. I'd like to see the Division updated to be more of a level playing field like this. The environment is certainly very good.

Well I confess I enjoyed it a little more after discovering that the Closed beta executable would also work with the Open Beta and found myself doing some fairly enjoyable coop last night with my old gaming oppo Lord Flashheart of this parish. Perhaps I should stop being so grumpy about this thing. However, if I never hear the word "sh!tballs" again in my life, I shall count myself fortunate.

The banter sucks. I preferred it when they were always on topic too.