less tactics but more action.
among the new additions that foster this change are the health bar that often allows you to take up to 6 or 7 rounds before kicking the bucket and the pure number of enemies in each level (usually around 60-80). the planning phase before a mission has also been done away with but not the enjoyment of weapon and gear selection that was always a thrill before starting a map. many of the tools that we came to love in rs3 are still intact such as weapons attachments like silencers, scopes and enhanced clips and by default you will always have night vision and a motion/heat sensor view that can detect through walls the presence of enemies. these core features that made one feel particular awesome when sweeping through a bank or prison looking for terrorists are still here and still very useful.
graphically there isn't much to complain about in this game. reflections and post fx looks fantastic. excellent character models, lighting and gritty textures really bring the environment alive around you and are just a pleasure to notice as you move from area to area. unfortunately, there are elements that detract from the immersion that these pluses could have created. firstly, the animations don't look overly polished. there is a certain jerking, robotic quality to the movement of team members, hostages and terrorists alike that sucks the realism from the gameplay and even the cinematics so unfortunately this game is dazzling in screen shots but not quite as impressive in motion.
another problem that is rampant in this game is the ai. in fact, at times the ai is downright deplorable and you have to scratch your head and wonder if the team commands were play-tested at all. telling your team to stack up outside a door for example, a standard maneuver since the series' inception, is often a quick death sentence for at least one of them as they will simply be shot as soon as the door swings open or lean their entire body into the room to toss in a flash bang. the team seems reluctant to fire back in many situations regardless of the roe state, sometimes for the simple reason that your team doesn't seem to know when they are behind cover or not. despite the fact that you are the team leader they often run ahead of you when they are supposed to be following and frequently head right into your line of fire. after the first couple of levels i found myself leaving them behind most of the time to tackle the situations solo. the terrorist ai is equally daft as you will see them leaning out from behind nothing or repositioning themselves in the middle of a room rather than behind any cover but they do attack consistently and accurately enough to provide lots of enjoyment.
the sp game modes consist of the regular campaign and the opportunity to replay completed levels in lone wolf and the classic terrorist hunt mode. personally, i'm a huge fan of this mode and it is no less enjoyable than in the previous titles, however, the settings to be chosen before starting a terrorist hunt have been trimmed down to picking a level, difficulty, and the size of the rainbow team.
after thoroughly enjoying the sp game modes i attempted to join a multiplayer match. after a quick, trouble free activation of an ubisoft account i generated a rather skimpy list of servers. this game is a couple years old now so i didn't expect to see too many servers but the disappointing factor was the latency on the 4 or 5 servers i could get to show up. there was only one server with a ping below 200 and even after updating i was simply unable to join the server. i have no trouble playing other mp games and get pings as low as 30 in most of them so i was not impressed. the official ubisoft server that was running was giving me a ping of 280. disappointing.
overall, i would definitely recommend this game. although the ai is occasionally infuriating the core gameplay is priceless. the campaign isn't too long. probably around 10 hrs but its worth every second of flash bangs and door breaches. a fine addition to an excellent series.