This is not so much a review as it is a list of issues that Ubisoft should improve for the sequel. Essentially, four things I wish they did differently here...
CUSTOM OPERATOR. The way the game works is - you start as a recruit then gain enough "renown" to purchase an actual operator. That operator has a specific skill and a certain set of weapons. Only the weapons can be customized. The operators are nice, but why not an option to take the recruit and gradually open new weapons, gadgets, appearance options, etc to where everyone can customize their own operator to suit them best (visually and performance wise). It gets a little dull with everyone often picking the same operators.
MAKE XP NOT SO USELESS. There really isn't that much to the game really, XP and renown wise. Ok, you can try to unlock all the operators and collect them all, but XP wise it seems it only unlocks ranked modes. It would be nice if XP levels unlocked more organizations, operators, weapons, gadgets (maybe improved gadgets or additional supply of the finite ammo ones), perhaps opens up access to more maps and so forth. Ugh, it just seems like it was trying to be like CoD but the XP was really just tacked on I think.
ADD MORE TIME IN TERRORIST HUNT FOR F's SAKE! Would it kill them to add +5 minutes to all the missions (on Hard and Realistic difficulty), I mean really. I can see time would be important for bomb missions or hostage rescue, but terrorist hunt missions??? Come on. The emphasis shouldn't be so much on time, you really feel like you have to be reckless.
SOME KIND OF BASIC INTEL WOULD BE NICE. So here you are, a counter terrorist unit -- and you have about 20 seconds to pick your team and gear, and have absolutely no intel on the situation. No "we think the bomb might be on the 3rd floor" or the "intel suggests that the hostage is in the basement". Nope, you just go in completely blind and hope for the best. NICE.
TURN THAT KILL X OFF IN "REALISTIC" MODE. The kill X on the screen is nice when you kill a baddie, sure, but how about make that X go away in realistic difficulty to provide a bit of fog of war as to whether or not you actually killed the terrorist through the wall or not. I understand why they did it, but just removing the X would make the game hard enough to justify the difference between realistic and hard mode, without making the AI so ridiculous with reaction times (see next point). But the fact is, with the kill X removed in realistic mode, then it would be more like the past RB6 games and less like Call of Duty (which is a good thing), which a bit of uncertainty added. Maybe that guy that just hasn't fell over yet get shot another 10 times, using more ammo, or the guy you think you took out in the next room actually wasn't and you have to investigate with the drone, all creating additional realistic gaps in situational awareness.
DON'T MAKE THE AI SO RESPONSIVE ON "REALISTIC" MODE. They could make the game very difficult on realistic mode without having the AI be crack shots. You will literally stick you nose into a room and BAM they blast it off in 2 seconds. Come on people, make the AI smarter, or provide more AI, less HUD elements, no kill X etc on Realistic mode, you don't need cyborg reaction AI too.
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In the olden days, RB6 was about planning and executing the mission like clockwork but now it is just a shooter - albeit a pretty realistic one. Don't get me wrong, I do like the game for that bit of realism and that difference between the stale CoD and Battlefield games (I gave this game a 7 after all), but I think they could have done a lot better. I would like to see another game in the series and hopefully they will improve it. They have the realism down, but IMO it just needs further refinement to really make it a 9 or 10.
REMARKS COMPLETE.