If this Identity Crisis is the Future for Tom Clancy Games, then Count Me Out as a Fan
Gameplay: Ghost Recon: Future Soldier can't figure out what it wants to be in terms of gameplay. At times, its literally a 3rd person Call of Duty; at other times, there are moments of true greatness. The sync shot mechanic is awesome and I wish developers would use it in real tactical shooters & the gunsmith is amazing and I wish this mechanic could too be explored in actual tactical shooters. But that's where the praise ends. It features the plague of modern big budget shooters; there's regenerating health, there's a cover system which your Ghost slides to really fast, sprinting where the camera zooms in on your character's butt (an obvious nick knack taken from Gears of War), the fire fights are way too easy and require almost no teamwork & tactics, & there are game breaking glitches and bugs. The bugs in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier are Descent to Undermountain bad; there's headless people standing in place in multiplayer, the co-op (which was one of the best parts about Future Soldier) is broken, the stuttering and lag is excessive (1 FPS at points), the matchmaking doesn't work and don't allow for map customization like in the original Ghost Recon (has matchmaking ever worked?), there's mouse skipping, unresponsive controls, and the sound just stops sometimes. The game is really not authentic; Tank shells don't blow up sandbags for example. The controls are a mess; I'm expected to use the arrow keys to move and the camera is just plain awful. That said, I did like how two characters patrol while you breach areas; that's probably the only form on authenticity that Ghost Recon: Future Soldier did right.
Story: You play as the Ghosts, who are sent to kill stuff. The "story" is just an excuse to throw you into some already bland missions. After that, the Ghosts find out about some Russian nuclear weapons controlled by a group called Raven's Rock. Really Ubisoft? Russians are good people and this stereotyping is getting old.
Graphics: The graphics are immensely dated. The textures reek of a console game that didn't even look good to begin with & DX11 does nothing to help. The weather effects look okay, but that's it.
Sound: The voice acting does it's job and that's what it needs to do. The dialog is really stupid though, I know Ubisoft was going for the "real military conversations" but it feels really forced and contrived. The gun sounds surprisingly do their job as opposed to sounding like paintball guns.
Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: Mature (Blood, Intense Violence, Strong Language)
System Requirements: Windows Vista (with Service Pack 2) / Windows 7 (with Service pack 1), both 32 bit & 64 bit versions OS, Intel Core2 Quad Q9450/ AMD Phenom II X4 940 or greater CPU, 3 GB, 1024 MB DirectX–compliant, Shader 4.0–enabled video card based on nVidia GeForce GTX 460 or AMD/ATi HD 5850 or better GPU, DirectX 11, 25 GB free hard disk space, Always Online Connection (Evil DRM).