A Smart, Balanced, and Complete Multiplayer (and Single Player) with A Few, Significant Flaws.
The Top 5 Best Things about TC's Ghost Recon FS:
1. Unique Cover System that Works Well - even in this newer game. This was the very first console Ghost Recon game that I ever played, so I never used the game's cover system before. The cover system is basically a robust and all encompassing game mechanic where you, as a soldier for the Ghosts or Bodark (Russians), can constantly find places to duck and hide behind. The cover system is easy to get used-to and genuinely helps make the gameplay great. Soldiers impressively run, duck, and vault over the obstacles according to your precise lead and control. And considering how easily your soldiers can die or be injured, the cover system is both necessary and preferred. The cover system works well in both multiplayer and single player modes.
2. Robust and Greatly-Replayable Online Multiplayer. My god – it is so replayable and impressive. You play as either a Ghost Or Bodark soldier and combat the other team by killing enemies and completing objectives. You choose a soldier "class", or specialty/type, which will be explained in point 3. Notably, you earn prestigious points and experience points for both killing enemies AND completing objectives AND completing "team actions", You score points for defending/capturing/destroying a certain, assigned objective, (which changes constantly through each match,) as well as defending your team mates, rescuing them, and hacking into enemy soldiers. That's right. When you can get the right shot, you can stun an enemy, with your stun gun, and then hack into their suit! From there on, your team will know all of the other team's player positions (basically like a UAV/Spy Plane from Call of Duty) until all of the enemies, spawned at the time, are killed. Therefore, this little trick-or-treat isn't that overpowered and unbalanced – it's fair. This is true for pretty much everything about the multiplayer, as well.
3. Smart and Balanced Online Soldier "Classes" – all contribute to the online multiplayer's success and none are overpowered. Soldier "Classes" are basically a specific type of special soldier that you're able to choose to play as. There are three classes: rifleman, scout (sniper), and engineer. All are balance and, in fact, balance each other out. The rifleman is the easiest class to get used to. He has a good assault rifle and frag grenades, and can engage the other two classes fairly well. However, he really has no special abilities, other than killing, so the other two classes seem important still. The scout is for the patient and defensive type (personally, not my type) and is armed with a sniper rifle and cloaking device. First of all, the sniper rifle has a decent zoom: not too far and not too close. It's fairly easy to get used to but will take skill in order to compete with the fast assault rifles, submachine guns, and shotguns of the riflemen and engineers. Second, but certainly not any less, the scout is armed with a cloaking device that turns him invisible! This seems like a sniper's dream come true, and a lot of people might think this is overpowered. However, it's NOT. The scout only stays invisible when he's still and NOT firing. When he moves even a millimeter, the cloak will deactivate. In addition and as mentioned, when he fires even a single bullet, the cloak will also deactivate then. Therefore, the cloak is just meant for sniper to stay put without being murdered by nooby rushers. However, it doesn't make the scout a hated OP. Finally, but certainly not the least, is the engineer. He has sub machine guns or shotguns and extra supplies and gear. However, what makes the engineer unique is that he is the only one who can use these new, futuristic grenades called "sensor grenades". Basically, they're mobile and throwable radars: an engineer can throw them into a dark/concealed area and find out where all the enemies, in a short radius, are hiding. The enemies show up for all of the engineer's team to see, so the engineer can be very helpful and necessary – especially to expose camping scouts who happen to be dominating the match. In addition, the engineer can have a computer that helps him complete objectives faster. So, to review, the riflemen do the majority of the killing. The scout does most of the guarding. And the engineer does most of the support and objectives. As you can see, all of these duties are important to a successful match for you. I think Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier does an excellent job of making each class important and balancing them.
4. Authentic Futuristic Feel that Genuinely Contributes to the Game's Success and Feels Real and Believable. After all, with so many video games, nowadays, going into the genre of future life and warfare, the idea of a futuristic world, in any game, can be either too simple or too unrealistic. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier does a good job of providing a realistic and entertaining futuristic feel in its gameplay. As mentioned, new technologies, like scout cloaking devices and sensor grenades, add both convenience and challenge in this new future world of war. However, the most notable future feature, of this game, is the thorough and helpful Heads-Up-Display (HUD) that helps you keep track of the gameplay as you play. For example, there is a futuristic map that helps you get around the battlefield. This is basic. However, what is new and advanced is heat detection and pop up windows that help label your friendlies, enemies, objectives, etc. For instance, when an engineer throws his sensor grenade, and enemies are located, you can see their red outline through the wall! In addition, when you are exposed to a sensor grenade, or some type of radar, your HUD alerts you with a pop up window that says, "DETECTED" in urgent, bold letters. Surprisingly, all of these warnings don't really make the game unfair at all. They're just helpful, convenient, and work well in my opinion. I hope to see this type of advanced HUD in all future warfare shooting games. It's that good. It works that well.
5. Decent Single Player Mode that Adequately Keeps You Busy Outside Online Multiplayer. To be honest, I won't explain that much about this feature because, as mentioned, it is "decent" and not that great. The single player involves a general plot about the future Ghost Recons carrying out various missions for the U.S. military. There is believable, but average dialogue. There is random, various challenges to complete. Your team-squadmates have personalities and help you complete your challenges and objectives. You can use them to take out enemies for you. Overall, this game mode is just something slightly interesting to do while away from multiplayer. And, indeed, you might be away from multiplayer for a while, due to its many connectivity problems – I will go into this next.
The Top 5 Worst Things about TC's Ghost Recon FS:
1. Very Problematic Online Multiplayer Errors that Happen At least Once A Day.
This is actually a huge problem for the game and has affected its overall success (and rating score) due to it consistently interfering with the gameplay. Basically, at least once a day, (sometimes even five or more times,) you will randomly be ejected from a game match and the game will say "connection to server lost". There is no way to fix this, but it basically force-quits you out of a match without your approval. This can be especially irritating either before or during a game match – when you're trying to get into a match or finish a match well, respectively. Overall, the online multiplayer gameplay is super good and rewarding, but the internet connectivity errors and general internet errors, that this game constantly has, has always been broken. This has to be fixed before anyone will give this game anywhere near a perfect score rating.
2. Lack of Different Online Multiplayer Modes.
While the online multiplayer matches are fairly complex, long, and thought provoking, there isn't much variety of these types of matches. In fact, there are less than 10 game modes to play. This is pretty lackluster in comparison to Call of Duty's 5-10 game modes times 4-5 game playlists, If you want more variety of game modes, and not just good game matches, you should buy a recent Call of Duty game.
3. Over-Emphasis On Stealth, in Single Player Mode, that Takes Away the Wild Fun From The Single Player Mode. Since I didn't spend that much time or effort praising the game's single player mode, I won't spend that much time or effort criticizing it either. Basically, what you have to understand about this game's single player mode is that you play as a stealthy ghost: you are called a "ghost" after all. As a ghost soldier, you use your cloaking devices to the limits, and often need to crouch or crawl everywhere during the single player's rather long missions. If you want a shoot-em-up and cinematic single player – again, buy a recent Call of Duty game.
4. N/A
5. N/A
The Most Memorable Thing about Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier":
The overall realistic, very entertaining, and very helpful futuristic features and feel that contribute to a genuinely futuristic shooting game experience that's very fun and smart to play.