Ghost Recon Future Soldier Figure Toys and Gadgets

Released on 25-May-2012

• Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - Review

  
  

  

  Silent but deadly

  What's better than pulling off the perfect headshot? Pulling off four perfect headshots at the same time, of course! That's just one of the cool manoeuvres waiting to thrill you in the latest game from Tom Clancy's high-tech military simulation factory, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.

  As the title suggests, in this long-awaited follow-up to 2007's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 you control a squad of covert black ops soldiers in the near future. Everything is familiar, yet subtly different. Most notably, you have active camouflage, just like the Predator. Drop into a stealthy crouch and you immediately activate your cloaking device, remaining mostly invisible to your prey provided you don't do anything silly like running around or squatting right in front of the enemy. From this almost-invisible state, you're now able to explore the battlefield, tagging targets and working out the best way to bump them all off without alerting the others. If you feel really lazy, or just don't want to risk being exposed, just send up a remote drone to do the spotting for you.

  Drop 'em

  It's here that the wonderful sync shot comes into play. As you mark targets, your other squad-mates will move into position for the best line of fire on each one. You can then order them all to open fire at the same time, either with a verbal command or by taking a shot of your own. It's cool, efficient and really makes you feel like a military badass, exactly what you want from a game like this.

  

  Sniping is only part of the Ghost Recon experience though, and Future Soldier doesn't skimp when it comes to full-blooded action. There are lots of sections where you simply have to blast your way through, and the game switches seamlessly from methodical stealth to explosive third-person shooter. Ducking behind cover, you return fire, press the advantage and use the same target-marking system to direct the fire of your squad. Suppress, eliminate and move on. It's a familiar rhythm from games like Gears of War, but the presentation and polish of Future Soldier make the shootouts satisfyingly muscular even if the mechanisms are unoriginal.

  It helps that the game constantly comes up with new scenarios, swapping the Mexican border setting of the previous games for a more ambitious globe-trotting anti-terrorist adventure. You'll see in action in South America, Africa, Russia, Pakistan, even the Arctic, and yet the story never overwhelms the action or feels so thin that you stop paying attention. From sandstorms to blizzards, city streets to remote woodland, the environment constantly impacts the way you play.

  The "I" in Team

  This is, thankfully, an experience you can share with your mates in lots of different ways. The story campaign is playable solo or through online co-op, and if you can try this, you should. While the AI of your squad-mates is superb, they're no replacement for a team of flesh and blood buddies and those four-way takedowns are even more thrilling when you've coordinated them with human partners.

  If you prefer a more self-contained action experience then Guerrilla mode offers standalone arenas in which to fight alongside your friends. It's a survival game in which you first use stealth to take control of a location, and then hold it against waves of attackers trying to take it back. Although the game has recharging health it only takes a few bullets to put you down, so teamwork is absolutely vital here.

  Or if you prefer more competitive online shooter action, Future Soldier accommodates you here as well, although you may need to re-educate yourself a little first. There's no deathmatch or flag-capturing. What you get are four game modes - Conflict, Saboteur, Decoy and Siege - that use large, open maps for seriously hardcore team-based challenges. Whether the game is asking you to plant bombs in the enemy HQ or split up to investigate multiple objectives, Future Soldier takes the familiar beats of online multiplayer gaming and gives them a refreshing tweak. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Siege, where one team tries to hold off the other in a ruthless standoff with permanent death. Yep, that's right. No respawns. Once you're out, you're out.

  

  With series like Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft has shown that it knows how to bend multiplayer to suit the game rather than the other way around, and Future Soldier continues that trend in fine style. For open-minded players, it'll keep you glued for months.

  The gift that keeps giving

  There's lots going on in the margins as well. Both campaign and multiplayer games have secondary ambient challenges, and completion unlocks bonus XP or new weapons and gadgets. You can even send challenges to your friends, daring them to beat a good online performance for kudos and achievements. There's even crossover with the Ghost Recon Commander game on Facebook, as well as the usual Ubisoft Uplay bonus goodies.

  This all feeds back into the online progression, which lets you develop six characters across three character classes - rifleman, engineer, scout - and two factions. The game boasts that there are millions of ways to customise your arsenal, and you can even use Kinect to dismantle each gun and swap parts around. There's a compelling forward thrust to all the elements of the Future Soldier package, and they all feel like they're pulling in the same direction.

  Mission Accomplished

  Future Soldier is the sort of solid, satisfying and meaty action game you'd hope for. It takes various different elements - sneaky stealth, flat-out action and strategic teamwork - and mixes them together in a way that brings out the best in all of them. The story may give you flashbacks to Modern Warfare, but Ghost Recon puts its own spin on the usual military clichés. If you've been hungry for a new shooter, look no further.

  Our Verdict:

  What's Good?

  • Excellent stealthy squad play
    
  • Superb multiplayer options
    
  • Explosive action and destructible scenery

  What's Bad?

  • Story is a bit too derivative
    
  • Getting in and out of cover can be fussy
    
  • Stealth sections require some trial and error

• Review Roundup - Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

  Thinking of picking up Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, the latest entry in Tom Clancy's forward-looking tactical action series? Sounds like that might be a good idea, as review scores for the long awaited follow-up to 2007's Advanced Warfighter 2 are generally hovering around the "must buy" marker of 80% or higher.

  "A true stealth game", reckons the US Official Xbox Magazine's 9/10 review, calling the title "a breath of fresh air in the increasingly loud third-person-shooter genre." And it sounds like the game should appeal both to old fans as well as newcomers. "The game shines not only for staying true to Ghost Recon� roots, but also for doing so while successfully balancing the memories of old fans with the modern expectations of new ones."

  Even the notoriously hard to impress Edge magazine has ventured into the upper regions of the scoring system for this one, handing out a rare 8/10. "In the overmasculine world of the third person shooter, this is a game that stands out for being delicately beautiful even as it delivers brutal thrills," says the critical heavyweight.

  Other high scores include solid eights from the likes of Eurogamer, GamesRadar, Official Xbox Magazine UK and Games(tm).

  With a good six months to go before the onslaught of late season first-person shooters arrives, it seems like Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is the obvious pick of the week for anyone who likes their gaming with a military twist.

• Grab the popcorn - Splinter Cell movie is in development

  Tom Clancy's stealthy hero, Sam Fisher, has been in shadows for a while now, ever since his last game outing in 2010's Splinter Cell: Conviction, but he'll be back in action in 2013 in a new game and, it seems, a blockbuster movie.

  Several movie studios are apparently circling the rights to make Splinter Cell: The Movie. "Warner Bros had engaged in talks," says Deadline Hollywood's Mike Fleming, "But now, the conversation is with Paramount Pictures, which is the frontrunner to land the project."

  "Ubisoft will be very involved and retain control over how the game is translated into a film," he goes on to add. The French publisher has invested heavily in its own movies recently, with short live action films to promote both Assassin's Creed and Ghost Recon.

  Paramount, of course, has a long history with Tom Clancy projects, having been home to the Jack Ryan series, which has seen stars like Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck play the stoic secret agent in hit movies such as Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger and The Sum of All Fears.

  New game Splinter Cell: Blacklist will be reaching our TVs first, however, with Sam Fisher now in charge of the Fourth Echelon espionage team. There'll be voice-activated features for Kinect, and you'll also be able to use something called "killing in motion" to seamlessly transition from one stealth kill to the next while moving.

  Splinter Cell: Blacklist is due for release in Spring 2013. As for the Splinter Cell movie, which of Hollywood's current tough guys do you think deserves to wear the goggles?
  

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