After a five-year hiatus, Ghost Recon is finally back on the console. The single-player campaign focuses on a U.S.-focused threat that’s escalating to a global level. As we’ve come to expect in modern military shooters, you’ll fight through a variety of exotic locales. Starting in Zambia, you’ll work your way through Nigeria, Pakistan, Norway, and Russia.
Future Soldier features a wide variety of mission types, support for co-op campaign play, and some very entertaining high-tech gadgets, including optic camo suits, synchronized kills shots, UAV drones, and Warhound, to name a few. If that’s not enough, fiddle around with up to thousands of gun combinations to design nuanced in-game weapons. We liked our squad AI and having the ability to tag enemies before
sending teammates after them. The AI squad members were also less likely to be detected during stealth missions—especially important because detection during a stealth mission required a mission restart (not a design philosophy we wholeheartedly embrace). Future Soldier lacks the polish we’ve grown used to from big A-list shooters. Texture issues were clearly visible on the console versions, so our hope is that the PC version (becoming available as we go to press) cleans up the mess.
The game is one coat of paint away from beautiful. Still, it animates and controls very well. There’s also the now-ubiquitous Horde-style mode, called Guerilla, where you and up to three additional players take on 50 waves of enemies. The competitive multiplayer with four object-based modes is where the developers have spent a lot of time. However, you’ll want to play with others who can stick to playing their combat roles. At the end of the day, the primary reason to buy and keep Future Soldier is multiplayer.
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