A quartet of warriors works to liberate a country from an evil drug lord in the third-person, open-world shooter Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands: Gold Edition (Ubisoft, Rated Teen, reviewed on Xbox One, $99.99).
Ubisoft, a company no stranger to creating open-world adventures such as popular franchises “Assassin’s Creed,” “Far Cry,” “The Division” and “Watch Dogs,” unleashes its largest exotic locale to date for up to four players to get lost in its covert, military-style shenanigans.
Specifically, an elite team of American special forces soldiers, under the U.S. government-sanctioned Operation Kingslayer, must near single-handedly bring down the Santa Blanca cartel and its leader, El Sueno, currently turning Bolivia into a narco-state.
After customizing an avatar — down to minutia such as facial hair, body armor, patches, clothing, headsets, tattoos, head gear and backpacks (a roughly 30-minute-long process for the military fashion-conscious fanatics) — a player enters the massive wonderland of violent confrontations.
Within 21 provinces set over lively landscape incorporating such terrain as mountains, salt flatlands, jungles, swamps and caves, his team must eliminate or capture crazed drug bosses while dealing with narc agents and weapon-loaded minions looking for a confrontation in each small town, field and roadside encountered.
A rebel faction will help the group accomplish missions and even fight alongside them while a collection of vehicles (roughly 60 types) is to be found and used at will, including helicopters, planes, boats, tractors and armored SUVs.
Between the bare bones rather idiotic story, players will find a time-sucking, into-the-weeds game where they scour a map to look for missions, sub-missions and supplies. They will interrogate bad guys, rescue citizens, shut down radio towers and assassinate foes amongst the many challenges as they cause chaos whenever possible to disrupt the cartel.
After about 15 hours spread out in the Itapúa province, the game may take a lifetime to complete, here’s some observations and tips for the vast potential of fun for the solo player working with three, computer-controller squad mates:
• Handling a helicopter was as equally frustrating as exciting. Trying to maneuver it in the air was a real pain, but once I had it positioned an enemy hot zone; it’s quite a show.
I could use the onboard machine gun to fire on enemy-infested structures while my teammates blanketed the grounds with gunfire.
Once the craft took too many hits and smoke began poring out, I was easily able to use a parachute to abandon the craft, land and clean up any remaining foes.
• I found little reason to approach missions with any stealth tactics other than to get close enough to deploy a drone and control it to survey an area (yes, that is as cool as it sounds) as well as to command my team to attack the enemy.
• A handy auto-targeting feature called sync shot allows the warrior to use binoculars or the drone to select up to three enemies from a distance and have the other soldiers get into position and assassinate the targets when commanded.
• I appreciated the variety of weapons — nearly 80 total, hidden in crates and taken from bosses — that range from a M40A5 sniper rifle to a SMG-11 compact machine gun and Super Shorty shotgun. Each can be adorned with different paint jobs and upgraded with attachments in a very slick interface.
• So on a typical submission, I took the team to a cartel stronghold to rescue a rebel leader. I went the long way, walking around and climbing up a mountainous region until I had rested on a perfect perch to start sniping enemies while my team went into the hostile area.
Well, much to my chagrin, a helicopter showed up from above and began pelting us with gunfire.
The good news is that I used my MG121 light machine gun and literally blew the copter out of the air, a very empowering moment. However, I also got stuck in a rock formation and could not get out no matter how much I made my avatar slither, bend and move. I eventually crawled my way out but had missed most of the fun as my squad cleaned out the cartel presence.
• On that note, I also found the game to be a bit laggy on some late-night sessions. Missions became a joke as I slowed down to a near crawl and could not get my avatar to move while action was happening around me. Those glitches basically threw any attack strategy out the window.
• Players will be really impressed by the gorgeous terrain often populated with unassuming citizens doing chores or walking alongside the road, farm animals roaming, and vehicles always in motion.
More specifically, during a night raid, I was walking along the road and ran into a vender selling multicolored lentils. He had a generator hooked up to a floodlight to illuminate his goods and a llama hanging around behind him. The detail was so ridiculous that even gnats were flying around the heated lamps.
• If I hated the helicopters, then I really hated trying to fly a plane. So I steal a small engine plane from the cartel, my team gets in and I promptly drive off the makeshift runway into a gorge, never figuring out how to get airborne. The plane rolls down onto a twisty main road, and I then get stuck on a tree. I wept liberally and shut down the game for the evening.
• Although vehicles are plentiful to navigate dangerous roads, getting ambushed was the norm, so using fast travel points found on the Tachmap made it a click away from getting closer to the next objective. Early on, I broke out into a manic sweat trying to return a recued rebel, driving at night on winding roads and using a beaten-up mini-bus.
Now, allowing humans to control other members of the squad is really the best way to enjoy the action. The easy-to-drop-in and -out cooperative mode offers a totally different experience.
Basically, a human trying to discuss strategy makes it a totally unpredictable experience that leads to lots of varied outcomes.
During a session, I worked well with a teammate, managed to secure some cartel intelligence and interrogate a lieutenant. However, with only two of us in the action, trying to keep a propaganda radio broadcast active while the cartel attacked was a fruitless endeavor.
My suggestion is always have a team of four friends and use microphones to relay commands. Do not use the woefully inadequate controller commands. It will guarantee to test friendships.
Overall, for lovers of classic soldier warfare, Tom Clancy’s “Ghost Recon Wildlands” expansive action is a worthy co-operative adventure. It’s easy to learn (except for piloting a plane or helicopter) and great fun for a quartet of pals.
However, I never quite ascended to the brilliance of the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise, or the character depth and blockbuster moments of the “Uncharted” series.
Note: The Gold Edition of the game ($30 more than the standard edition) also contains a Deluxe Pack of goodies including a wilderness rifle and huntsman motorcycle along with a Season’s Pass to freely download two major expansion packs (“Narco Road” and “Fallen Ghosts”), and extra items such as a colorful Bolivian bus and multiple clothing and weapon customizations.
• Joseph Szadkowski can be reached at jszadkowski@washingtontimes.com.
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