Beta Boiz! A Couple Hours with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon:Wildlands
- BradBeGodlike
- Feb 26, 2017
- 4 min read
Peace fam, it's ya boy BradBeGodlike with my first impressions/first few hours with Ubisoft's latest game in the Tom Clancy line Ghost Recon: Wildlands. Since this game was announced and gameplay was shown at E3 2016 this game wasn't even on my radar, I didn't care whatsoever as I thought it would just be another cash grab experience by Ubisoft but after hopping into the beta for a couple hours with some good friends my opinion of this game has changed immensely.
Environment
Wildlands boasts a massive open world for you and ya SQUAD to wreck havoc in, I was very impressed by the draw distance and drew instant comparisons to the massive world in the Just Cause series. With massive open worlds vehicles are a must for traversal which this game has no shortage of options. Cars, trucks, dirtbikes and helicopters were used to get around from one side of the map to the next and we only got around a small portion of that huge map in the beta.
There are civvies walking around along with hostiles make the world feel alive, you can free rebels that will grab weapons and hunt down hostiles in the area as seen here.
I was surprised by how well done this game was put together given Ubisoft's track record and their recent P2P multiplayer connection debacle in their other recent title For Honor, which we have an short article on FiendFix about featuring a video, give it a look folks!
Gameplay
Wildlands plays very well and gives the player tons of options to go about their deeds. Booting the game up the player can create their own player which is a welcome edition in any game. The character customization is just enough to wet your palate and there are unlockable items that you can find around the game world.
Here's Rashida the character I made in the beta.
Weapons have different attachments like silencers that can be put on or taken off for a stealthy approach as to not alert enemies in the area to your presence which is nice and it doesn't degrade like the silencers did in Metal Gear Solid 3 hooray!
After dispatching an enemy you can pick up their weapons but I couldn't find out how to customize them during my time in the beta.
When encountering a settlement with multiple hostiles a drone can be deployed to survey the area and tag enemy combatants. A neat realistic feature of the drone is the addition of a battery that can run out after a certain period of time and the drone can only be used up to a certain range before it dies out. These two features can be upgraded to extend the usage of the drone and after it dies it is usable again after a short cooldown period.
Once enemies are tagged you are allowed to initiate a quick kill with your squadmates to take down hostiles in succession but we couldn't seem to get the mechanic correct but I'm sure it's cool once you know what to do.
The game reminds me of Metal Gear Solid in how you can approach a hostile and use them as a meat-shield (I play a lot of shields but I am aware that this is a real world reference, I'll include my Xbox Live Gamertag at the bottom of the article if you wanna play with the God!) or just knock them out.
One option I like having in third person shooters is the ability to choose how you want to aim. Wildlands allows you to choose over the shoulder aiming on your right or left shoulder or you can aim down the sights in first person to line up more precise headshots. These additions are always welcome in a shooter and I enjoy the freedom. (It would be nice if Gears of War 4 allowed you to aim over your left shoulder but most people are right handed so this may have been intentional.)
The movement is solid, you can switch between standing, crouching and prone to make your way around.
Vehicles handle sort of like the Grand Theft Auto series which is good as you can drift around the dirt roads of the region, dirtbikes handle the same as they are pleasurable to drive around in, except when you go off-road and the game launches you, turning the game in a flight simulator like it did me to hilarious effect.
Check out my liftoff on Xbox Live Clips
Helicopters are also fun to maneuver and again handle like they would in GTA, some of them having miniguns attached to the side to shred your enemies.
Overall
I enjoyed my time with the game and I'm contemplating picking it up. It also made me want to pick up a copy of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain which is also an massive open world experience similar to this one. The Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands Open Beta is live from February 24th until February 27th so jump into it this weekend and see how you like it as it is open to all players.
Peace
BradBeGodlike is an avid gamer, student of film and generally funny dude who just started writing articles for FiendFix in 2017.
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