Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands - PlayStation 4

This is a great game--my new favorite. I have to give it 5 stars overall. The scenery is probably the best I've personally seen on the PS4. The weapons and equipment are pretty realistic, in my opinion. I just recently stopped playing Metal Gear Solid 5 after playing that and nothing else over the last 9 months. I believe this game is like Far Cry 4, GTA 5, MGS 5, and Fallout 4 all wrapped into one (with a little imagination). I own all those games for PS4, and I believe this game takes most of the best elements from the others mentioned above. The sheer number of vehicles and weapons and equipment is amazing. There are some significant pros and cons to this game, however. In no particular order, I don't agree with being able to switch to any weapons that have been unlocked whenever I feel like it. I'm not carrying all my unlocked weapons with me at all times--that would be extremely cumbersome. For the fun factor, tho, it is great. My favorite sniper so far is the MSR. I don't have the 50 cal unlocked yet, but I'm told it can even shoot down the Apache helicopter with 1 shot. My favorite machine gun is the M249. Nothing stands up to the 249 except the "Apache" Unidad helicopter, which incidentally looks almost exactly like a Cobra helicopter. I was carrying a bullpup assault rifle with a grenade launcher, but that pales in comparison now to the damage the trusty M249 deals out. I'm still using the standard 45 caliber pistol. I use everything suppressed except the 249. I absolutely HATE that (at least on Arcade level) I cannot drag off the bodies of enemies I've killed. I believe that should have been implemented into this game. I loved that on Far Cry 4. As for the Unidad, I think it's total BS that I can shoot down a gazillion Unidad helicopters, obliterate hordes of Unidad soldiers, and destroy lots and lots of Unidad vehicles, and they just keep coming and coming and coming--and then they kill me. I have pushed the Unidad alert level to LEVEL 4 on several occasions, just to see if I could kill them all. Even on Arcade level, I can't kill them all. Another thing that is hokey is a minivan should not be able to go up an almost vertical mountain. It is fun, tho. The vehicles take an extreme amount of damage before they blow up, generally. In real life (which I realize this is a game), I would not be able to take a Lambo-looking sports car cross-country and run over cactus after cactus and smash into stone walls, etc, etc, etc, without totaling the thing out in the first crash. I LOVE the sync-shots. It really helps with the stealthy sniper approach. When all else goes to hell, tho, I bring out the M249 and get to work. I really like being able to upgrade weapons, as with Fallout 4. I like stopping vehicles and pulling people out and taking their cars as with GTA5. The scenery really reminds me a lot of MGS5 and FC4. Not surpising, considering who produced this game. What I really, really, really like about this game is it IS fun. I have probably spent 30 hours playing so far, and it has gone by like a snap of my fingers (almost). And, I'm just on the very easiest level. I am going to have to get a lot better at this game to even think about upping the difficulty level. The AI on this game is really pretty good. My AI soldiers, as in my 3 teammates and the rebel soldiers, are really pretty good. They have senior moments on occasion and can't figure out where to go, but for the most part, they are right there beside me or at least very close in a gunfight. The enemy soldiers AI reminds me a lot of MGS5. One shot unsuppressed (and sometimes even suppressed), and they have my location, and they are coming for me and my team. I hate the SAM missle sites. I have gone in and wiped them out in order to steal an aircraft only to discover that there was another SAM missile launcher in range that enjoyed shooting me down. Flares would have been a nice touch to be able to drop out of an airplane or heli, I am going to try switching seats with another player and try decoying an incoming missile with a flare gun, but I bet it won't work. But I am going to try it if I can line everything up. I have gotten stuck in the map 3x so far. Each time, I have fallen down into a crevice somewhere, and the only way I could get out was to fast travel out. That used to happen to me in Skyrim back in the day. But for the miles and miles or km and km of map this game has, I suppose I can excuse a couple glitches here and there. I'm pretty sure this is operator error, but I am not good at base jumping yet. I've got it figured out how to jump out of a heli or an airplane, tho. The parachute is really cool. There are a ton of different vehicles available. I hardly have to walk anywhere, but I do it just to try to discover everything on the map. Usually everywhere I go there is lots of ammunition available, which is nice. Not sure how realistic that is, but it makes the game more fun. I don't like how I have to stand directly in front of the ammunition crates in order to re-load ammo. Same thing goes for the supply tagging. It seems like I have to be right in front and touching each crate in order to load or tag. When doing air-to-air combat, it is difficult for me to fly a heli and shoot the guns all at the same time while still trying not to get shot down. Luckily, my guys out on the sides of a small heli do a lot of shooting, and they take out a lot of enemies while I perform my "circle of death" going around and around a target. I'm sure some company will come up with a game better than this in the future, but for now, this game is the bomb. 5 stars.*** UPDATE 4/3/17 ***I still love this game. I'm level 28 now. I've unlocked a lot of cool weapons and gear. My favorite loadout is still the MSR in the sniper slot, M249 in the light machine gun slot, the P45T in the pistol slot, and the standard drone. For destroying vehicles and especially that pesky Unidad "Apache", I do switch to the HTI for a 1-shot kill. I have been using the explosive drone a lot for taking out SAM sites and generators. Some of the bases are almost impossible to get into, and the explosive drone really helps on occasion. For example, there is a Serpentidad (or something spelled close to that) in the bottom center of the map. It is crawling with Unidad. It also has a SAM site and a generator. Blowing up the generator opens all the gates, and destroying the SAM site helps with a mission underneath it on the map in order to steal a +3000 medical supplies helicopter. I had to attempt that mission 3 times to get it done. I got shot down 2x, and then I figured out that the SAM launcher was in that Unidad base. So, I had to take out the SAM site first in order to not get blasted out of the sky by missiles on the 3rd (and successful) attempt. So far, the SAM launchers and Unidad are my worst enemies. I can't say for sure how many, but I think I shot down about 15 Apache helicopters one time when I was discovered sneaking around the Unidad base after I had released all the prisoners out of the prison. It is ridiculous how many soldiers and land-based vehicles and helicopters spawn almost immediately after the previous units have been destroyed. They just keep coming and coming, in waves LOL, and the only way I have found so far to get the Unidad alert down from 4 stars is to run and hide somewhere that Unidad cannot find me. Eventually, they give up, but it takes a really long time to outrun Unidad. I have still been playing on the easiest level so far since beginning the game. I have discovered almost everything on the massive map, but I still have a long, long way to go before I can finish the game. I also think it is a bit unfair for me to spot and mark targets with my drone and my AI crew somehow targets them and can wipe them out with a single shot, sometimes even thru what appears to be solid walls. My recommendation is to get the MSR, HTI, M249, and the explosive drone as soon as possible. I also think that the fastest revive skills and best binocular skills are a must. The binoculars are very handy maxed out for when drones are jammed. I have now seen videos where the streamer uses the EMP drone almost exclusively to take down road convoys. I haven't done that yet. I usually just assault the escort vehicles from the air and then land next to the truck and loot it. From the ground, I usually shoot up the rear escort vehicle and then run the other 2 vehicles off the road and loot the truck. I love the helicopters for close air-to-ground combat. I fly, and the AI teammates shoot the crap out of everything once I give the order. I'm thinking I may start playing online, but I haven't done it yet. I'm thinking that human teammates will probably do better than the AI. BUT, the AI teammates are very good, in my opinion. The AI enemies are almost always very good. A couple times the AI teammates and the AI enemies have gotten stuck around vehicles or other obstacles, but usually they are very, very "smart", sometimes too smart, especially when I get surprised by an enemy AI it seems that way. I've gotten stuck in the map a couple more time and have had to fast travel out. Not a huge deal, but a minor irritation. Even when I happen to get KIA and re-spawn fairly close to the mission objective, I hardly ever do it the same way the second (or third) time around. It just seems like the AI soldiers surprise me sometimes by taking different routes, especially in the cities. At a fixed location, like a "steal an airplane" mission, they are pretty much in a concentrated area, but they do walk around a lot sometimes, and if they are alerted, they will come looking for me. I absolutely hate the "X" being the machine guns on my helicopters setup. The way I fly, I don't think I can (or will) change the button to control the fixed guns on helicopters. It is a huge pain in the butt to shoot missiles or fixed guns. In order to shoot from anything other than head-on, I have to tip the nose of the heli way down in order to shoot down from any significant height to engage targets on the ground. I believe I have crashed my helis several times because I was pushing too many buttons and manipulating the joysticks on my PS4 controller all at once. I love (and hate) the bullet drop on the weapons. I don't think there is too much side wind pushing on the bullets, but there is definitely bullet drop for many calibers once I'm shooting over 200m. I like this so much better than Far Cry 4 in that respect. The game is still really fun for me, and I'm going to keep playing it until I'm tired of it. 5 stars remains!*** UPDATE 11/5/17 *** with SPOILERSStill my new favorite game. I've discovered some glitches with the game since the last patch, but overall the game is still very good. I finished the game for the 2nd time on EXTREME/TIER ONE Level 19 when Karen Bowman shot El Seuno a few times and finished him off.The good:TREMENDOUS improvement in the helicopter controls over the "classic" controls. In my experience, I can't play the game on the hardest level (EXTREME) and Tier One without using armed helicopters. If you haven't learned how to fly helicopters, you'd better learn. I need them and so do you, especially to take out the armed convoy escorts. I've almost perfected the takedown of all convoys.I like the realism that comes along with the helicopters. It seems like the wind and rain have an effect on flying. I also like that my helo doesn't slide down the fing mountain now every time I land at a slight angle.Along with Tier One came the HTI BDC Desert Camo, etc, etc, etc, on STEROIDS, lol. I maxed it out to Level 15. Nothing else even comes close. This 12.7 / 50 cal sniper is an absolute MUST. I also leveled up my ACR to Level 30. It is the best assault rifle for me.I also like the ballistics of each rifle in the respect that I have to compensate for elevation on all rifles, and windage and elevation on moving targets. No more putting the crosshairs on a target 500m away and headshooting him every time. I think this last patch improved on the distances targets are visible thru the high-power scope. My longest shot has been 795m. I've seen on the internet where somebody made a 1200m shot? On my PS4, I can't even see an enemy that far out, so that shot must have been on a PC, I think anyway.The bad:One shot (even suppressed?) and everybody in the world knows exactly where I am? I'm calling BS on that one. I haven't gotten stuck in the map lately, but today when I was transferring El Cardinel from a 4-door sedan to a helicopter, the game wouldn't let me cross some terrain. Really pissed me off. I had to put EC back into the car, drive the car right up to the helo, and then take him out of the car and stuff him into the helo. Good thing no Unidad or SBC were around or I would have gotten smoked. Still pissy about wave after wave after wave of SBC and Unidad that miraculously appear from thin air to fight me with soldiers and vehicles and never seem to run out. Still hate the SAM launchers. I have found that I can land close but still out of range and blow the SAM launchers up with Explosive Drones or C4 or grenades. Once you blow up a SAM launcher YOU CANNOT GET SHOT DOWN AND REVIVED, or the SAM launchers will miraculously re-appear--fully intact and ready to shoot you down. It is amazing how quickly a bunch of soldiers and drug dealers can rebuild a complicated piece of machinery like that... The only way I have found to defeat the SAM launchers is to blow them all up (there are 3) that surrounded the area where the mission was to "Open the Bank Vault". I used an armed helicopter to fly in and out of that area after I took out the 3 SAM launchers in the vicinity (and never got shot down or revived). It is almost impossible to defeat the hordes of soldiers unless you have an armed helicopter, did I mention that? The little SBC white helicopter with machine guns is the best one. The one with rockets is OK if the targets are (and they are rarely) stationary.Still a great game, and I have been playing it and nothing else for almost 8 months. I am going to keep playing it until I find something better. Far Cry 5 is supposed to be coming out 2/27/18, so I'm sure I will need to be playing that when it arrives.I paid about $60 when this game came out. Now it is about 1/2 that. If you like an intense action shooter where you can drive and fly and deal out massive amounts of destruction, you owe it to yourself to play this game. The harder levels require some careful planning to get thru the missions. No more smash and grab with brute force. The hardest missions for me were the ones where I had to remain undetected. If you like strategy/careful planning (sometimes) to go along with your mayhem, this is the game. Buy it and plan on spending a lot of hours playing it. 5 stars remains.

I actually wasn't even aware of this game, and ended up buying it for around $25, about a year after it came out.Here is my opinion of the game.Easily my favorite Tom Clancy game I’ve played since Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, one of my favorite games on the PS4, and possibly one of my top favorite games of all-time.With a few comparisons to FarCry:While I love the FarCry games, I’ve found issues with each one that have kind of brought them down a little. One is the fact that once I unlock some of the weapons I really wanted, the game is almost over, and I don’t get much chance to use them (like the Bushman in FC3). It was particularly annoying in FC5 when I ended up (unintentionally) rushing the game. I was rushing to gain ‘Resistance Points’, to unlock weapons, which has the unfortunate side effect of also rushing you to the confrontations with the bosses. It made a somewhat short game feel even shorter.The gun issue was somewhat addressed by the ability to reset the outposts in FC4 and FC5, now you have more enemies to shoot with your new weapons.In a recent FC5 update this was fixed when they FINALLY added a “New Game +” mode.In Ghost Recon: Wildlands, the only thing stopping you from getting the exact weapons you want, when you want them, is finding the location of the case containing the weapon, and any specific attachments you want for it. To locate weapon and accessory cases it’s a matter of interrogating enemies, talking to locals, and finding intel to gain knowledge of these locations. I found this to be more entertaining than the FC5 methods of gaining Resistance Points, and a nice touch to adding some realism and interaction with the people of the country, aside from just shooting them. I also greatly appreciated that this had no effect on the main story, like it does in FC5.Being a bit impatient, I wanted certain weapons immediately to use while playing the game. With the online community, I was able to find maps that had all of the locations marked. I got the exact weapons and attachments I wanted, almost immediately, and then proceeded to play through the rest, happy as a clam with my weapon choices.Speaking of weapon choices, the are many weapons to choose from. MANY.You’ve got all of your standard M4 style rifles, MP5, and AK-47 variants, sniper rifles, shotguns, etc. But also a very nice selection of less common weapons too.There are also a million ways to customize the weapons, to suit your tastes / needs.From barrel length, to magazine size, to paint jobs, different configurations for your stocks, grenade launchers, muzzle brakes and suppressors, to foregrips and of course sights.I’ve always found that being able to make your weapon personalized and tailor it to your own liking / needs, really adds to the experience of these type of games. You aren’t just stuck with whatever weapon the game tells you to use.I feel the same way about the ability to customize your character as well, and Wildlands has that covered too.Not since R6:V2 have I seen this level of customization for your character. FC5 tried, but there are only so many tank tops, mullets, and goofy masks I can look at before I get bored.Wildlands gives you the ability to choose your style of pants, knee pads or not, boots or shoes, shirt, vest, hats and helmets, scarves and hoods, beards and sunglasses, scars and tattoos, backpacks and patches, gloves and hair styles, gender and race, and on and on.You will find very little about your character that you can’t customize. I personally would like the option to have my pants ‘bloused’ at the boot line, but really that’s an extremely minor gripe.It’s also neat to see how your vest’s pouch set-up changes, depending on what your primary weapon is.With a customized character, and a custom weapon set, it feels like you are able to make an actual character to play as, not just some random avatar that the game provides you.Once you have your character created, the game gives you a wonderful place to use it.First let’s start with the map size.It. Is. HUGE.The FarCry maps have always felt large, as well as some of the GTA maps, but the Wildlands map blows them all away.Not only is it huge, but it is a gorgeous, and diverse place. Deserts and snowy mountains. Jungles and farmland. Rural and urban.It has the day and night cycle common to most sandbox games these days, and also has weather systems (rain) that arrive randomly. Sometimes ending as quickly as it came. Sometimes lingering for quite a while. It surprised me the first time I was driving around, and came upon wet ground, from a rain storm that happened before I was even in the area.These environmental changes have some wonderfully delightful effects too.At night, enemies will actually go to bed, or go to dinner in the mess hall.While it’s raining, you can watch the ground get wet and actually create puddles the longer it rains. Rain turns dirt in to mud and makes paved roads slick. Not just in appearance either, but in function. When roads get wet, they are more slick to drive on. When your character in on the ground, in dirt, they get dirty. When they are on the ground, in mud, they get muddy. You can also watch your character get wet, whether from a rain storm or swimming in water. You can watch the rain wash the dirt and mud off of your clothes. You can watch your character dry out in the sun, or watch puddles dry up on the ground. Sometimes the trees are blowing in the wind. Sometimes they aren’t.There are really an exceptional amount of little details that really help to make the environment feel like a real world.It’s amazing.So now you’ve got a great character, in a great world. Time to get to business.One thing FarCry has exceeded in, is story and character. Particularly with the enemies.Vas was spectacularly psychotic, Pagan Min was delightfully charismatic while being egotistical and sadistic. Joseph Seed and his brood (while weaker than the previous two) are still a solid representation of religious zealots.I found El Sueno and his people to be somewhere in between.Not as strong of a performance as Vas, not as likeable as Pagan Min (though not supposed to be either), but felt more ‘real’ than the Seeds.They do a great job of portraying exactly what they are supposed to. While not as pleasantly surprising as some other videogame characters, they are not larger than life, because they aren’t supposed to be, and it works.First thing I’ll say about the actual gameplay, is that I love it.I’ve always liked third person games, but tend to prefer first person aiming.Third person is great for running around, and being able to see where you are in relation to obstacles and hazards. It can be difficult sometimes to determine this in first person games.First person aiming is better because it’s more like lining up a real sight picture, right down the sights.Wildlands does exactly this.I really would’ve preferred to have the ability to jump, rather than climb only, but once you get used to that limitation, it’s not as noticeable.I found driving vehicles to be very fun, and each different vehicle feels, different. Different acceleration, different speeds, different handling… different. Driving also changes if you’ve got a blown tire, or two, or three, or four.With updates, the helicopters have become fun to fly now too. The original set up was odd and quirky to figure out. The updated handling is exactly what I’ve come to expect from years of playing games with helicopters in them. Much more intuitive and manageable. And once you figure out how to avoid the SAM sites, it’s no problem. Mostly. You WILL get shot down from time to time.Motorcycles are great fun, but be aware that if you are going full speed and hit something, you will get thrown off the bike and you will die.While the vehicles overall feel very real, you can drive a car off of a hundred foot cliff and land with no damage to yourself, and very little to the car. A minor gripe, really.There are fast travel points, but with as much fun as it is to navigate the landscape, I found myself rarely using them. I may be in the minority with this, but for me, sometimes the journey is as fun as the destination.The missions have a variety of different goals. From stealth infiltration and kidnapping to outright assault and mayhem.There are some missions that are repeated (interrogating enemies for intel, as an example) but I don’t feel like it’s any worse than any other typical game.I found all of the activities to be fun, fitting to the story and setting, and never once felt bored while doing them, even if it was repeatedly.Part of the reason I think I never got bored, is that you can do missions in a ‘do what you want, when you want, how you want’ kind of way.Just because you are kidnapping an enemy Lieutenant for the second or third time, doesn’t mean you can’t do it in a different way. Take a truck, stuff him in the trunk of a car, or evac in a helicopter. It’s up to you.That kind of flexibility is absolutely a blast. Planning the mission is just as big of a part as execution of the mission.Recon the area and make your own plan on how you think you can best accomplish your goal. Or how you think you’ll enjoy it more.Snipe people from a distance, distract the enemies with a flare while you sneak in, find a back way in to the compound taking out lights and sticking to the shadows, or charge right in guns-a-blazing.Disable the alarms and fire as few shots as necessary or let them call in back up to get a proper firefight going. If you aren’t having fun playing this, it’s your own fault, and you just aren’t trying.The game is not short, but I definitely found myself wanting more, when it was over.Really more of a sign of how much I enjoyed the game rather than feeling like I wasn’t getting a full experience.While there isn’t a “New Game +” mode (starting over will reset your accomplishments, skills, and gear) you can replay any completed missions, at any time.When I wanted to replay the game, I just replayed the missions one after the other, and since there is no ‘correct’ order to completing the different regions the first time through, you can do them in whatever order you please the second or third time as well.The main reasons FarCry games are fun for me, are the large maps and sandbox type ‘go anywhere, do anything’ style of gameplay, along with the ability to approach missions in a manner of your choosing.There is a goal, but how you get there, which direction you approach from, etc. are up to you.The main reasons that Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 was one of my all-time favorite shooters were character and weapon customizing ability, fun gameplay, and the ability to play through the game with one of my boys in co-op.I really don’t care much at all about online PvP gameplay. The Division and Rainbow Six: Siege did very little for me, plus story means more to me than online gaming does. I’ve only played the FC5 Arcade mode a handful of times (‘Shovel Dodgers’ is a blast though). The only online gaming I really care about is online co-op campaign. In lieu of couch co-op, it’s the next best option, and while you aren’t right there next to each other, you each get a full screen and can still communicate using a head set.With Wildlands not only do I get full online co-op campaign, but you can have multiple people join the game. So I can squad-up with both of my boys and take on the Cartel and Unidad forces as “father and sons”!Unlike the FarCry online gameplay, there isn’t a limit to the distance between players. You can be on completely different sides of the map, fast travel independently of one another, and even complete different goals at the same time. Just another way that you can assess the situation and attack the game how you please.Wildlands took everything I love about R6:V2 and FC games and combined them.If someone had asked me what I would want from a Ghost Recon game, this is it.Aside from a few minor gripes, this game is about as perfect of a game as I could’ve expected it to be.With weekly challenges you get a little more content here and there, and extra rewards just for playing the game.Even aside from rewards for weekly challenges, I foresee myself playing this game for a very long time to come.I hope that any future installments emulate and add to the gameplay and style of this spectacular title, and don’t take steps backward. If they maintain this level of gameplay and customization, the next one will be a definite pre-order, for me and my boys.