Tom Clancy fans out there, watch out. This tactical based shooter is going to blow your minds out. For many fans of the Ghost Recon series, this might not be something new for you. However for all of you who would love to try a brand new way of playing shooters, this is something that you should try out.
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| Default Weapon selection. |
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| In game friends menu. |
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| Achievements menu |
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| Face selection |
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Ghost Recon series as we all know recognize is a solid franchise in the gaming world. However to add a notch to that, Ubisoft has recently introduced an MMO based on the Ghost Recon franchise. That's right. You have an MMO Squad based 3rd person shooter.
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| Loading Screen | |
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| Respawn |
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| Assault and Matchmaking lobby |
First look into the game, there are 3 different classes of troops for you to choose and to level up slowly as you go. First there's the assault. A heavyweight that focuses solely on rushing behind enemy lines and dealing damage headfirst. Weapon of choice, an assault rifle or a shotgun. For this class, your playing style should be focusing on speed and brute force. Rush in, move about and deal as much damage as possible.
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| Recon | |
Next we have the Recon. The recon plays somewhat a supporting role being the sniper, you rely heavily on your tactics and your situational awareness. Armed with a choice of a sniper rifle or an SMG, the Recon has a rather low life span and usually darts from cover to cover and assess the surroundings. Also, a perk for the recon player would be the Oracle. The Oracle plays a heavy role in determining the survivability of you and your team mates. It plays as a radar to detect enemy troops positions thus giving the situational awareness to your entire squad allowing them to prepare themselves before assaulting an enemy hiding behind cover.
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| The Specialist |
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| Specialist and the Chatbox for global chat. | |
Then finally there is the Specialist. The specialist plays somewhat as the heavy weapons guy role in the game. Armed with light machine guns, it relies solely on providing covering fire as the assault flanks the opponents or the recon gets into a position for a sniping advantage.
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| Looking over the walls to spot enemies |
Now, what's interesting about this game is the reliance on situational awareness. For many shooters, there is a heavy reliance on spray and pray. While as the same as all Ghost Recon series, situational awareness plays key into deciding the survivability of your squad. Moving into cover is while watching for enemy positions may give you just the advantage into split second planning and preparedness. Also, there are times when burst shots and semi-auto mode proved to be efficient compared to a full auto spread. Ammo is very limited and you might have to scavenge ammo from either dead allies or dead opponents of the same class. That's right, if you're a recon, you can't pick ammo from a dead Specialist or Assault.
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| Taking Cover |
This mechanic though essential proves to be a slight problem when taking cover facing a particular direction. There are times when I had to struggle with positioning myself at the right direction to allow me to view properly. However, the sluggish movement makes it sometimes rather difficult to position properly.
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| Weapon Upgrades |
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| Store |
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Now let's take a look at the store system. Like many MMOs, Ghost Recon Online relies on a store system to provide new weapons, armor, skins ,perk upgrades, and grenade purchases. What's good about the store is that they have a wide selection of weaponry for each class giving a wide range of customization to the game itself.
Next we look at the upgrade system. The upgrade system is available for your weapons and armor. The system allows you to choose certain attachments for your weapons each giving an advantage over others in the game. These upgrades range from attachments to scopes and sights or even magazine size.
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| Tryout zone to try out your new weapons before purchasing |
Now this is the part where it impresses me the most. For many games, MMOs alike, they do not offer you a testing ground for your weapons. However, in Ghost Recon Online, there is an option to try out your weapon and attachments before purchasing it. Now this gives you the opportunity to decide which extra attachments suit your taste so as to prevent you from making the wrong purchases and waste hard earned points in the game.
Having so many good points here and there, one might think that this game is great. However the downside to the game is the matchmaking. The matchmaking in the game seems to grab the nearest available player regardless of rank to fight against each other. Often there are players who are of lower tiers are teamed against higher tier players which totally makes the game extremely unbalanced. The lack of auto-balance in the game also proved an issue. At some points, when a team loses players, there is no auto-balance to compensate for the missing players. Instead, you could be having a 3 on 6 match if too many players have left your team and you have to rely on new players to join your team to balance it out which at many a times proved to have costs a lot of defeats for certain teams.
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| I see you. |
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| I got owned. |
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Another minor issue, would be the lack of squad commands, Unlike games like the Counter Strike series, Ghost Recon Online lacks the squad commands which makes it hard for players to communicate with each other. This sometimes would result the team to lose if they're trying to warn others of enemy ambushes or trying to tell squad mates to flank the opponent. This of which sometimes lead to the massacre of the entire squad.
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| Results | |
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| Post-Game details |
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| Like many MMOs, premium cash systems must be present |
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To conclude, Ghost Recon Online has a rather unique playing style for most shooter fans as it relies heavily on your situational awareness and to truly train you to be an elite Ghost Recon team. The key to surviving in the game is your instincts, situational awareness and fire discipline.
