Really Surprising: Ghost Recon Phantoms

[Lil_Rimmy]

First off:
The latest Ghost Recon game is a free-to-play multiplayer shooter released on steam with micro-transactions.

...

AND IT'S REALLY GOOD!

Seriously! When I first saw it, I had to go cry as I watched Ghost Recon slowly hang itself in my mind. The beautiful single-player game that I played on the play-station, like some kind of early version of ArmA. It was finally time to see it die.

So I downloaded it out of morbid curiosity. Then I played a match. Then another. And another. It's really damn good! The movement feels very fluid yet not jumpy and ridiculous, your teammates REALLY matter with everyone having very clear roles, and if you get close enough to teammates you buff each other. Cover is important, and gives you buffs for staying in it. You can LAY DOWN, something which third person shooters have been missing for a while. Objectives are key whilst kills are secondary. All of the abilities the classes unlock are not major OP rocket launchers and such, but rather buffs or debuffs.

For example, as the Assualt, I unlocked a heat drone which would burn my enemies if they were out of cover (when it was turned on). So I would dive to cover, turn it on and lock down the enemies, letting my teammates rush and flank. Meanwhile, the Recon can camo or scan, and the Support can either Shield or something else (I have somehow forgotten, damn you 3:30am memory!)

It just felt... good. It felt like a good game, a good ghost recon game and a good multiplayer game. Even the micro transactions are fine, as you still need to be a certain rank to use them, and anything in the store can be bought with ingame money.

So, have you played this game yet, and if so, do you like it? If not, what other games or such were you really surprised by?

 

[Barbas]

(Snip).

Oh, hello there! I think you may have taken a wrong turn, my good man - this is the Forum Games. 3:30am memory indeed!

OT: Haven't played that game myself, regrettably - I hear that particular series is pretty good pedigree. I do like the sound of being able to go prone, though - not every obstacle on a battlefield is roughly chest-high.

 

[shrekfan246]

Er...

I dunno if I'd really say that. I mean, admittedly I haven't played it, merely watched a Youtube video of a match or two, but it just looks average to me. Pretty generic, boilerplate military shooter between the typical gun loadouts and unlockable gadgets for the same four classes everyone else uses, and chest-high walls in less-than-large arenas with gritty, gunmetal visuals and war-torn buildings.

I'll admit I liked how quickly players could die, but overall it just looks... like another multiplayer shooter.

 

[hazabaza1]

It's alright.
A lot of snipers come along and it just feels like it doesn't really fit the feel of the game so that's not so fun, plus a good chunk of the maps and game-modes feel not too well designed and last a bit long.

I played a good few hours, but I don't know if I'll touch it much any more.

 

[josemlopes]

When I played back then I really liked it, a lot of people say its VERY pay to win but I didnt had any problem in being ahead of the other guys. Either no one was paying back then or I was really good. I did enjoy the gameplay and how it had a very strong emphasis in not letting your team open for an attack from an unprotected side.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

(Snip).

Oh, hello there! I think you may have taken a wrong turn, my good man - this is the Forum Games. 3:30am memory indeed!

OT: Haven't played that game myself, regrettably - I hear that particular series is pretty good pedigree. I do like the sound of being able to go prone, though - not every obstacle on a battlefield is roughly chest-high.

Haha, bloody hell, I must of hit the idiot switch last night. I saw games and went "That's the one!". Thanks for letting me know, mate.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

It's alright.
A lot of snipers come along and it just feels like it doesn't really fit the feel of the game so that's not so fun, plus a good chunk of the maps and game-modes feel not too well designed and last a bit long.

I played a good few hours, but I don't know if I'll touch it much any more.

I'll agree with you on the snipers part. There was this one train station map where 99% percent of everyone went sniper, and the few who weren't spent all of their time prone and running like little girls because if you poked a foot out of cover you would be filled with more holes than the pincusion of an arthritic ex-gangster grandmother who dropped her cup of tea.

I'll agree with some of the maps seeming a bit odd. Some maps they did the CS:GO/Dota/LoL map of having lanes, whilst others were absolute anarchy with holes everywhere and dead ends with sniper posts every 10 steps. I know one map had a capture point in an area that once you dropped down, you couldn't get back out of. And this area was about the size of a room, which is rather hard to describe but it wasn't too big. So if all the team went down there, no-one would be able to fight the enemies above them. But then again, there only was one control point.

 

[Savagezion]

You can LAY DOWN, something which third person shooters have been missing for a while.

Can you roll or crawl while laying down? I love the rolling movement in the first Ghost Recons. WOuld be cool if you could shoot wildly while rolling.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

When I played back then I really liked it, a lot of people say its VERY pay to win but I didnt had any problem in being ahead of the other guys. Either no one was paying back then or I was really good. I did enjoy the gameplay and how it had a very strong emphasis in not letting your team open for an attack from an unprotected side.

Yeah, funnily enough I was doing REALLY well on my first few matches, getting quadra and triple kills almost every round. Then I would get flanked and die immediately, which I liked, because it was my fault I advanced without support.

I actually loved having snipers on the team, because I had a really good duo with a friend who would keep marking the enemies and I would flank and take them out. I never had a problem with someone running into the same room and whoever got the first shot wins, which is one of my personal hates of games like Call of Duty. If some sprints into a room and I am not sprinting at them, I just gun them down because I have cover and stable shooting.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

You can LAY DOWN, something which third person shooters have been missing for a while.

Can you roll or crawl while laying down? I love the rolling movement in the first Ghost Recons. WOuld be cool if you could shoot wildly while rolling.

Yup, in this you can slide around and into cover (which is my favourite tactic against a sniper). If you go prone while in cover, you lay down with your back to the wall, and basically just roll a bit to the right or left to shoot.

Man, all this talk makes me want to go play the old Ghost Recons again. I remember that one mission where I couldn't work out how to kill the tank that entered the valley, so I just ran for it up the hill XD.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Well the people who are saying it's pay to win are wrong. Played two games and came first in both. The second one I got 3 10+ kill-streaks. Either everyone else is shit or I'm apparently really fucking good.

All those snipers are hilariously bad atleast. I can run down the corridor zig-zagging and laughing my balls off until I get into shotgun range.

EDIT: And now comes the negatives that I've experienced.
- The game is supposedly out of beat, yet it only has 3 maps, two of which are actually versus.

- It keeps chucking me in random servers regardless of connection, and regardless of what the search bar says. Even if the majority of the people I'm matched with are also Aussie, it still gives us EU or US servers

- The progress hits the wall, HARD. You feel like you're going fairly well, you get a new gun, everything is fine and dandy. Lol nope. And with their "tier" system, you have to buy every gun of a certain class below the tier of the one you actually want. More wasted cash/credits.

- There are certain pieces of equipment with different "tiers" which are basically the exact same thing as the lower tier item but with marginally increased stats. They still cost loads though, regardless of how marginally useful they are.

- The voice comms love to get choppy.

- Some guns have a "Coming Soon" notification displayed where the attachments menu should be. How the fuck is this out of beta?

- The shotgun I bought for Support cannot be used by my Assault. It has to be purchased AGAIN and be tooled up AGAIN even though it's the exact same weapon.

The Micro-transactions. (Yes I know it's F2P so it's gotta have them.)
They hurt. 10 bucks is about the price of a tier 3 gun. Though I couldn't say for sure, because it doesn't TELL you it's price until you've bought the gun below it. And god knows how much it costs to buy a tier 3 gun using in game currency. Tier 2 was about 15k in game credits, tier one being around 5k.


TL;DR: Game shouldn't be out of beta, not worth the micro-transactions it charges. Should only be played until the grind and the pay wall become noticeable ((atleast until they fix their shit and give it more than 2 versus maps) and fix the other stuff I mentioned)


EDIT 2: Also "Tactical Insertion" always says unavailable. another indication it shouldn't have left beta.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

All those snipers are hilariously bad atleast. I can run down the corridor zig-zagging and laughing my balls off until I get into shotgun range.

That's even funnier when you are using the blitz. You can just calmly stroll forwards whilst the snipers freak out because THE BULLETS, THEY DO NOTHING!

 

[Zhukov]

Huh.

I've actually had a hankering for some multiplayer shooting.

This shit better be good or I will come back and say sarcastic things. Just you see if I don't!

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

Huh.

I've actually had a hankering for some multiplayer shooting.

This shit better be good or I will come back and say sarcastic things. Just you see if I don't!

Oh I bet you will come back saying sarcastic things.
Because you've never done that before! It'd be something new for you, saying sarcastic things. You'd probably be really good at saying sarcastic things. Maybe throwing a bit of sarcasm around?

Yeah. It'd be a new experience for you. Just you see if you don't!

 

[Caliostro]

I played it a bit yesterday because a friend of mine said the same thing.

First impressions: Typical Ubisoft. Really interesting core design with some phenomenally stupid management decisions.

First of all vertical progression needs to just fucking die. "Leveling" doesn't belong in this type of game at all, let alone the kind of damn near MMO-aggressive leveling this has. Doubly so because not only do you need "levels", you also need to buy weapons in tiers... And any weapon you buy is stuck to a class, even classes that use the same fucking weapon...

In second place: Buying individual grenades and "repairing" armor is simply an asinine fucking mechanic to push for real money usage...

...Which leads us to the third point: The game is borderline pay to win. Real money bypasses the insane grind for weapons and even lets you buy xp boosters and weapons which give you a massive leg up. Yes, given enough time you can get everything for free, but given enough time you'll see the fall of every civilization and things that were once thought impossible become real. "Given enough time" the latest Dungeon Keeper is completely free to play and there's no reason for the amounts of criticism it received. Except "given enough time" is exactly the catch. Vertical progression does not belong in this kind of game, but it is crowbared in exactly to allow the borderline extortion they can leverage with it. Fuck. That.

On the other hand, who the hell did the balance for this? There are 3 classes. THREE. How in the world could they fuck up so bad? Sniper and Assault seem fairly balanced, and then you Support, a class with an LMG with a massive amount of bullets and essentially no recoil while being shot from cover. Additionally while the Assault class has an ability that allows for pushes by disabling enemy weapons, it also disables the Assault's own weapon... Fortunately for the support they have a similar ability to allow for pushes (creates a huge bullet proof shield around you) except they get to shoot too! Lovely.

On a final note the game has a lot of anti-skill mechanics that, while one can argue fit the game's slower paced design, annoy me personally. For example snipers require a small "ready" time after being scoped to be accurate, which forces you to sit there like a lemon and completely removes the ability to quickscope. Also any movement other than walking normally requires to "undeploy" your weapon, and consequently "re-deploy" it with a small 1/2 second delay whenever you try to fire... Which is incredibly annoying.

All in all, it's quite interesting, but it's a shame the game's financial mode is such a pile of junk and that it features any vertical progression, let alone the asinine version it does, which significantly diminishes the game's potential in my book. Going to play it, at least for a bit until the vertical progression starts to annoy me too much, but Titanfall is still my shooter of choice.