Cliff Bleszinski, what have you done?
The Epic Games designer popularized the Horde multiplayer gametype – in which you and friends battle against waves of AI enemies – with Gears of War 2, and now it seems that nary a major action game can ship for Xbox without it. The latest series to join the Horde is Ghost Recon, which will add a Guerrilla mode to upcoming sequel Future Soldier alongside the campaign and traditional co-op archetypes.
We sampled both Guerrilla and a co-op mission and came away duly impressed. In the former, the rules are almost straight out of the Gears 3 playbook – each of the 50 waves gets tougher as you go, and every tenth round is a “boss wave,” which here means you’ll get armored vehicles and, later, attack choppers and tanks – right down to a home base area that you have to keep the enemy out of. In Future Soldier, however, even more weight is given to your headquarters, as any foe that breaches your perimeter for 20 straight seconds results in a game-over. Also unlike Gears, your base moves to a different part of the map every 10 waves whether you like it or not, just so you never get too comfortable defending one spot.
Even more so than in Gears, it’s a good idea to stick to the buddy system, as it becomes even harder to revive fallen friends in Future Soldier because the bullets are so much more lethal. Indeed, just a couple of rounds from the wrong end of a gun are enough to knock you out of commission. Fortunately, though, you’ll earn Wave Bonuses the longer you survive – single-use abilities that come in great handy during the headier battles. Radar extends the range of your foe-finding gear, while invisibility lets you use your stealthy camouflage even while standing up and running. Missile lets you guide a rocket from above down onto the target of your choice – we saved ours for a boss wave and took out an APC and all of its fleshy contents – while a defense turret helps keep bad guys out of your base and the ultimate air strike will carpet bomb a designated area.
Between rounds you’ll be able to restock ammo and grab a new weapon via air-dropped crates. Fortunately, better guns become available as the opposing force gets tougher. All told, our initial impression is that it’s much slower and more deliberate than Gears’ Horde, though we’d expect that from a Ghost Recon game. It’s also arguably more cerebral, as attacks must be carefully coordinated as enemies all begin to funnel towards your team base, pinching you and your friends into a progressively tighter spot. Also worth noting is that, like Halo 3: ODST’s Firefight mode, matchmaking will not be supported over Xbox Live. Instead, Guerrilla mode is only playable online with those on your Friends list.
Meanwhile, we got to try out four-player campaign co-op in the game’s forest-y tenth mission – the same one we played solo for our last preview. We appreciated how the game’s signature synchronized shooting mechanic – in which you tag four foes with RB and then cap them all simultaneously by holding RB to issue the kill order – works in co-op. When you’ve trained your weapon sight over one of the marked targets, his tag goes blue and a blue laser paints him, letting your teammates know, “Hey, I’ve got this guy. Aim at someone else!” If only our co-op teammates could’ve wrapped their head around the concept…
After many hiccups, Future Soldier seems to be rounding into form as a worthy entry in the venerable Ghost Recon series. Cliff Bleszinski, we imagine, will be among those who are pleased when he sees it.
PUBLISHER: Ubisoft • DEVELOPER: Ubisoft Paris/Red Storm • MULTIPLAYER: Up to 16 on Xbox Live • RELEASE DATE: May 22, 2012 • FOR FANS OF: Horde modes, base defense, sniping
