As charter members of the Xbox’s Ghost Recon Fan Club (founded in 2002), we’ve spent the past five years harboring one or more of the following emotions towards our favorite one-shot, one-kill military shooter series: sadness, disappointment, anger, and impatience. Yes, it’s been a long, strange road for the Ghosts ever since they grabbed next-gen by the netherbits with GRAW and its quick follow-up, GRAW2, but it appears that the developers at Ubisoft Paris are finally going to take us to a happy place with Future Soldier. We recently played parts of several different missions, and the results, we’re happy to report, should please any Recon fan.

Our first impression was that the decent but unspectacular visuals we remember from E3 last year have been upgraded to proper whiz-bang levels — in particular, a cool light filtering effect that shows flecks of dust in the sunlight as you walk through towns and outdoor plains. Gameplay-wise, during our first mission we got to test out the tagging/synchronized shooting mechanic that we detailed last issue: tag up to four enemies with RB, then pick one of the foes and target him in your weapon’s scope. Wait for all four tag icons to go blue — which indicates that your fellow Ghosts have a clear shot — then pull the trigger and your Ghosts will simultaneously follow suit, leaving four dead bodies in a split second.

It is remarkably satisfying (and easy) to use, yielding a giddier feeling than similar features in Rainbow Six Vegas and Splinter Cell Conviction. In fact, thanks largely in part to this hook, everything came together during mission 10, the last level we got to sample; we got downright excited about Future Soldier. In this scene, you’re dumped into a huge forest, rife with hills and other sightline-obscuring obstacles. After sending our drone into the air to scout ahead and using it to tag four goons, the Ghosts were smart enough to take positions that allowed them to get their shots. Rather than jump back into our Ghost’s body and try to maneuver him into position to get a fourth kill shot, though, we instead chose to order the rest of the team to fire when it was clear that no other bad guys would be around to discover the corpses.

We repeated this as we stood on one side of the bridge, assuming a hands-off commander role and killing three guys at a time with our AI companions. By the end of the mission, we had no choice but to engage, but for the 15 minutes we spent slowly creeping through a vast forest, stealthily taking out the opposing forces with one-shot kills, we felt like we were playing a real Ghost Recon game again.

Lead game-designer Roman Campos Oriola made it clear that Future Soldier will ramp up to this level of freedom. Early missions will be more linear and force stealth play or guns-blazing action in order to teach players all of the tricks at their disposal; then, in the second half of the 14-level campaign, you’ll be let loose with the series’ classic freeform gameplay. It’s a decision we understand, but hardcore series fans are likely to be unhappy with this concession to new players. But remember, you can always replay the good missions in full campaign co-op. And if mission 10 is any indication, you’re going to want to.

--

PUBLISHER: Ubisoft  •  DEVELOPER: Ubisoft Paris  •  MULTIPLAYER: Up to 16 players on Xbox Live  • RELEASE DATE: May 22, 2012  •  FOR FANS OF: Shooting the forest through the trees