Senior Member
I have never purchased a game because of its story. It's all about game-play As already mentioned, a good combination makes for a better game over-all. However the main reason I'll purchase any game will be due to how it plays (or how I assume it's going to play), and importantly, can I play it multiple times. I unfortunately got burned on Far Cry 5, as I assume others also did.
I do not purchase a lot of games, however the games I purchase I normally play a lot. So right now playing the heck out of GRW as there's so many different ways to go about interacting in the game world, and that's as a solo player, not even engaging in co-op.
Senior Member
Lonespymaster - “but in reality it doesn't have any and i do not remember any interesting moments while doing the missions.“
See that’s just crazy right there.
GR:W is so replayable simply because it’s so open to a myriad of different approaches, strategies etc... It’s easily my favourite GR game. Perhaps not as hardcore / realistic as I would have liked, but hey - I can live with that.
SO to say it’s simply repetitive and that you experienced ‘no interesting moments’ during the missions tell me you, whether you know it or not DO LIKE SCRIPTED ACTION — interspersed in the gameplay.
You see sandbox gameplay — with no scripted action, I guess is as interesting or as boring as your own creativity makes it.
I’ve had so many great moments in this game that have happened dynamically or as a result of my own creativity or strategies.
It’s exactly why I love Wildlands.
@ LoneSpymaster - I think it says ALOT that you like the latter console GR games, which I thought were linear ‘arcadey’ nonsense. They made a complete farce of the Tom Clancy game brand. The story was tripe as well, and the script sounded like a teenage boy had written it.
The original Red Storm games and the original R6 games and the Tom Clancy brand up until that point had been about HARDCORE REALISM... After GR came to consoles, all that changed, and the formula was majorly dumbed down, I guess to have greater mass appeal.
Senior Member
As my general point —-
I’m not saying games should not have stories - it’s fine if they want to put one in. But when a game is developed, the gameplay should always be the primary focus, not the story...
Because BOTTOM LINE — I’m laying down £50 to play a game — thats a lot of money!
So as a consumer, I’ve laid money down to play a game, not watch a movie interspersed within the game.
Games are a legitimate medium by themselves. And one that has its own merit.
They have never been, nor should they be simply a vehicle to tell stories.
That’s why a games a game, a books a book and a movie is a movie.
We have distinct mediums, and that’s fine...
I’ve played many wonderful games with either a paper thin story or no story.
The Long Dark. Great game which sets you in the Alaskan wilderness. It perfectly captures the sense of survival and isolation. It’s your story of survival. There was no story - in the sandbox mode that everyone played.
They bought out a story mode, but it was more linear and not that good.
Operation Flashpoint : Cold War Crisis. One of my all time favourite games. Very light on story, but what an amazing game. One of the few games I’ve played that really made you feel like you were actually in that world. Totally dynamic gameplay, anything could happen, and totally immersive. My love for that game runs deep baby!
Senior Member
I’ll say a word about linear games.
I’ve been playing games for 20+ yrs now.
Ive been to the puppet show, I’ve seen the strings. I know how it works.
And as a result — I’m done with linear games.
I cannot play them anymore, there’s no surprise, there’s no entertainment to be had when you are being funnelled down the same corridors, punctuated by the same set pieces, the same scripted action that you have played time and time again. It’s all too familiar. And it’s just boring to me now.
For me, these days the special sauce is in dynamic, emergent non linear/scripted open world/sandboxes.
Games that allow me to create my own set pieces and the action unfolds organically....
Senior Member
+1Originally Posted by AI BLUEFOX Go to original post
My thoughts mirror yours.
In a GR game, I like the story to set up an interesting and convincing scenario...and then hand over the reigns to the player.
Senior Member
Obviously, it depends on the game. Final Fantasy would be nothing without its stories, whereas I think story just gets in the way of Military-themed games because they’re always so pretentious and melodramatic.
One aspect of the old SOCOM games that was so good was the fact that they didn’t focus on story. They gave you a realistic premise, told you what your mission was, and kicked you out the door. SOCOM 4 had far worse problems than its story, but for how much they hyped it up, it was such trash.
Of course, like I said, the game itself matters. Deus Ex: Human Revolution wasn’t as good as Mankind Divided from a gameplay perspective, but it was the overall superior game because of how good the rest of it was, whereas Mankind Divided’s superior gameplay couldn’t overcome the rest of its short-comings.
Looking at Clancyverse games specifically, again, less is more. The original Rainbow Six (the game, not the book) had the same bio-terrorism plot, but it was tucked behind the gameplay, and merely served as the means of setting up the levels. As the series went on, we wound up with pretentious crap like Lockdown, and as fun as Vegas was as a cover-based shooter, it was truly horrible “Rainbow Six” game, and Siege is far more true to the series’ roots. You get the Situations to establish the basic premise, and from then on, Terrorist Hunt serves the same purpose as a plot: terrorists are striking, take them down. In that sense, I almost feel like it was a calculated decision to not include an actual Campaign, and let the gameplay be the story.
Now, as far as Ghost Recon is concerned, I feel like it’s in the same boat as SOCOM. It never needed a story, just a plausible premise. GRAW was okay because the story never got in the way of gameplay, but Future Soldier went too far in telling a story I never cared about. I honestly couldn’t even tell you how the start, middle and end are all connected, and aside from the same Russian coup that every shooting game from that time used (Battlefield, Modern Warfare, Assault Horizon, so forth & etc.), I don’t even remember what the overall point of the game was.
Wildlands, I think, did a better job by not trying to make the story the main focus and letting it get in the way of the gameplay. It gives you a simple premise, a reason for being there, and just lets you go at it, much like the earlier games I mentioned.
Splinter Cell is a tough one though because I feel like it’s the game that relies on story the most. However, I really think Conviction dropped the ball by focusing the story from “about Sam” to “developing Sam.” The previous games were political thrillers, and Sam was along for the ride, and that’s how it should have been. Conviction tried to inject the same over-dramatic personal nonsense into the story that other generic crap, like SOCOM 4, did. We don’t need a game that focuses on Sam developing as a character because we know who he is - he’s already developed. And worse yet, the gameplay took a huge hit. Losing Michael Ironside in Blacklist was a shame, but it, overall, was a return to form and did the series new justice.
I really don’t even know if I have a point anymore, or if I did to begin with, but yeah. That’s how I see it.
Junior Member
I guess it is a matter of preference but I do agree with @LoneSpymaster that Future Soldier was a much more memorable game. I love the co-op in both FS and GRW and co-op has been improved in Wildlands because of the freedom to approach missions (although Bowman tells us what to do so that is restricted a lot). However, the missions in Wildlands are too similar (in its feel) to its side missions. Sometimes the main missions are literally side missions such as stopping convoys. Even missions such as Carl Bookhart and Boston Reed could have been exciting “boss” fights but were just ho-hum missions. I don’t mean that they have to be bullet sponges, but think of FS Africa mission where you had kill the warlord; all it took was one bullet, but you still had to go through a refugee camp and location him, fight his gang, then stop an airplane and get the black box, which had a sandstorm in the middle of it. All good stuff.
In Wildlands, almost every bad guy got a deal from Bowman so we never had a choice to kidnap, kill, interrogate etc., because we are told how to play. And that weakens the open world freedom. We might as well have a linear game if it works like that.
Back when I played FS, I used to wish for more freedom and open world. Now I have that (to a certain degree) in Wildlands but I keep wishing for the FS style pre-mission briefings, immersive environments with weather effects, civilians, and game checkpoints with some action/story sequences. Immersion was great in FS because each location was so different with unique sights and sounds and weather. In Wildlands, the varied terrain is a good concept but very much feels lifeless, similar to the lifeless NPCs.
As far as story goes, neither is better than the other. In FS, they are following the trail of a missile warhead. In Wildlands, they have to take down the cartel. Tracking down El Sueno leads to an anticlimactic ending (in my opinion). But never during Wildlands progression did I ever feel excited about the progress. I think the difference is that FS had a story that escalated with tougher missions and introduction of Bodarks.
Also, Hunter Squad was so much better than the Wildlands AI squad, both in AI intelligence and cohesive banter/conversation. I actually turned off dialogue volume in Wildlands because I dislike the chatter. (One thing I do like about Wildlands is Bowman because she is far better than Overlord.)
Anyway, I think for the next GR game, a hybrid of FS and Wildlands would be better. Perhaps a first mission that unlocks a set of more missions scattered around the world. Each location would have its own feel and immersion, and each mission could have some video/action/story sequences (for example, as checkpoints in game progress) to lead the player along, but then have large open sandbox areas to approach the missions with freedom.
Anyway it’s all just my opinion, but at this point I want a new Ghost Recon game because Wildlands has become so stale and Ubisoft has abandoned PvE since last summer 2017. Sure, they threw us a bone here and there with 15 minute missions such as Predator and Sam Fisher, but nothing meaningful. A lot of attention went to Ghost War, which is fine, but why ignore PvE?
I think @LoneSpymaster and others on the forums are correct that what is most important is giving campaign and PvE modes more replay value, such as mission generators, Geurilla Mode, DLC, expansions etc.
Just my opinions.
Senior Member
I disagree with some of the points,
FS had more memorable missions?
I think that’s depends on what you deem memorable. I don’t find linear levels that play out in reasonably the same manner each time, with scripted set pieces memorable. IMO.
I think GR:W’s the varied biomes and weather in this game are fantastic. Better than a lot of games.
I will concede that yes the missions do get repetitive.
But I think because the game offers such a variety of approaches, weathers and locations, with time of day which impacts enemy behaviour — all those things do a reasonable job at keeping things fresh. There’s not many games that have all that!
But like previously stated — I’m not looking for a focus on story in a game like this. It’s not needed.
Games like God of War, TLOU, or Uncharted, even Splinter Cell in some respects, of course story is a key component. That’s fair enough.
But I don’t particularly buy those games.
Although the one genre I don’t mind being somewhat linear are hack and slash games - so I fancy I might get God of War at some point.
Banned
A good story over bland quantity of gameplay... any time
I hated GRAW I & II and I despised GRFS for not being GR, but you know what, I am with lonespymaster that, if I go back and I compare the fun I had with those 3 the first few hours of play compare to WL, hands down those 3 because of the story and then the replay value once you had gotten all of your weapons. Here, I will get the game just to finish the story but even when you move to the different provinces, you know the grinding will be the same and the missions, while on different environment, will be pretty much the same but somehow lifeless.
Now, if they would have implemented some of the feedback about gameplay mechanics more, another thing it would be, like better ai, better roe for ai, better enemy ai and not just god/zombie mode.
Now, I do agree with most of you that the fun you can have in WL is subjective... personally, I want to let the game provide the fun for me and me just enjoy it, others like to create their own fun and that's just fine as well.
Senior Member
Originally Posted by GiveMeTactical Go to original post
That anyone has anything good to say about those so called ‘GR’ games amazes me.
And good story? Really? Brother your bar must be very low for what qualifies a good story.
That was Ghost Recon, dumbed down for consoles. A low point.
I guess it comes down to preference alright.
If you like being led around on a leash from one scripted set piece to the next, down thinly veiled ‘corridors’, afforded minimal player freedom. If that’s people’s idea of a good time, well, fair enough.
It’s prescribed action, on rails. Certainly not my bag...
But that you say even those obviously poor games still surpassed Wildlands? That’s crazy...
I’ll take GR:Wildlands any day. I know which I prefer...
But all this - forgive me, but you don’t actually own the game do you? And if my memory serves me you said you played ‘enough’ at a friends house?
I don’t know how long you’ve played the game, but I know there’s no way I’m properly able to get into a game, appreciate it’s nuances etc when playing at someone else’s house....
