Critique (non-comprehensive) -- Story, GUI, Audio, Controls, Conclusion
Characters & Story:
======= IV
None of the characters are appealing. The protagonist is inconsistent and unbelievable. S/he does not seem like an elite soldier.
We jump right into the story and doesn't make any sense. Why would the Ghosts be sent on this mission? Why would the military not have scouted the area with a satellite? Was the flock of drones released for the first time right as they arrived? It's just not believable that the Ghosts flew, in large numbers, to an island that nobody had researched well enough to see it's completely covered in unusually well-armed mercenaries. They're not even using state-of-the-art helicopters. I guess it would be a bit odd to make a briefing stage just for a cutscene, but I would have appreciated it. Of course, the briefing setup could be used by Nomad for the rest of the missions.
I can believe that the Ghosts were dealing with some hearing problems after crashing and couldn't hear Walker sneak up, but it looked ridiculous to see them standing there while being picked off by enemies who were walking in the open and dressed in Halloween costumes.
I know that a lot of games have their characters acting extremely different in cutscenes and immediately out of them, but this game allowed me to talk to this girl (Harmony) who was happy and walking around as I selected different topics. Upon selecting the final one, she was suddenly sitting down and upset. That seems needlessly bad. On my second playthrough, I chose that dialogue first, but there was still another option. Selecting the second option took her from sitting down, facing away from me, and not wanting to talk, and it teleported her to standing, facing me, and being perky. Preventing immediate changes like that (by not allowing players to select conflicting dialogue back-to-back) is preferable.
It was really distracting that Nomad can heal himself countless times but couldn't bandage the engineer. (It's even worse when we have a team just staring off into the distance, but I know the game was designed to be playable solo.) We can even put her down and bandage ourself with flowers. Even worse, we take her along on another mission (which doesn't make any sense to do) and can heal her if she goes down. Side note: it reminds me of how Nomad is capable of driving every vechicle, including boats and planes and helicopters, and he can craft bombs, but he can't repair anything. Oh, yea, why doesn't aloe make bandages?
It doesn't make sense to take Paula on missions. She doesn't even do anything.
It also doesn't make sense that she heals so quickly but Holt is permanently bloody and incapacitated.
NPCs and nonplayable noncharacters are annoying when they boss us around or are rude. It sucks that we're not able to kill them (without possibly failing) or at least melee them. I guess it kind of prevents ludonarrative dissonance, but Nomad doesn't really have character. It is highly atypical for me to want to kill NPCs and NPNCs, but this game causes me to desire it.
Graphical User Interface:
======= V
The virtual keyboard, displaying which keys are bound and to which command, is great. It would be even better if clicking on the virtual key brought the player to the command in the menu (clicking multiple times cycles through bound commands.)
The binding menu needs descriptions for the commands.
The menus are a mess and are rather difficult to read/navigate. Things are not described/explained well enough and the interface is unintuitive. When descriptions are weak or nonexistent, it leads to bad first impressions and ones that last a while. For instance, after many hours of gameplay, I was still confused about the skill screen: I clicked on the stuff but nothing happened; there's no legend/button prompts; the tutorial didn't say anything useful; I had a bunch of skill points but they seemed to only work for purchasing the initial class. I found out, basically by accident, that we need to drag the skill classes downward in order to see the skills. I'm not using Japanese; I assumed it would show the top, not the bottom of the screen. It should also tell players that they can only change the class at the bivouac.
The map is difficult/annoying to navigate. It needlessly centers the map when we zoom out, and we should be able to zoom further out.
I love the classic-looking reload indicator. It's a shame that we don't also have a classic-looking crosshair for point shooting.
It's great that we can flip through tips in the menu.
I don't understand why the performance monitor is on the bottom-right instead of the top-right.
It's bad that we can't turn off depth-of-field effects. It's odd that there's a DOF blur during an interrogation.
Switching our equipped item doesn't pop up the dynamic HUD element.
Audio:
======= VI
The sound occlusion is practically nonexistent, especially for voices.
Enemies can be heard talking from absurd distances. I can hear their voices, but they can't hear my gunshots or cars blowing up.
Sound localization is horrible, even on the same elevation.
The heavily armored guy with the Minigun makes almost no noise when he moves.
Suppressed guns don't sound realistic. None of the weapons or gunfire or other explosions sound right, either. One automatic shotgun was pretty good, though. It's actually shocking how bad some of the sounds are, especially when they're as iconic as the Minigun. It's kind of like flipping Sam Fisher's goggles down and hearing the Windows error sound; it's jarring and offputting.
The wind effects are too quiet.
Enemy-soldier movement sounds are too quiet.
Enemy vehicles are way too quiet and sometimes silent.
Aiming will increase the volume of the area that's being aimed at. I would think it's a bug, but is so common in games, that I'm not sure if it's intentional. It's definitely bad.
Player movement sounds are mediocre. I appreciate that there isn't silent movement while crouched, but it's a shame that there's any silent movement. The prone movement would be louder (if it's done as it is in the animation) than crouched movement.
There are some nice ambient sounds and other effects. It was cool to hear a bird screech and fly off after a gunshot (but it quickly loses its novelty when it happens every time, regardless of biome and time of day.)
The vehicles sound unrealistic and as if they're not coming from the vehicle. They don't have a distinct or distinguishable sound (dirt bike vs a truck, etc.) The sound of gears changing- well, it's not the sound of gears changing but of the engine slowing -doesn't have an animation to sell it.
There's a noticeable lack of sound effects.
Enemies talking on the radio sound as if they're in-person. There should be a bit of static and a transmission beep and or a button click (for the guy that's actually there.)
Some of the VA is good, some is bad, most is mediocre. I can look past elderly characters sounding young and such things, but the protagonist (male and female) has subpar voice acting. The protagonist should be one of the best if not the best acting. It seems as if they were just reading lines and guessing emotions from word to word. That is, when there even is emotion, and that's not only referring to lines that (I'm assuming) get reused. The characters having illogical emotions and reactions is also a problem of the animations.
After she's shot, Flycatcher's engineer sounds like a male.
Controls:
======= VII
I love that the game has an automove, but it should allow us to sprint.
We can't change the key to dismantle weapons in crates, nor can we change a few other things. It sucks for people who prefer ESDF over WASD.
It should be possible to bind ADS as a hold to RMB and as a toggle to double-tapping RMB.
When I hold "Z" to lie down, it won't do it even when I let go; it only works if I briefly tap it.
The deault binds show as problematic.
Conclusion:
======= VIII
The game has been mostly free of bugs, though some of the bugs are huge. It performs well enough. It does have some nice concepts and elements that would work well in a GR game, but almost all of them feel rushed and incomplete; they certainly don't create a genuine GR experience. There were times when I managed to not think about it being a "GR" game, but it still never really put a smile on my face.
It seems as if the developers were making a survival RPG, struggled to make it work, gave up and threw "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon" on it. This game has no identity. It has survival elements that don't really matter and aren't easy to use, as you can't access a separate wheel or even use the menu. It has a fatigue system and resting, but you don't need to rest in order to remove the fatigue. It has RPG elements that don't make sense for the game, and it's missing the classic RPG system of leveling up your attributes; though, some of that is available through the skills and arsenal. The level gating works against the open-world concept.
I'm really trying to enjoy this for what it is, knowing I will never enjoy it as a Ghost Recon game. However, almost everything that could be great isn't even good. The injury system is very bad. The camo system is weak. The stamina/fatigue system is a letdown. At least, the customization is good. It's pretty funny: there are so many different things in this game, but most of them feel incomplete; it allows different groups of people to imagine how good the game could be if it focused on the parts of their preferred genre. It's almost a good arcade shooter. It has some elements that would be great in a survival game; the same can be said for an RPG. It's just that so few of the flavors taste good in their current state, and they were all thrown into a big pot that didn't have enough time or heat to properly cook the stew. Well, I guess it's not that funny; it's actually pretty common, nowadays. It's sad, though. Tom Clancy...
Call of Duty has a modern game that's more realstic and tactical than Ghost Recon's modern games. That pains me, and I think Tom Clancy would be ashamed; his name should never have been placed on some of these games, as it's downright disrespectful.
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