4. Giant Bomb - Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
Ubisoft and its branches are hit-and-miss. Sometimes they release a phenomenal game like Ghost Recon; other times they release less successful games like Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood; and other times they release games that get mixed reviews and can't seem to get a solid response, like Driver: San Francisco. Regardless, they are a leading developer and publisher in the videogame industry - this is not arguable. Their most recent Ghost Recon addition, Future Soldier, was highly accepted among the war-gaming fans and critics. But, as with any excellent game, it received some backlash from reviewers such as Giant Bomb (as if their website title isn't a red flag). Giant Bomb reviewer Jeff Gerstmann was one of those forces that found Future Soldier to be a disappointment. His article stuck out to me in the fact that Gerstmann pretty much calls GRFS a failure in the aspect of it attempting to be a tactical shooter. This immediately jumped out at me, having just completed the campaign of GRFS. I found the game to be incredibly focused on tactics. Gerstmann claims that the game 'punishes run-and-gun tactics just enough to prevent fans of those sorts of games from having a great time.' Apparently Gerstmann missed the memo - the game is called Ghost Recon. Let's break this down for a moment:
Ghost - a reference to the supernatural, the Ghost team is implanted in tense military situations to solve issues without making their presence known.Recon - from the word reconnaissance, recon forces gather intel on the enemy quickly and quietly without gaining attention. Now that that's out of the way, I think Gerstmann's argument can be proven invalid. The game relies heavily on not raising suspicion or alarm during missions. In the case that the enemy is alerted of your presence, they will open fire and hunt you down. This is
supposed to be a challenge. Ghost Recon games are known for being realistic, and that is exactly what Ubisoft intended when they created Future Soldier - realism. In short, Gerstmann's Giant Bomb review of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier turned out to be, suitably, a giant bomb. You can
read Jeff Gerstmann's review here.