Old school OGR'er gives GR:FS a try.

[Poita]

Well, as I just got a new PC (for Rome TW2 & Arma3) I noticed that GR:FS was quite cheap on Steam at around £8 so I thought I'd roll the dice and give it a try.

The pre released videos which made this game look as if it had some promise did not do justice to just how unbelevably horrible it is.

All the desire to play it drained from me within the first few minutes.

The forced 3rd person view, the fat, massive generic and un specific crosshairs, the lound colours and chunky graphics (eve on a 27inch Dell at all graphics as high as they can go) the horrible, horrible, horrible hand holding and shepherding into 'cool set pieces'.

Honestly, this game makes GRAW 1/2 look like the greatest games ever. I thought at least I might be able to adjust a lot of options to get it a bit closer to the GR we love but this game is to the GR franchese what a four piece jigsaw is to serious puzzles. Does it have any redeeming features?

Ghost Recon is surely dead and buried.

[Blame]

If they would've kept the "demo" version that they had instead of ditching it, a game would have been made.

[CJo1964]

Well, as I just got a new PC (for Rome TW2 & Arma3) I noticed that GR:FS was quite cheap on Steam at around £8 so I thought I'd roll the dice and give it a try.

The pre released videos which made this game look as if it had some promise did not do justice to just how unbelevably horrible it is.

All the desire to play it drained from me within the first few minutes.

The forced 3rd person view, the fat, massive generic and un specific crosshairs, the lound colours and chunky graphics (eve on a 27inch Dell at all graphics as high as they can go) the horrible, horrible, horrible hand holding and shepherding into 'cool set pieces'.

Honestly, this game makes GRAW 1/2 look like the greatest games ever. I thought at least I might be able to adjust a lot of options to get it a bit closer to the GR we love but this game is to the GR franchese what a four piece jigsaw is to serious puzzles. Does it have any redeeming features?

Ghost Recon is surely dead and buried.

I totally agree with you.

I was expecting it to be a combo of ARMA/GRAW 2 with a hint of GR1 but was bitterly disappointed.

Maps too small and very linear.

3rd person view sucked.....even though they were asked during development to make this switchable between 1st and 3rd.

Only cool things were the stealth camo and weaponry, other than that, same ol crap.....different package !

I never play it anymore.......going back to GRAW and GRAW 2, alongside ARMA 3.

[Poita]

Yeah I admit I only played about five minutes but it felt like a five year olds version of OGR. Really constrained set pieces and oh god the hand holding is suffocating. I despise them for what they have done to GR.

I'm seriously thinking of purchasing GRAW2 on Steam; which is ironically more expensive than GR:FS. I'm currently playing Arma3 but so far feel a little frustrated with the SP. I know they want it to be more realistic but I do feel that as soon as you are theoretically in the line of sight of an AI they instantly have perfect vision of you which isn't very realistic in my view.

[petsfed]

I was consistently frustrated by the clearly good ideas being defeated by narrative vision. The gameplay loop of "observe, tag, engage, move" is A LOT of fun. Its just that 90% of the game isn't that. Instead, there's this highly directed "go there, watch a cinematic, go here, watch a cinematic, endure an on-rails (but still on foot?!) sequence, watch another cinematic, mission over" process that happens in virtually every mission. Its incredibly frustrating. I actually found that the absence of real squad commands wasn't a problem because there was a lot of effort put into good ai-map interaction. Unfortunately, it seems the developers found this process arduous, so most of the game was short-circuited so you couldn't make use of this.

Highlights (for me): basically any time you and your team was in "stealth mode".

Lowpoints (for me): any time you are forced into "assault mode", even if there's no possible way for such a thing to have occurred.

[kael]

how can be possible that some "professionist" of the game have made such a shame?

[Blame]

how can be possible that some "professionist" of the game have made such a shame?

What exactly do you mean?

[Poita]

I think he's saying, 'they should know better'.

well the same thing is happening in movies too. Actually, by amazing coincidence I watched GI Joe 2 for the same amount of time before quitting it as I played GR:FS. The difference between GI Joe/transformers/battleship etc adn . . . Avengers/Aliens/Robocop is that the latter appeal to the younger 'and' more mature viewer. However, the former make more money, as does crap like COD & GR:FS; and to be honest I don't blame the devs as it's not they who call the shots but rather the money people and it is the job of the money people to take the easiest path to the most money. If a much larger number of people want to keep having crap shoveled at them then who are the money people to say 'no, we'd rather make less money for much harder work'.

I just wonder that as well as all the dross there surely has to be a market for old school GR style games. I sure miss the early days of OGR when this site was buzzing.

[Zeealex]

to be honest, i think there are a lot of GR1 players out there just waiting for an updated version.

I think its safe to say, this franchise has been long neglected now, I've played GRFS, and to be honest, there were some bits I enjoyed, but most of the time i was what the helling.

3 missions in at least, and you are still getting taught how to play the game, it's pathetic! At least the previous game had a dedicated training level, the continuity is terrible, and then you've got the blooming augmented reality system that makes very little sense other than to look cool!

They've just seen the bandwagon and jumped on it, and it's sad, I used to love ghost recon, but it just deteriorated.

but it's not just Ghost recon I'm seeing it with, all of the Tom Clancy games have gone like that, apparently SC:Blacklist is actually pretty good, but still.

not to mention, you've got Activision and infinity ward doing their 'take' on ghost recon, yet Ubisoft seem to be taking little to no action about it.

I don't mean to blow my own trumpet or anything, but you might like my blog about the trends of shooter games, fancy a read?

[Poita]

Actually I've bought GRAW 1 on Steam and despite having to edit an xml file to get the cross com to work and having make sure steam is not running when I run it as admin via the root it is enjoyable to play it ona system that can run it well rather than the crappy one I had back in the day.

I feel a bit bad as I play it because having played crap like GR:FS I now realise that although GRAW 1 & 2 wern't OGR they were actually bloody good in many ways (despite my biatching at them at the time).

[Poita]

Sigh, I deleted the game from my PC.

I gave it one more chance. I hated it so much. Not only was I hemmed in, practically on rails but the game kept taking over and zooming to some animation and showing me the 'unfolding story' then giving it back to me for a bit of shooty then taking over again. What a dispicably patronising gameplay design.

Have to say, I'm enjoying GRAW 1. It seems so hardcore compared to the likes of COD/BF3/GR:FS.

[Delink]

We're all still waiting for a true sequel for the original ghost recon released in 2001. Every single game since then IMO has been awful. All of them. Everything is too "arcade" style and easy for any joe shmoe to pick up and play nowadays. Original GR took time, skill, and patience to be good at. Especially when playing competitively.

[Sgt :Neidher]

If we could gather together a group to play Siege 30 min custom, GRFS is actually a very good game. All guns are open in that mod. So then it becomes fair. That I had loved to try! To play 30 min custom, you can only invite your friends that you have on Uplay.

[Sgt :Neidher]

Com join mine lobby siege, need help NOW!

I AM LIVESTREAME NOW, her - http://no.twitch.tv/sgtneidher# Com on join! ​

[Papa6]

If and I do mean a strong "IF" here, if they'd have made a non-linear open terrain game of the likes of Arma2,3 with OGR mixed in a theme of sole survivor with a 4 or more man team, that would've worked. I read the book "sole survivor" and Marcus lutrell said they could have brought alot more operators with them on the mission. so even the storyline of this GR series is wrong. Marcus stated that if they had some 12 operators, if my memory serves, they could have repelled the attack of the taliban easily.

But 4 operators? that's way outside of the box.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Papa6

[Blame]

4 is a good number for a group, its not too many and its not too few and GR has never been about the Taliban. Majority of the missions in all the campaigns were about doing it swiftly and quietly. You can always have a triangular formation and the 4th guy lurking nearby watching over the group of 3.

[aragorn777]

hear hear, I agree, GRFS was such a let down for me too. I honestly don't understand why the markeeters and execs @ Ubi when the path they went - less development, no open terrain, NO ability to drive the mission when in-mission, and Forced to use a meager supply of weapons depending what what you've unlocked.

Does Ubi really listen to it's fan base?? We never asked for a Battlefield X rip-off but a true sequal to GRAW2 with more intelligent enemies, better randomized enemy movement, not so much Hollywood story-line crap, clean interface with the ability to use tech or go non-tech if you so choose and the ability to actually outfit your fire-team according to a GOOD description of the mission.

So, GRFS was a HUGE let down for me and I only bought the xbox version. So, I'm looking for a way to play all the mods I find here - and some fellow ghosts pointed me in the right direction do to just that.

Well, then along comes Takedown: Red Saber: http://serellan.com/

And yes, by a former Ghost Recon developer at that! Christian Allen and it is what GR should be....in my opinion. It's now on xbox live play, too. Pretty sweet game. I just wish Ubi had some sense and actually took the time to develop a real game instead of all the hype and eye candy which NONE of us wanted. That's not GR.