[101459]

The reviews are pouring in now and are for the most part strongly positive about Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Eurogamer, GameInformer, IGN, vagary.tv, Shack News, Videogamer, Golden Games and Joystiq all give Ghost Recon: Future Soldier high ratings, and appear to base those evaluations on criterion many Ghost Recon Fans will consider important.

EuroGamer's Dan Whitehead succinct concluding paragraph hit many of my buttons, for his well composed honesty, not sounding like a paid to shill, or gushing or ranting like an adolescent twit:

There will be some who look at the mainstream concessions made in Ghost Recon's belated comeback, regenerating health and all, and despair. Such reactions won't be completely baseless. Future Soldier is not as smart as it could be and there's clearly a more distinctive game hiding behind all the second-hand bombast. But while Future Soldier risks losing itself in the crowd of similar widescreen War on Terror blockbusters, it at least borrows its elements wisely, serves them up with style and polish, and retains enough of its strategic core to make it an easy recommendation for those hungry for another tour of duty.

This should come as good news for PC Ghost Recon Fans that like what they're reading as the PC game will be virtually feature identical to the console game as far as essential game design. It however remains to be seen if the problematic Uplay service will offer PC Gamers the seamless experience console gamers get, what the PC game's DirectX 11 backplane support will translate into as far as how the game looks on PC, and whether Gamers running Windows XP will even be able to play the game they've pre-ordered.

Still, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier's 'future' is looking bright!

Edited by 101459, 23 May 2012 - 01:57 AM.

[RileyFletcher_01]

***Edited to avoid offending certain person***

Edited by RileyFletcher_01, 23 May 2012 - 03:38 AM.

[101459]

Please RileyFletcher with the incessant, off topic, trolling and baiting; a case could be made that I have more positive and constructive posts on these forums than you and I only have about 1/5th the posts you do, even with respect to just this one game...



BACK ON TOPIC:

It's interesting that metacritic score for the Xbox 360 has close parity with the User Score (link here) which generally indicates low volume of Shilling in the press; but the PS3 score (link here) has a rather stunning disparity -- this may just be down to the margin of error and smaller PS3 sample at this time, but it's something to keep an eye on. Some of the Xbox 360 metacritc Fan comments are quite interesting as well, and worth a read...

Edited by 101459, 23 May 2012 - 03:33 AM.

[RileyFletcher_01]

You know what, all I've done in my posts is try to get you to see the good side. If you're going to be this way I'm not going to bother replying to you anymore. And don't say it is because I've run out of good arguments, it is because I don't want to lock down another thread.

[101459]

And still more good reviews pour in: Digital Trends, Now Gamer, DESTRUCTOID, Edge, GamesRadar, Official Xbox 360 Magazine, GameSpot, incgamers, VideoGamer, The Verge, Xbox 360 Achievements, and Game Trailers...

Not one review that ranks the game at less then 7 out of 10 so far; which is a pretty stunning outcome that suggest a lot of Reviewers and Fans are as the demographics suggest getting pretty bored with simplistic shooters.

Edited by 101459, 23 May 2012 - 06:07 AM.

[Sgt. SuperSanity]

And still more good reviews pour in: Digital Trends, Now Gamer, DESTRUCTOID, Edge, GamesRadar, Official Xbox 360 Magazine, GameSpot, incgamers, VideoGamer, The Verge, Xbox 360 Achievements, and Game Trailers...

Not one review that ranks the game at less then 7 out of 10 so far; which is a pretty stunning outcome that suggest a lot of Reviewers and Fans are as the demographics suggest getting pretty bored with simplistic shooters.

Good to know that picking up my pre-order later won't be a waste of time.

[BS PALADIN]

I played the Beta and that's all the review I needed.

Pass for me.

[101459]

For PS3 Fans that might look to this forum, not really having explored metacritc much, I just noticed that it's only one User review that's dragging down the User Rating, which would actually would be higher then the 360's User Rating.

Also there are a slew of additional reviews listed here on metacritic for the 360 in ranked order -- I actually find my self reassured by some of the more negative reviews and comments that offer insightful criticism of game features I know I'd actually like, but are well described by those that don't like them.

Edited by 101459, 23 May 2012 - 07:19 AM.

[Rocky]

It's the PS3 version I have, my no BS review should be up tomorrow.

[MeanMF]

Not one review that ranks the game at less then 7 out of 10 so far; which is a pretty stunning outcome that suggest a lot of Reviewers and Fans are as the demographics suggest getting pretty bored with simplistic shooters.

7/10 is basically a failing grade for a AAA title. 8/10 is not good and an 80 average on Metacritic is nothing to be happy about. If you make a list of the review scores of all of the major Tom Clancy games (GR, R6, SC) on the Xbox & Xbox 360, GR:FS ranks second to last right above Lockdown.

[the.ronin]

I'm not sure I'll subscribe to the numeric scoring on this one since what I'm looking for (and I think what most OG GR people are looking for) - completely open ended tactical gameplay - won't score well since its too boring for the general console gaming public lol.  I try to pick out little hints and nuggets in the reviews instead.  What I found encouraging was an analogy I think IGN called out that GRFS is like a Splinter Cell meets GR.  By no means the pure tactical play the PC version was (likely asking too much) but definitely encouraging.  Still debating whether to go ahead and pull the trigger but leaning more towards that after reading it and seeing gameplay footage of the sync shot mechanism.

Edited by the.ronin, 23 May 2012 - 03:28 PM.

[101459]

7/10 is basically a failing grade for a AAA title. 8/10 is not good and an 80 average on Metacritic is nothing to be happy about. If you make a list of the review scores of all of the major Tom Clancy games (GR, R6, SC) on the Xbox & Xbox 360, GR:FS ranks second to last right above Lockdown.

What do you base your criterion for 'failing' and 'average'? GR:FS has an overall grade of 80, with 70 being the lowest professional review grade given... Average is mathematical term used in descriptive statistics; it doesn't seem you mean the average on metacritic, as a cursory look there puts the average closer to 70 then 80... Failure is a subjective term that will either relate to not meeting personal expectations or financial success of some arbitrary level -- and an 80 (or even less) on metacritic doesn't seem to suggest that either... Then there's the points the.ronin makes that are quite valid.

Game reviews certainly aren't science, it's all highly subjective as is clearly reflected in the disparity of User Scores and Reviews; where one person can love what another hates. My opinion on this is that a game is generally doing well if there is an overall positive 'buzz', the disparity of professional review is not extreme, Consumer opinion is not too disparate from the professional review, and the game is profitable. Whether a game review is 'good' will depend on how much the Reviewers criterion coincides with your own -- with 'good' here signaling 'good enough to buy'...

Edited by 101459, 23 May 2012 - 07:33 PM.

[RileyFletcher_01]

Let's put it simply.

It is better than GRAW, so I'm buying it.

[MeanMF]

What do you base your criterion for 'failing' and 'average'? GR:FS has an overall grade of 80, with 70 being the lowest professional review grade given... Average is mathematical term used in descriptive statistics; it doesn't seem you mean the average on metacritic, as a cursory look there puts the average closer to 70 then 80... Failure is a subjective term that will either relate to meeting personal expectations or financial success of some arbitrary level -- and an 80 (or even less) on metacritic doesn't seem to suggest that either... Then there's the points the.ronin makes that are quite valid.

Metacritic uses a weighted average system of all of the reviews they collect. It's certainly not perfect and a lot of people are going to like games that have low scores and hate games that have high scores depending on their personal tastes. But still the metacritic score is used by publishers as an overall indicator of a game's quality and potential for long-term success. And trying to spin these scores as being "good" is stretching it. They're mediocre at best. Look at the other games in the same score range.

For a new AAA title that costs tens of millions of dollars to make, an 80 (now down to 79) is really not good at all. That's why I characterized it as a failing grade. As I mentioned before, it's the second lowest score ever for a Tom Clancy title in one of the 'big three' franchises on the Xbox. Unless the game sells way more than anticipated, Ubisoft is going to take a long look before they fund a sequel (at least after the cash-in GRAW2/R6V2 style expansion pack that is probably already in production).

[RileyFletcher_01]

Ghost Recon 1 was given many low ratings by those same people yet it is the best of the series.