A 50/50 chance of Awesome: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars

Image by Colony of Gamers via Flickr

The name’s quite a mouthful, I know. I’m not sure what’s going on in Ubisoft’s head (or Tom Clancy), but I don’t really need to have the name of the creator of the developing company in the name of the game. Now, the 3DS launched with 2 Tom Clancy games. One sucked horribly, and the other one didn’t. That, however, is not the reason for the title. You see I bought my 3DS in a bundle, and came with a choice of 1 of two possible games. I, with no previous knowledge whatsoever, picked Ghost Recon over the other not-so-impressive Rayman 3D. I don’t regret that decision in the slightest.

This is my first experience in the series of Ghost Recon. In case you didn’t know, the Ghost Recon series is a series of shooting games, most based in the not-too distant future. You with/as an elite squadron of soldiers, called Ghosts. In this Turn-Based strategy game, you play as 6 soldiers, all of which are of different classes., and have different advantages and disadvantages. There is one of each of:

• Commando (Duke). Equipped with an assault rifle and a secondary weapon of a shoulder-mounted missile launcher.
• Sniper (Haze). He shoots people. From a long distances. His secondary is grenades.
• Gunner (Richter). He has a big gun, secondary is grenades. Due to his big gun he can’t move as far per turn.
• Medic (Saffron). Heals people, carries a pistol as a secondary.
• Recon (Banshee). She’s invisible, and hard to attack. Carries a silenced SMG as a primary and either EMP grenades or a knife for secondary.
• Engineer (Mint). Carries an assault rifle as a primary, and either a deployable turret or drone as a secondary. The turret is beastly in defence levels.

Unfortunately, your enemies also have those classes (except for recon), and also have things like mortars, rocket launchers, normal soldiers (commandos without annoying missile launchers) and civilians.

The gameplay mechanics are a big thing. Being turn based, every unit has an amount of squares on a grid they can move along, and a number of those movement squares can be used to shoot or do other actions. The larger or smaller the amount of squares between you and your enemy, the more or less your weapons do (eg the gunner does more from close ranger, and less from long-range, while the sniper is more accurate from a long-range than a close range. There’s also an intricate cover system. If you’re in a tree or bush, you’re considered to be in level 1 cover (which is -25% damage off the top of my head), and a building is level 2 (-50% damage). There’s also a line of sight system. If you’re behind a tree or not at the closest side of a building, an enemy can’t shoot you as they aren’t in line of sight. The combat system moves even further along with a return fire system- if an enemy attacks you while he’s within your range and vice versa, you will be hit with 50%-100% of their weapon power (depending on the gun- i.e. Richter usually gets 100% return fire while a sniper gets none), and Banshee doesn’t take any return fire because her gun is silenced. The game also has RPG elements with points received at the end of every mission which can be used to upgrade units to get better guns and perks. Each character has a choice of two different guns/secondary weapon, each with their advantages and disadvantages.

This really allows for a sense of procession throughout the campaign. The story revolves around an increasing movement in the Ultranationalist party, and a secret organisation that is stirring up trouble in Russian interests (Oil pipelines mainly) to try to provoke Russia to invade neighbouring countries. The Ghosts are sent in to stop this.

The 3D effect in the game I would describe as underused, as compared to other games. There’s the nice effect you get when looking down a chasm or something else like that, and with buildings the depth really makes it more impressive (oh yeah, and there’s a sweet bit where you blow up a train in jaw-dropping 3D). When it comes to the 3DS’ other additions, you have no wireless multiplayer, no StreetPass or SpotPass and no online multiplayer. The only multiplayer option is passing the one controller around for 5 different missions. The replay value of the campaign is also very low, with the changes is difficulty. Once you’ve played through the campaign, I’ll bet you just put the game down and move on, like I did. The single player skirmishes are uninspiring, and the campaign also eventually feels like a grind towards the end, with the entire final stages (bar one) being inside, removing the possibility of many  of the game’s mechanics.

You still have to remember that this game is only a launch title, and for a launch title, this game is really good.

My Rating

Music: 8.5

Gameplay: 9

Creativity: 7

Graphics: 7.5

Other: 7

Total: 39/50

Genre Clash: Turn-Based Strategy vs Real-Time Strategy

(I’ve had this post lying around for a while, unfinished. It’s finally finished now though!)

Probably the biggest reason why I haven’t been posting here is because I got back into playing Age of Empires 3 on their online service, ESO. It got me thinking, which strategy genre is better, TBS or RTS?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll give you an example.

Chess is a turn-based game, and Snap (the card game) is a Real Time game. In Chess you go move by move, taking it in turns. In Snap it’s anyones game. If chess were to be in real-time, it would be utter chaos and most of the strategy would be out the window. Snap, on the other hand, would be impossible and incredibly boring. You get it?

Comparing games in different genres is hard because of the differences between game in the genre. The games are designed around that genre, and work for that genre. So the comparisons will not be revolving entirely around games, games will be used more as an example.

Let’s look at one example of both TBS and RTS. For TBS, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars on the 3DS (maybe a post on this later if you’re lucky), and, of course, for RTS the Age of Empires series (PC only, as the DS one was Turn-based)

Turned based games generally allow for more time to ponder the decisions, while RTS focus on fast-paced decision-making. If you’re a quick thinker, RTS is for you, but if you like to take your time making choices, maybe TBS is for you.

TBS fans tend to criticise RTS gamers that RTS is a click fest-rush fest, while RTS fans criticize TBS gamers that it is for people who can’t make fast decisions. Shadow Wars is a brilliant game for strategy. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that TBS games offer more large army strategy- they’re more large-scale, while RTS games tend to be a lot faster paced (Age of Empires supremacy anyone?) and more focus on a small battle with less units.

RTS games are often very repetitive, with players each having an idea of different build orders for units and buildings that they stick to from game to game, while TBS tends to be more touch and go, and strategy-orientated.

Either way, RTS is still for me. So if you’re into short burst of action and not into long, brain bending strategy fests, then RTS games are more your forte. If you like busting your brain, Turn-Based it is.